My own fists balled tightly at my side. I’d sooner cut his hands off before he touched these boys again. But this was about more than them. It was about their families, anyone who knew them. He’d keep them alive with torture until they turned in their own sister, brother, grandmother. It was how they rationalized their murder of us.
We were the barbaric threat, and they the civilized peacekeepers.
I looked at the bloodied boys in front of me, evidence of theircivilization.
“Nevertheless, if they know anything about the Red Jasmine,Iwill be the one to find it out,” I gritted out through clenched teeth, trying to maintain my composure.
“Really? Good. I’m in the mood to watch.”
“I won’t be doing the kind of torturing you like,” I reasoned, with a grim smile.
He raised a brow at me in challenge. “I had assumed not. Not when the Viceroy is soparticularlygood at it. He’ll purge their minds before they can call for their mother.”
Something curdled in my stomach at his mention of Reza again. The Viceroy wasn’t due back for a few weeks yet and I didn’t want him involved in any hunt for the rebels. Better for him to be kept away defending the border of the River Court.
But these boys wouldn’t last that long under Faisal’s torture.
The general pushed away from the door, striding from the dungeon. “Just don’t be soft on them—if they are old enough to fight, they are old enough to bear the punishment of betrayal. No one in River is really innocent anyway. You’re all guilty by birth.”
My blood boiled, a river of fire inside my veins, but still I pressed my hands to my sides and didn’t look toward him. He could needle me all he liked; he’d never get a reaction.
I waited until he left, until the Salt soldiers took their leave at my nod, until only my personal guard remained. I glanced over at them, until they turned around, their backs facing me.
And then it was just me and the two children unfortunate enough to be caught by the wrong side at the wrong time, in a Court that was no longer theirs.
I knelt down in front of them, the cold of the dungeon permeating my trousers.
The boy with the longer hair kept his eyes downcast, but the other met my gaze, defiance flashing across his face.
Regret sank into my stomach at seeing it there.
The general had seen them, tortured them. There was no helping them escape now, and not when it would endanger others by leaving them alive. The only thing I could wish for them was a quick end.
Magic rose at my fingers, the dirt under the stone listening to my call. A small green vine rose from the soil, uncurling a thorn at the edge, sharp and deadly. It started as a sapling, but then grew to a thick rope, winding around the bars of the cell we stood in.
“I’m sorry,” I said to the defiant boy. “But you don’t want to be alive for what he’ll do to you.”
The thorn pierced his heart before he could respond, slicing neatly through the center of his chest. He collapsed against me when the vine withdrew, and I bowed my head onto his shoulder.
I didn’t weep, because all my tears had turned to fire.
Then I turned to my guards.
“Find his family, let them bury him. Relocate them if you must. I want them out of the city before the general finds out he’s dead.” My guards nodded to me, then left to do my bidding, lifting the dead boy up in their arms and filing out of the dungeon.
Then I turned to the other boy.
The vine hung in the air, waiting for my command.
The boy shivered, sobbing as the guards carried his dead friend from the room, his hair falling into his face.
“I’m sorry,” I repeated, glad he hadn’t met my eyes.
It was easier when they didn’t look at me.
But before I could summon my magic, the boy’s hand shot out, grabbing my wrist. “Your highness,” he croaked, and I jerked back.
“What...” My mouth fell open at the honorific. It had been a long time since anyone had called methat.
