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“They’re horrible,” I whisper.
Her head whips around, and I watch as her eyes flick from face to face to see if anyone heard. “Tessa.”
I swallow and refuse to take it back.
After the herald announces him, Prince Corrick moves to stand parallel to the prisoners. His voice is cold and carries an edge. “You have been charged with smuggling and—”
“Don’t let them do this!” one of the prisoners yells. It’s a man’s voice, but it takes me a moment to figure out which one has cried out. “There are hundreds of you! Thousands! The Benefactors will get you medicine! Don’t let them do this!”
Beside me, Karri goes rigid. The guard behind the shouting prisoner cracks him on the back of the head, and the prisoner sprawls face-first onto the stage, his hands bound behind his back. He doesn’t stop yelling. “Rise up!” he shouts. “Rebel! Don’t you see what they’re doing? Don’t you—”
The guard fires his crossbow. I’m too far to hear the impact, but the body jerks and goes still. The crowd sucks in a gasp.
Another prisoner takes up the shouting. This time it’s a woman’s voice. “You can stop this! Listen to the Benefactors! You can stop this! You can—”
The guard hits her next, and she goes skidding forward onto the wood of the stage. The other prisoners have started shouting, too, cries for rebellion, for defiance.
No one cries for mercy.
A man shouts from somewhere in the crowd. “They’re just trying to survive!” A woman yells, “We need their medicine!” More shouts join theirs until the crowd begins to shift, and it’s impossible to know where all the cries come from. Karri and I are shoved apart as people begin to surge forward.
“Fight them!” rages the woman on the stage. “Fight back!”
Another guard fires his crossbow. Her body jerks like the man’s did, but it must not have been a killing blow because she begins using her legs to shove her body forward. The other prisoners must sense an opening, because the others are fighting their bonds, struggling forward on the stage—at the same time as citizens are storming forward. The sound has surged into a roar of angry shouts and panicked cries as people are jostled and shoved. An elbow catches me in the temple, and then a shoulder drives into my rib cage. I’ve completely lost sight of Karri. Guards have taken the stage now, blocking the king and his brother from view—if they’re still there at all. Crossbows fire wildly, but the prisoners were right: there are maybe two dozen guards on the stage, and there are hundreds of citizens.
A man barrels through the crowd, and I’m knocked aside. I feel myself falling, and I try to find purchase, but there’s nothing. A booted foot catches my jaw, and I taste blood. Another steps on my leg.
Then a hand has a hold of mine, surprising strength in its grip.
Wes, I think.
But no, it’s Karri. She pulls me to my feet, then pulls me back, away from the stage. Her lip is bleeding. Tears glisten in her eyes. “We have to get out of here.”
She doesn’t need to tell me twice.
