AllFreeNovel
Share Us
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Corrick
Scorched bricks and splintered wood litter the floor, and remnants of smoke form a haze around the one remaining torch in this part of the Hold. Guards removed the bodies a while ago, but they haven’t returned. This part of the Hold isn’t usable, and I’m sure they think I’m long gone.
Allisander is. He didn’t last five minutes.
I’m glad. I don’t want him here. I don’t want anyone here.
When we walked in, the prisoners were bound on the ground. For a moment, I thought both men were dead, because their faces were black with soot and their clothes were charred. The scent of burned flesh was sickly sweet in the small space. It was obvious why they’d been caught so quickly. They probably hadn’t made it out of the Hold.
But then I saw the rise and fall of one’s chest, and the other made a pathetic keening sound.
Allisanderwas right behind me.
I wished they were dead. I wished they’d escaped. I wished Harristan would call a halt to all of this, instead of leaving me to prove how vicious we could be. I wished I were Wes, free to help, instead of Corrick, trapped by circumstance.
I wished. I wished. I wished.
All the while, Allisander was waiting.
I’m not usually the one with the blade or the arrow or the ax. I give the order and someone else provides the action. But tonight my thoughts were wild and scattered and if I opened my mouth to give an order, I worried I’d unravel everything my brother has worked so hard to hold together instead.
So I took a blade from the guard and cut their throats.
I held the weapon out for the guard to take it, but I kept my eyes on the consul. “Satisfied?” I asked him. My voice was rough, my hands sticky with blood.
He was breathing hard, his nostrils flaring like a panicked horse. Maybe he didn’t expect me to be so quick—or so brutal. Maybe he expected me to shy away from the violence.
“Yes,” he said.
“Good.”
Then he was gone, and the guards were dragging the bodies out.
I’m sitting in the dust against the wall now. My hands are dark with dried blood, thick and black around my fingernails. The air feels thin and hard to breathe—but maybe that’s my chest, which has been gripped with dread since the moment I heard Tessa cry out for me to stop.
Here, you can only be Prince Corrick. You can only be the King’s Justice.
Iknow, Quint. I know.
I press my fingers into my eyes. As always, I envy Harristan. Not for his throne, but for his ignorance of all this. His distance. His privilege.
Maybe that’s the same thing.
I keep telling myself that at least eight of them escaped, so it was only two. I keep telling myself that these men wouldn’t have lived much longer. I keep telling myself that what I just offered was a mercy, not cruelty, but I don’t know for sure.
I wish my head would empty itself of thoughts, that I could wrap my mind up in the darkness that lets me be who I need to be. Every time I try, I think of Tessa, her eyes dark with censure.
She’ll never forgive me. She’ll never let me touch her again.
I’ll never be free of this. Of who I am. This will be my life as King’s Justice: Cruel Corrick, the most feared man in the kingdom, and somehow also the most alone.
I want to scoff, but to my shock, my eyes prick and burn. I blink hard and swipe at my face. This is ridiculous. I haven’t cried since the day our parents died. I don’t want to cry now.
A tear falls anyway. I drag a sleeve across my face. It’s damp, and I realize I’m dragging blood across my cheek.
I bring nightmares to life, I said to Tessa. I’m very likely the living equivalent.
