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I laugh. “You mean, so you can round up your Ybarisan soldiers and help attack from within? That is possibly the worst advice I’ve ever received.”
He shrugs. “Worth a shot. Though I do know my sister better than anyone else.”
“Your sister the princess, perhaps. But not this Romeria. She is an entirely different person, and she is far more resourceful than you give her credit for.”
His eyes narrow. “What do you mean by that?”
“You think because I moved you here, we are suddenly trading secrets like bedfellows? I can just as easily send you back to the tower. Or the dungeon.”
“I hear it’s full.”
“Then a pyre in the execution square it is.”
“You are not foolish enough. Just as you are not foolish enough to believe that caging those lords will stop others from rising in their place. The stewards probably already have.”
“They haven’t heard about it yet. I’ve made sure of that.”
He studies his fingernails. “When will you admit it?”
“Admit what?”
“That you betrayed your brother to steal a broken crown. How does that feel?”
His words pierce me deeper than I expected.
“A formidable battle commander, you might have been, Atticus, but you have no hope of defeating my mother, not with the full force of Mordain behind her. She is too cunning for you.”
“Perhaps. But you will never get the satisfaction of being alive to see it.” I stroll out before I make good on my promise right there, pulling the door shut tight behind me. How did he—a prisoner—get the upper hand?
“You are to stand guard at this door, not chatter about the state of Islor for our enemy’s ears,” I hiss.
The guards bow and begin offering apologies, but I’m already gone, charging down the hall. Before I see Gracen, I should expel some of this rage.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
ROMERIA
“Keep moving,” Jarek warns, nudging me along past the man’s naked corpse.
Sadness and anger burn inside me as I huddle in my cloak. “That’s three bodies on this street alone.” Why can’t they at least give them the dignity of clothes? But I know the answer already. Clothes have value for the living, not the dead. And besides, they’ve been hung for a crime. They don’t deserve any dignity.
“And we’re likely to see more. Are you surprised?” From within his cowl, Jarek glowers at a man walking across the street, but then dismisses him as nonthreatening. “Atticus wants to send a clear message to the mortals.”
“That he’s cruel and coldhearted?” Zander would never have done this as king. “I told him the poison wouldn’t matter after Hudem. That’s days away now. Why won’t he listen?”
“Because you are the one speaking, and it takes courage and honor to put bitterness aside. But these people are beyond your help. Focus on those you can help.” He grabs my arm and leads me across the street, down an alleyway to connect to the corner where the apothecary sits, as dark and lonely as it seemed that night so long ago, when Gesine waited within.
We stall there while Jarek surveys the scene. “I expected Cirilea’s army to be crawling through the streets, but there is nothing.”
Nothing but an eerie foreboding. It’s hazardous for me to be back in Cirilea. And yet I miss the city—the people, the liveliness, the edge of danger that seemed to linger everywhere I went.
We keep moving at a clipped pace toward Port Street, my legs struggling to keep up with Jarek’s. Beneath the near-full moon, I can just make out the Silver Mage’s tall mast on the water. People loiter on the street in clusters, but the mood is far more subdued than the night Zander, Atticus, and I came here in search of hints to finding Ianca. There are no banjos, no buskers, and only a few drunks stumbling about.
“My God.” My feet freeze in place. Naked bodies hang from lampposts like wreaths at Christmastime. I want to look away, but I can’t. “There are so many of them.”
Ahead, two solemn women attempt to get a man down, one struggling to hoist him up by his legs while the other pokes at the rope loop with a broom. A ratty wool blanket is tucked under her arm.
Jarek shakes his head “It’ll never work.”
“No. It won’t. So help them.”
“That will draw attention to—”
“Help them. Please.” I peer up into his eyes, pleading.
With a heavy sigh, he draws his sword. “Step aside.”
The women huddle into each other and move away, afraid.
Half climbing, half jumping up the brick wall of the building, Jarek cuts the rope with one powerful swing.
The body collapses to the cobblestone with a thud, and the women rush in to cover him with the blanket. “Thank you, sir,” the younger one offers, tears in her eyes as she collects the corpse’s hand.
That’s when I see the dull mark on hers. “Where did you get that?” I point to it. “That emblem.”
