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I watched the faces in the crowd. Many were as hollow-cheeked and haggard as the wolves had been. Our citizens were desperate. They wanted to see others pay because they had been made to pay themselves. They could not take out their wrath and fury upon the one who deserved it—my brother, their king. So instead, they would punish those who they had been told had done them wrong. People of the neighboring kingdoms, no less innocent than they.
I understood this. That did not mean I had to like it.
Though at the same time, I knew my silence spoke volumes. My mere presence was a sign of my complicity. I sat in the royal pavilion, a Pendragon princess draped in jewels and silks. And I felt sickened with guilt.
I could not brandish my rebellion like a sword. Instead, I had to quietly suffocate it lest it be spotted like a spark in the dark.
The herald's declaration hung in the air as the crowd watched in morbid fascination. The prisoners, linked together by those unforgiving chains, stood in a solemn row.
The younger ones’ eyes were wide with fear. One by one, they shared furtive glances.
The first prisoner, a boy who could not have seen more than sixteen summers, was unshackled and stepped forward onto the sand. His trembling was obvious as a soldier handed him Excalibur.
I watched as the boy's gaze darted up towards our pavilion and looked to my right. Arthur's face twisted in a cruel smile as he looked down at the boy.
Something in me twisted, too. The part of me that had held out some ridiculous hope that there could be any good residing somewhere in my brother.
A dark heart, Orcades had said? Yes, truly dark. And growing more shadowed by the day.
I leaned back in my seat as the boy looked at his victim, a man with a long, gray beard. The older man’s eyes were calm and steady as he looked up at the youngster.
Then, his hands shaking, the boy raised the sword and prepared to strike.
I closed my eyes.
A gasp went through the crowd.
But when I opened my eyes, the boy was still standing there, the sword raised to strike. He had not moved. He could not move, I realized. The sword would not yield.
For a few drawn out moments, we watched as he struggled and pulled at the blade, twisting and turning his body this way and that.
But the sword would not aid him.
An arrow whistled through the air, and the boy fell to the ground with the dart in his throat, Excalibur dropping with a clunking sound beside him.
The next prisoner was unchained. The man with the gray beard.
A soldier tried to pass the man Excalibur, but the man held up his hands and refused it.
Turning to the pavilion, he lifted his voice before the soldier could move to stop him.
“Your king is a tyrant. You have all been deceived. Tintagel and Lyonesse wish you no harm, people of Pendrath. You have invaded our lands, destroyed our homes, burned our fields, and killed our children. May the Three have mercy upon...”
An arrow entered the man's throat, ending his tirade.
A ripple of discontentment went through the crowd. I prayed that at least some of the people down below comprehended the truth of what the man had just shouted.
A third prisoner was hastily unshackled. A girl this time, perhaps seventeen or eighteen. She drew a deep breath then took the sword, her expression grim. She looked at the next prisoner beside her, a middle-aged woman with close-cropped black hair. The woman nodded stoutly and lifted her head as if ready to embrace her fate.
But the entire twisted spectacle simply repeated itself. The sword would not yield to the girl as it had not yielded to any other.
She fell like the boy, dead from a soldier's arrow.
Then, the black-haired woman was unchained. Short and squat with a strong build, she stepped forward with surprising confidence and hefted Excalibur out of the soldier's hands.
For a moment, she simply looked at the blade. Then she muttered something none in the crowd could catch.
The blade began to gleam. Faintly, but unmistakably.
