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“I said kneel,” yelled the same guard. His bootheel came down on the back of my legs, kicking them forward. At that moment, the guards released their hold and I fell, my knees screaming in protest as they hit the unyielding stone floor.
“She did it to herself,” I choked out to anyone who would listen.
The crowd heard me, but my statement only served to antagonize them more, their insults growing louder. One of them threw something, hitting the guard beside me. He growled, snapping his head back towards the crowd, looking for the perpetrator.
“Your majesty, may I begin?” said a middle-aged man, finely dressed, standing to the king’s right. I could barely hear his voice over the roar of the crowd.
The king slouched to the side of his throne, one elbow propped on its arm. He rested his chin on his outstretchedthumb, his index finger snaking up the side of his face. His eyes shifted to the crowd, one hand rising.
One hand . . . that was all it took to silence the room.
There was no mistaking it now, despite how lacking I found him—hewasthe king of Edenvale and his power to rule was absolute.
“Please proceed, Alderman Jarl,” the king said, audibly handing him the floor.
The room emitted a medley of hushed whispers, bearing no resemblance of the boisterous heckling from seconds ago.
The alderman, a tall, thin fellow with dappled skin, bowed to the king before he stepped down the dais and towards me.
The guards pressed down on my shoulders, anchoring me in place. I hissed in pain.
“Consider this your one and only chance to prove your innocence. Your claim is that the woman killed herself. Is this correct?” he asked, his voice rough as gravel.
“It is,” I said from my forced position, craning my neck to look up at him.
“And why exactly would she do that?” he asked, eyeing me skeptically.
“Because she was in love with Aure—” Remembering where I was, I corrected myself. “—the prince.”
“What does the woman’s feelings with the prince have to do with her taking her own life?” the alderman asked, his arms knitting tightly over his narrow chest. I could tell he had already made up his mind about me because I could see the guilty verdict written in the crinkled plains of his stern, hate-filled face.
“She was . . . courting him before, but that ended when he started courting me. She became jealous and lured me into the back room of her shop where she tried to kill me, so I ran from her. When she realized that her plan wasn’t going to work, she took her life instead, because she knew it would look like I killedher and that I would end up in this situation. It was the second-best way for her to remove me from the prince’s life,” I seethed angrily, frustrated I was even in this mess of a situation.
“You are telling me that our highly esteemed, respected and admired, Golden Prince would court someonelike you?” He threw the last two words at me as if they were daggers, a further attempt to pin me in place even though I clearly already was. I knew what those last two words implied. The entire room did.
Cursed.
That’s all they saw me as. The label they gave me . . . it made meother, not human, not one of them. In their willfully blind eyes, I was no more than a rabid animal in need of being put down.
I looked to the king and queen. “I dined with you at your very table. I sat beside Aurelius.You knowthat he was courting me,” I said, hissing as the guard on my right shoved me further down.
“She lies,” the queen stated for all to hear, her face and tone married in disgust. “We would never let any of the filthy Cursed dine at our table.” She shook her head and laughed. “How preposterous.”
I sputtered.
Realization hit me that I was a fool. The king and queen would never admit to eating at the same table as someone they had taught their subjects to hate. Nor did they have to. Not when their rule was absolute, built on a mountain of lies and treachery.
On top of that, the commoners were not invited to eat at the king and queen’s dining hall or walk the castle corridors, so how would they know who was telling the truth? It was their queen’s word over someone they viewed as Cursed—of course they were going to believe her.
And as for the nobles and aristocrats who had seen Aurelius and I together, who in their right mind would speak up for me and go against the queen? What could that possibly gain them?
A trip to the guillotine, that’s what.
So this was it. I had reached the bottom of the proverbial well. I had found where Aurelius’s protection ran out. If he was here, I doubted this would have happened. But he wasn’t, which meant I needed to figure out a way to get myself out of this situation. The last thing I wanted was to be subjected to another pyre. My toes shriveled at the thought.
“Do you all hear the lies the poisonous creature spins?” the alderman said to the crowd. His words seemed better suited for the lying queen, and yet he was talking about me.
Their whispers became less hushed.
