Bloodleaf (Bloodleaf #1)(92)

“Hurry!” I said as prickling numbness spread from my fingertips up into my arms. “I can’t hold it much longer.”

And then Kellan said, “They’re here! They’re all up!” And I let go. The magic I’d redirected snapped back into place, and all six of the soldiers were knocked to their knees, writhing in agony as it scorched their insides with vengeance.

“I’m sorry,” I said as they slowly came out of it. “I know it’s terrible. But at least you made it over first. At least you didn’t fall.”

“Warren was a brave man and a good lieutenant,” Kellan said to the rest. “He died in service to the princess, which means he died in service of the queen. May the Empyrea keep him.”

“Empyrea keep him,” the others intoned.

When we made it off the wall and into the city, everything was eerily quiet. “Where is everyone?” one of the soldiers asked.

“They hold their public events in the square by the castle,” I said. “That’s where they’ll be.”

We zigzagged through the abandoned streets, listening as the sound of the crowd grew from a buzz to a murmur to a loud hum. We approached the square from the east, keeping to the alleys to stay hidden from the guards. Swords drawn, they had formed lines on each side of the square, penning the people within it like cattle.

Kellan motioned to a ladder on the back of one of the buildings. We climbed it and scrambled across the sloping roof to view the scene from behind the peak.

At first I couldn’t make sense of it. Zan and Lisette were facing each other, holding their bleeding hands together. Toris was standing behind them, clutching his beloved Book of Commands. And that’s when I understood.

This was a wedding, and the entire city had been invited to watch.

Toris’s voice was loud enough to carry across the square. “It is by the authority given me as a magistrate of the Great Tribunal—?”

“I won’t do it,” Zan declared.

“. . . that I do bring this man and this woman together now to join them as one in name, blood, bone, and purpose. Do you, Lisette de Lena, take this man, Valentin Alexander, as your husband, willingly, now and forevermore?”

“Wai—?” I tried to cry out, but Kellan clapped his hand over my mouth.

“Don’t.” Zan closed his eyes, shaking his head. “Don’t say it.”

Quaveringly, she said, “Yes.”

Toris turned to Zan. “And do you, Valentin Alexander, take this woman, Lisette de Lena, as your wife, willingly, now and forevermore?”

“No.” His voice was loud.

“Say yes, boy,” Toris commanded. “Say yes now, or regret it.”

I struggled against Kellan’s grasp. He put his finger to his lips and pointed to the Achlevan guards on the ground. To my horror, I saw that every single one of them had a citizen under his arm, swords drawn.

“No,” Zan declared, more vehemently.

Toris turned his attention to the crowd.

“How many people do you think are here today? Several thousand, I’d say.” He gave a nod to the guards lined up on the stairs. Each one moved into the gathering and picked someone out at random, ripping them from their families and dragging them back up the stairs. An elderly woman, a middle-aged father, a youth with the first shadow of a beard . . . The guards returned to their stations to stand at attention, swords held at a perfect perpendicular to each person’s neck. Toris’s hand hovered in the heavy air for several tense moments, as if he were an orchestra conductor extending the last note for a little too long. And then he let his hand fall. In perfect synchronicity, the guards moved their swords across each victim’s neck with all the practiced elegance of musicians in a murderous symphony.

Order in all things.

The exodus of nearly a dozen spirits at once hit me like a wave; I felt their passing from the material to the spectral planes in the vibration of my bones. It made my sight blur, my ears ring, caused hazy shapes to form just outside the edges of my vision while whispery words circled me like vultures. Let me out. Let me out. Let me out. I pressed my hands against my ears. Go away. Leave me alone.

Kellan was shaking me. “Aurelia, snap out of it! Look at me. We have to do something!”

Through bleary eyes, I saw Toris calmly asking Zan again, “Valentin Alexander, do you take this woman, Lisette de Lena, as your wife, willingly, now and forevermore?”

“Stars forgive me,” he said brokenly as Toris lifted his hand, ready to signal another slaughter. “Yes.”

“Stop,” I tried to yell, but my voice came out a crackling whisper.

“With the great Empyrea as witness above, your two lives are now entwined into one. Exchange the rings now, as king and queen.”

This was the first image of Aren’s last vision: the exchanging of the rings. I fought through the disorientation left by the bloodshed and climbed, unsteady, to the top of the roof. “Stop!” I yelled again, louder. I needed to draw blood, let the magic carry my voice. I cast around in the layers of my uniform to find my knife.

“It is done,” Toris said triumphantly, snapping his book shut. “All these years, all these preparations, and just like that—?it is done!”

“No power is worth killing your own child,” Zan said. “May your remaining life be tormented by it.”