State of Sorrow (Untitled #1)(63)

Sorrow peered out into the crowd as they all turned, some murmuring, towards the speaker. At first Sorrow couldn’t see who it was; then the crowd began to move, parting, until there, in the centre of the hall, three people stood isolated. They were hooded, crude leather masks covering their faces, leaving only their mouths free. One stood to the fore, a huge mountain of a man, the other two only slightly smaller, flanking him like sentinals. Not that it looked as though he needed them.

“Lies,” the apparent leader of the trio said again.

The hair on the back of her neck rose, and Sorrow’s gaze flicked to Luvian, who was craning to see what was happening. When he met her eyes he looked almost frightened, which worried Sorrow more than the men did. Luvian wasn’t the type to scare easily.

The hooded men stepped forward, the crowd backing away from them as they did. They stopped six feet from the front of the stage.

“Can we help you?” Mael moved to Sorrow’s side.

“Yeah. You can piss off back to Rhylla, and take your sister with you,” the man said.

“Excuse me?” Sorrow’s mouth fell open with shock.

“You heard.” The man’s attention returned to her. “We’re done with the Ventaxis family. All of you.” His voice rang through the hall.

Luvian waved at her, eyes blazing a warning, but Sorrow shook her head and focused on the ringleader.

“Who’s ‘we’? Who are you?”

“The Sons of Rhannon,” the man replied, his chin rising with pride. “Your reckoning.”

So these were the vigilantes who’d targeted the Decorum Ward? Sorrow looked at Vine, and watched him whisper to the man beside him. Then that man turned to his neighbour, mouth to ear as he passed on Vine’s message. Though she hadn’t thought it possible, in that moment Sorrow was grateful for him, grateful for the Ward. But she didn’t understand why the Sons of Rhannon were shouting at her and Mael. They’d done nothing wrong.

Sorrow decided to try to reason with them. “I know you suffered under my father, but I’m not—”

“You know nothing,” he shouted. “You hid in your palace while our children starved. For eighteen years you’ve stayed locked away, coming out once a year to throw a doll that costs more than some of us earn in a year into the river. No new jobs. No chances to better ourselves. Nothing to hope for or live for. Your dogs beating our kids when they smile. Look at you –” he thrust an accusing finger up at her “– in your red, standing up there, deigning to meet us. Telling us things will be better. Well, maybe they will. But not while a Ventaxis is in power.”

“My father—”

“It’s not about your father,” the man bellowed over her again. “It’s your grandfather, and his father, and his father before him. All of you Ventaxises. Sending us off to fight a war we didn’t want. You make decisions and we suffer for them. And now you have the gall to stand here and tell us things will be different? How will they? Because the only change we see is there’s two of you this time. What a choice.”

There were more murmurs from the crowd, still standing watching the scene, but this time the shock was absent. Sorrow could see people nodding, and her stomach dropped.

They agreed with the Sons of Rhannon, she realized.

And she couldn’t think of a single argument against them. So far, she’d done nothing to prove them wrong.

But Mael still had things to say. “The law of the land states that only a Ventaxis can govern…”

“Laws the Ventaxis family made,” the man shouted. “Crooked, like all of your laws. You come in telling us you’re better than kings, and then you behave just like them. We’re tired of it. We’re tired of you. We want a new Rhannon.”

The atmosphere thickened as rumbles of support came from the crowd, who’d drifted back towards the hooded men, surrounding them, all of them watching her, just like at the bridge. Though this time, there was fire in their eyes. Burning low but steady as they waited to see what she’d do next.

Sensing this was her last chance to disarm the hooded men, unwind the coiled spring the room had become, she took a deep breath. “And you will have a new Rhannon,” she said, pushing her voice out into the far corners of the room, continuing the speech she’d so carefully worked on. “One with colours, and light, and music. One with art, and growth. One with—”

“One without you,” the man roared, and then, in a swift, synchronized movement, all three men reached beneath their cloaks and withdrew something, hauling their arms back, as the crowd recoiled from them.

Sorrow saw a flash of something clear and bright arching towards her, and then the stage before her burst into flame.

Both she and Mael staggered back, falling, as the hall erupted into screams of panic, the crowd suddenly realizing they might be hurt too.

Scrambling to her feet, she peered through the wall of fire to see that the three men had remained in the centre of the room, even as the rest of the people ran for the exits.

They watched her through the flickering flames, their eyes red beneath their hoods in the reflected firelight.

Then they moved. Towards the stage.

In shock, Sorrow searched for Meeren Vine. She spotted him by the wall, where he’d been all night. He was watching her. Sorrow was aghast. Surely he wasn’t waiting for a signal? Why wasn’t he—? She half raised her hand, and stopped.