Bring Me Their Hearts(67)
She can’t ascend the ladder—too slow, too frail, people pushing over her in their frenzy to get out. I wait for a break in the crowd and wrap her arms around my neck, ascending the ladder with her clinging to my back, desperately fighting the hunger’s desire to consume her. I pass her thin frame off to a young girl with startlingly blue eyes and a long robe.
When I jump down again and make it back through the tunnel, the lawguards are frozen in a perfect circle around Prince Lucien, who’s torn his cowl off, revealing his face and long dark braid. Gavik’s laughter rings through the cavern, the crowd’s moans and cries muffled by its sheer volume.
“And what do you think you’re doing here, Your Highness?” Gavik asks.
“Leave these people alone, Gavik,” Lucien grits, his white sword drawn and ready to strike whichever lawguard lashes out first. “They’ve done nothing.”
“Nothing but steal and murder,” Gavik insists. “Some of them are witches, Your Highness. Surely you want to see these monsters brought to justice?”
“How do you know they’re witches?” he snaps.
“The Crimson Lady, of course.” Gavik smiles with all his teeth. “Or do you not believe in the veracity of the polymaths’ efforts?”
“What I believe means nothing.” Lucien’s voice is an oil fire—ever burning, ever growing. “These people are trying to survive.”
“By selling stolen things in this dilapidated little black market!” Gavik tuts. “I’m doing this for the good of Vetris, Your Highness. They’re criminals and witches besides. You’d do well to remember that, before I’m forced to throw you in the dungeons with them for dissenting.”
“I’m your Crown Prince.” Lucien narrows his eyes. Gavik laughs.
“If you defend a thief, that’s forgivable, but defend a witch or Heartless—Crown Prince or not—and you’re a traitor to the New God.” The archduke inspects his nails lightly. “Punishable by the temple’s laws.”
“How many of them are witches?” Lucien presses, stalwart amid the bald-faced threat. “What did your red tower tell you?”
“Oh, I can’t remember.” Gavik thinks. “Seven? Eight? Perhaps ten. It seems my men have killed”—he takes a moment to count the still bodies—“thirteen here, but then again, three of those were thieves, suckling like leeches on the underbelly of Vetris.”
“Look around you—these are starving people, people whose livelihoods were ruined by my father’s poor economic choices! If anyone should be punished, it’s him.”
Gavik laughs again. “Are you suggesting I jail your own father? I knew you were rebellious and stubborn, my prince, but I had no idea you were treasonous as well. You’re almost starting to sound like Princess Varia—foolish little thing that she was.”
Lucien flinches, balling his swordless fist, and I press down the seed of rage that sprouts in me. How dare Gavik talk about Varia like that in front of him? I won’t let Lucien’s pain go to waste—I motion as many people as I can toward the exit while Gavik and Lucien talk. And then suddenly, Gavik’s voice booms.
“Lady Zera! I’d recognize that bosom anywhere. Wave that little hand of yours one more time toward that tunnel and I’ll have my men shoot it off.”
“Lady Zera,” Lucien barks, without turning to look at me. “Leave, now.”
“And abandon you to face this rancid dog’s anus alone?” I scoff. “Not a chance in the afterlife.”
“Rancid dog’s anus,” Gavik muses. “You’re more creative than any Bride we’ve had thus far, I’ll give you that. But I’m quite serious about the shooting.”
I swallow my grim laugh. “You don’t know me at all, Archduke, if you think the threat of a lost hand will frighten me.”
Lucien starts for me, stopped only by the lawguards’ swords pointed at him. “Lady Zera, no—”
“Then allow me to test your resolve,” Gavik says coolly, and at a flick of his fingers a lawguard archer at his side takes aim with his crossbow and fires faster than I can move. The bolt sears like iron, cracking the bones of my left wrist and leaving behind a bloody, tangled hole of flesh and nerves. The pain is so thunderous and instant it knocks the wind from me, serrated daggers sawing at my skin each time I try to breathe in. A scream runs through the crowd too close to me, my blood splattering on horrified faces. I tear at my midnight shawl with my teeth and wrap the cloth around the hole.
“You—” Lucien’s face darkens, looking from my wound to Gavik’s face. The fire in his eyes sears, his voice suddenly fierce and hoarse, a force of nature. “It is time you learned just how little forgiveness I give those who’ve hurt my subjects.”
He raises his sword, looking ready to lunge at the lawguards all around him, at Gavik above him. He can’t. He’s outnumbered, and even if Lucien is the Crown Prince, Gavik of all people wouldn’t hesitate to hurt him, jail him—
“Is that all you’ve got?” I call out to the archduke, hiding the desperate edge to my tone. Desperate to distract Gavik from Lucien. When did I get so protective of a human? “Or do you not have the vachiayis to come down and finish the job yourself, milord?”