Gathering Darkness (Falling Kingdoms #3)(47)

At the time, Lysandra didn’t understand what he’d been trying to teach her. All she knew was that her skirts were muddy and her mother would be angry that she’d spent so long gathering nothing but dirt.

Get up. Again and again. There are those who would push you down into the mud and laugh at you. They wanted to see tears. They wanted to see defeat because it made them feel better about their own sad little lives.

But sometimes it was hard to rise back up. Sometimes the mud grew so solid and so thick around you that there was no escape. And the taunting laughter never stopped.

Suddenly, the sting of a slap made her gasp, and Lysandra was pulled out of her memories to find herself staring into the freckled face of Tarus.

“Come on, Lys!” He had her by her shoulders, his fingers biting into her flesh. “The guards are coming. I need you.”

“Good,” she whispered. “It’s finally time to end this.”

He shook her. “No! You can’t give up. It’s only us, you know that? Cato and Fabius are dead—they were killed trying to escape. We’re the only ones left!”

The news was yet another blow, but she wasn’t surprised. Cato and Fabius would have preferred to die fighting, rather than as a spectacle before a crowd.

Safe travels to the ever after, my friends, she thought, her heart heavy.

She glanced over to the corner where her brother had once slept. Where he’d searched and searched his dreams for his Watcher, hoping she held the answers he’d desperately needed to survive.

A sharp pain now twisted in her chest. Already the memory of his death had settled into her mind like the roots of a dark, malevolent tree, twisting and writhing, choking away all the life, all the hope, until nothing but darkness remained.

They’d killed Gregor in front of her and all she could do was scream.

“Lys, please.” Tarus grabbed her face as she began to tremble. “You’ve always been so strong. Please be strong today.”

“And what will strength accomplish now? We’re going to die.”

Now that she’d accepted her fate, a feeling of calm spread through her, numbing her senses. Her heart did not mirror the panic on Tarus’s face.

Soon it would be over. All the pain. All the misery. All the misplaced hope.

Soon there would only be silence.

Tarus smacked her again. “Lys! Stay with me!”

How she wished she could share this newfound serenity with him and take away his fear.

The guards entered their cell. They bound their hands behind their backs with rough ropes and led them out of the dungeon. Earlier, the prisoners had been allowed to wash the dirt from their skin and faces and had been given clean clothes for their presentation to the crowd. In her daze Lysandra could vaguely hear the taunts and heckles of the other prisoners they passed, along with a few blessings from those who hadn’t yet lost their souls to this cesspit.

The good and the bad—it was easy to ignore every last one of them.

“No fight left,” one guard said to his colleague. “This one had fire in her eyes mere days ago, but it’s died out now.”

“Wouldn’t help her anyway,” said the other.

They were right. Before, she was made of pure fire and fury. She’d been a girl no one dared push into mud puddles.

It seemed that the King of Blood had killed that girl before her own execution.

They passed the cell holding the nameless girl Lysandra had been forced to fight. Her grimy hands were curled around the iron bars and her expression was vacant.

Lysandra wondered if there had also once been fire in that girl, whose spirit had also clearly been doused forever.

They exited the dungeon and walked straight into the open air. After two weeks of being imprisoned in near darkness, the brightness of the day blinded her. For a moment, all Lys could see was white light, making her squint. She heard the crowd cheer, their chant of “Death to the rebels!” waking her from her daze and chilling her to the core.

As her eyes grew more accustomed to the sunlight, she saw just how many people had gathered in the palace square. There were a countless number of faces and bodies milling about. Conversation buzzed like insects, whispers and murmurs thick in the warm air. Curious stares followed Lysandra and Tarus as they were led to their place of death.

A crowd surrounded the execution stage, cheering louder than anyone else in attendance. Behind them, Lysandra could sense that the larger crowd was beginning to lose its enthusiasm, looking on more quietly and solemnly than those closest to the stage.

At least that was something to hold on to. Perhaps there was still some hope after all, some tiny shred that showed Lysandra that not all of these people were as lost as she’d thought they were.

Limerian guards in crimson uniforms patrolled the crowd, swiftly gathering up and arresting protestors the moment they raised their voices against the king, dragging them away from the spectacle before they could provoke others to do the same.

Lysandra’s vision narrowed and she stumbled, causing the guard to hold her more firmly.

“One foot in front of the other, girl,” he muttered. “Make a good show for the crowd and the king.”

The king.

The crowd quieted as the king and his heir approached a raised dais next to the execution stage to witness the proceedings up close.

Something stirred within her, deep down under layer upon layer of grief and defeat. She found she couldn’t look away from the monster who’d ordered her brother’s death, or from the prince who’d just stood there studying her reaction as Gregor was decapitated.