A Court This Cruel & Lovely (Kingdom of Lies, #1)(40)

Cavis and Rythos were waiting at the edge of the crowd, as far from the guards as they could get.

Rythos reached out and grabbed my hand, giving it a squeeze. My stomach settled a little, and I squeezed back. Almost immediately, I was surrounded by hard male bodies. They formed a circle around me, and I knew for sure that if they had to, they’d slaughter anyone who took me. Not just because I was pretty sure at least Rythos and Cavis liked me, but because if I went down, they’d go down with me.

Not to mention, they were all territorial brutes who were currently eyeing the guards like they were imagining their heads on pikes. My own gaze slid to the king’s assessor and got stuck there.

King Sabium had several assessors he liked to use. I hadn’t seen this one before, but they were all the same with their black robes, silver brooches and beady-eyed stares. All of them seemed to enjoy finding the corrupt and ordering their deaths.

Hunching under my cloak, I had to fight the urge to battle my way through this crowd and sprint as far from the assessor as I could. Yet my legs had turned rubbery. Lorian seemed to sense it, wrapping his hand around my arm. I forced my gaze away and turned to Galon, who was glowering at the king’s assessor with a kind of malevolence I’d never seen from him before. I elbowed him, and he scowled at me, dropping his gaze as the town’s priestess walked past.

She was younger than the priestess from our village. But her expression held the same peaceful piety I’d seen so many times before.

The wooden platform she climbed was similar to the one I’d stared at so many times in my town. Next to the platform, a man and woman both stood, their baby clutched in her mother’s arms. The woman was pale, but she strode up the stairs beneath the king’s guards’ watchful gaze.

“Such a sweet little girl,” a woman said to one of her friends, her voice carrying over the wall of muscle next to me.

A girl. The baby wouldn’t be named until after the Taking ceremony, as was tradition.

“Where’s Marth?” I whispered.

Rythos jerked his head toward the other side of the crowd. “We’ll meet him after.”

The priestess began to speak. I’d practically memorized the story of our history, but as always, I focused closely, hoping for some hint about why I still had my power.

“Centuries ago, our people went to war with the fae,” the priestess said. Several townspeople spat on the ground at the mention of the creatures who’d caused such heartache. The priestess allowed it, closing her eyes.

“Not content with their incredible power, indescribable wealth, and fertile lands, the fae decided they wanted more. They wanted humans,” she said in a hushed tone. My skin crawled at the thought of being stolen in the middle of the night.

“They wanted women to be their brides to make up for their low fertility. They wanted human servants to manage their households and work in their mines. They wanted more power. More wealth. More, more, more. Finally, the king’s great-great-grandfather, a strong, wise king called Regner said ‘enough.’ He was tired of his people being preyed upon. Tired of the fae taking whatever they wanted. And so, they went to war.”

Statues of Regner stood in most northern villages. I remembered climbing on top of one of them as a child. The king had been practically a myth while alive, and once dead, he’d become almost godlike himself.

The priestess ran her gaze over the crowd, clearly in her element.

“The fae may have been outnumbered by us, but they had the kind of power that could flood valleys. The kind of power that could burn entire cities to the ground. Our people had fae iron. And they used it to fight back however they could.”

I’d spent many hours mumbling prayers during various ceremonies in my village, and many of those prayers had involved thanking the gods for risplite—the strange mineral they’d gifted us. When added to iron while it was in the furnace, it turned previously normal iron into a true weapon against the fae.

The priestess continued talking. “The slaughter continued for weeks. And then months. Our people—on the brink of being destroyed completely—were losing hope. And so, King Regner went to the gods and begged them to intervene. If they helped us defeat the fae, we would give the gods back our power while it was young and potent. Because that power would grow as it aged, and the gods could sip on it, staying strong themselves in a time where few were worshipping as they should.”

Next to me, Rythos let out a soft snort. Lorian glanced at him, and Rythos’s expression turned blank.

“For the gods had been losing power themselves,” the priestess said. “As fewer people prayed to them. As fewer people sacrificed to the deities. The gods—on the verge of fading—agreed to the king’s deal. And so, the bargain was struck.

“Every year, we celebrate the first Taking—on a day known forever as Gods Day—to respect the sacrifice our people made that day. They were willing to give up their power, to lose their magic until they reached maturity at the age of twenty-five winters. They screamed as they gave the king everything they had. Some of them died. But it was enough. The gods accepted the sacrifice and helped King Regner drive the fae back behind their borders. And now, that sacrifice protects those borders from the monsters who would avenge their fallen friends and family members. Because the fae are much longer-lived than us mere mortals. And while this may be history to us, that time is a memory for most of the fae. And they will not forget.”