“I’m sure this is just a lovers’ quarrel,” Griselda said with a nervous smile. “Sit down, Rab. There’s no need to shout.”
Innes had seen enough. Her lips were pressed into a firm line, her eyes blazing with anger. She turned to one of the guards at the door. “Bring in the chopping block. Bind their hands and ankles.”
Shocked, Griselda cried, “Laird! You would take the word of this servant over us?”
“I would and I do,” Innes said. “Now kneel.”
There was a struggle as the guards closed in around Rab and Griselda. But both were overpowered, their wrists bound behind their backs, their ankles tied together. They were dragged to Innes and forced down to their knees.
The chopping block was brought in next. Adaira stared at it a moment before realizing that its dark stains were from old blood and its nicks had been made by blades.
Innes was about to behead Rab and Griselda Pierce, right here in the hall.
Adaira’s stomach churned. She began to step back when Innes spun to face her.
“This is twice now that the Pierces have threatened what is yours. By law, you can take their lives for it, with my blessing.” Innes unsheathed her sword. The blade was radiant, betraying its enchantment. As she gazed at it, Adaira wondered what magic had been hammered into the steel. Sweat prickled her hands as Innes offered the sword to her. “Take my blade. Enact your justice.”
Adaira felt numb and slow, as though she were underwater. But she accepted Innes’s sword. She grasped the cold, smooth hilt. The blade was heavy; she held it with both hands, and she glimpsed her reflection in the polished steel. She looked pale, riddled with doubt.
Innes brought Rab to the chopping block first, forcing him to lay his head on the wood.
The hall was deathly quiet as Adaira stared at Rab. He was panting, drool shining on his lips. There were tears in his eyes when he gazed up at her. Griselda began to weep.
“Cora,” Rab whispered. “Cora, please.”
She knew he was guilty, in more ways than one. And there was a shadowed, hungry side of her that wanted to see his blood spilled.
She raised the sword.
She had never killed anyone before. She had never driven a sword through a neck, and there was a good chance she was going to make a mess of it. She was angry and sad and everything in her ached when she thought about Jack in the arena with a helm locked to his face. When she thought of Torin missing, spirited away. When she imagined Sidra, dying at the dinner table by the same poison that had claimed Skye. When she thought of Sidra and Torin’s child, whom Adaira longed to hold and watch grow.
Can peace be won by spilling blood? she wondered. That ravenous side of her suddenly diminished, and she was left with a strange, hollow place at her center, as if she could transform into anything.
This is not the path I want to take.
Slowly, she lowered the sword. She released it, watching the blade clatter at her feet.
She looked up, meeting the gazes of the Breccans.
“I invited Sidra Tamerlaine and her four guards to the west because I knew she could help us,” Adaira began. “We are dying, stricken by a blight. We are starving, beholden to the wind. The west cannot go on like this. And when I brought one who could help us, you poisoned her cup.” Adaira stared at Rab, who had closed his eyes in relief. “I stand here and ask myself ‘why?’ Why did you want to kill the Tamerlaines, who trusted us after centuries of strife? Why, if not for your own fear and ignorance? You look to the past, where there is nothing but bloodshed. You chart your present by what has been done and what has happened, as if you can never rise and break away from it.”
Adaira began to walk along the table. The same path Innes had taken. She was no longer addressing the Pierces but all the nobility. Her heart was beating swiftly, but her voice was strong, chasing away the shadows of the hall.
“I ask you now to look to what may come,” she said. “What do you want for your daughters and sons? What do you want for the west? Shall we continue to live in a blighted and silent land, cursed to hide our wounds and our illnesses and drinking poison and mistrust? Or can we set our fate on another course?”
She glanced at her parents. Innes and David stood together, watching her. David looked awed, and Innes looked angry. But they were both listening, waiting for her to continue.
Adaira came to a stop at the chopping block once more. Rab had sat back on his heels, and he was staring up at her.
“I ask you to lay down your swords,” she said. “I ask you to lay down your prejudice and your anger and all that you have been taught in the past. I ask you to dream of an isle that is whole and thriving, but first . . . we must trust each other.”