So how could she hate him?
Especially with his hand pressed to the small of her back. Even in his anger, he was tender with her. Stoic Gideon—so firm in his conviction, so diligent in his duty—was reluctant. Conflicted. She felt it in the gentle press of his palm.
Rune remembered the last words Nan had spoken before the knife slashed her throat. I love you, she’d whispered, while staring at Rune in the crowd below.
Rune swallowed the lump in her throat and glanced up at the boy beside her.
I forgive you, she thought. Perhaps that made her a fool, but what did that matter, if this was the end?
In forgiving him, a strange thing happened: Rune found forgiveness for herself, too. For what she’d done to Nan.
The thing she’d needed all this time was right there inside her.
Gideon didn’t look at her as he handed her to the four Blood Guard soldiers waiting to secure her ankles in chains. Chains that would raise her upside down to be slaughtered. The steady warmth of his palm disappeared from her back as he turned to walk away.
“Gideon.”
He flinched and stopped, but didn’t look back.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry for all of it.”
Finally, he glanced at her, and the wounded look on his face pierced like a knife.
Above the heavy plink of the rain, she heard him say, “So am I.”
He strode off as the cold iron bit her bare ankles, and the locks clicked into place.
FIFTY-EIGHT
RUNE
SERAPHINE AND RUNE STOOD side by side now. The crank tightened their chains, preparing to lift them feet-first toward the sky, baring their throats to the purging knife.
Seraphine’s dark eyes narrowed on Rune. But instead of being surprised that Rune was a witch, she said: “Why did you inform on Kestrel?”
Tears fell as the inevitability of it all sank in. “Someone betrayed us. The Blood Guard would have killed us both: Nan, for being a witch; me, for not handing her in. She told me if I loved her, I had to betray her. So she wouldn’t have to watch me die.”
Seraphine’s forehead creased, almost delicately.
Lightning flashed, and the charge in the air raised the hair on Rune’s skin.
“Nan told me to find you. I came to your house the night they arrested you. I spent two years tracking you down and got there too late.”
What would have happened if she’d arrived an hour earlier?
Would either of them be here, awaiting the knife?
“I failed both of you.”
Seraphine’s gaze sharpened.
“No,” she said, her irises flaring strangely as something in the distance caught her attention. “I don’t think you have.”
Light flickered at the edge of Rune’s vision. When she looked up, four black fiery comets hit the platform like cannonballs, aimed directly at the guards on either side of her and Seraphine. Rune heard the thud of their bodies hitting the wood.
All around them, the platform burned. Despite the rain, heat sizzled in the air. More fireballs hit, striking the wooden beam overhead. Rune covered her head with her manacled hands, but knew it was of little use. She and Seraphine were completely exposed.
Something cracked and Rune looked up to see the beam directly overhead start to split.
Then fall.
As the heavy timber descended on them, Seraphine dived at Rune, knocking her out of the way. The beam crashed through the platform floor right where they’d both been standing.
Seraphine pushed herself up. “Are you all right?”
Rune nodded.
It smelled like burning flesh and … something else.
Blood and roses, she thought.
Magic.
Rune had smelled this same scent once before, on the night of the Luminaries Dinner. It rolled over her like a wave.
Someone in the crowd screamed.
As more screams joined the first, Seraphine flew to the wooden rail at the edge of the platform, leaning as far as the chains around her ankles would let her. Rune was about to push herself to her feet, when her stomach cramped. Like a warm, achy swell in her lower belly.
That ache. She spent the better part of every month waiting for it.
As something warm and wet pooled between her thighs, a rush of relief came over Rune.
Her monthly cycle had started.
Fresh blood to cast with …
Except she had no way to use it. Her hands were trapped in iron. Wondering why no soldiers were coming to simply kill them and get it over with, Rune pushed to her feet, joining Seraphine at the wooden rail, scanning the platform.
“Merciful Ancients,” murmured Seraphine.
Dozens of figures cloaked in gray were sweeping across the city square, heading for the platform. The scarlet uniforms of the Blood Guard were cutting toward them, while the crowd in between swelled. Chaos erupted. Citizens tried to scatter, screaming and pushing, desperate to get out of the way.