Page 61 of The Princes of Stone and Steel

“I said, we’ll succeed. Failure stopped being an option ages ago.”

I held my hand out to him and he took it, pulling me in close.

We moved the rest of the way through the line until I found myself standing in front of a Forfex soldier as he slowly, taking too much pleasure from the places he touched in my opinion, patted me down. Chest, thighs, buttocks and yeah—there.

What a jerk.

Like I’d really hide a blade up there?

Steele came up next.

“Do I know you?” the soldier asked.

“Never been in trouble a day in me life,” Steele answered while shaking his headno.

I guess that was his attempt to sound peasant-y?

“Maybe not, but still…” The soldier pushed on, never taking his eyes off Steele the whole time he patted him down.

My time to step in. “My mate better not be seeing the guard.” I slapped Steele’s arm and chest. “What you been doing behind my back?”

“Nothing. Nothing, I swear, my love.”

Snickering, the soldier finally broke eye contact with Steele and stepped back to avoid my flailing arms.

“You need better control of your mate there. I hope you’ll punish her.”

Steele glared at me. “Oh, she’ll be punished right.”

But it worked and we were let through. The soldiers were dressed in sleeveless togas with leather kilts attached that reached knee-length, epaulets of rank sewed to their shoulders, long Forfex swords in scabbards at their sides. They wore helmets and leather sandals with straps crisscrossed over the foot and up the shin to tie just below the knee.

These outfits weren’t ceremonial garb, but full-on, ready-to-fight uniforms.

The soldiers moved aside to let us enter through the gate and I noticed the large man who’d caused the holdup slumped unconscious against the silver fencing, a pool of clear, what smelled like alcohol circling him. Shards of broken glass bottles that must have held the liquor made walking by precarious at best. I kicked several large pieces out of the way as I passed by.

People packed in so tightly, I gripped a handful of Steele’s tunic to keep us from becoming separated.

The iron gallows loomed over us, erected to the right of the gate. A platform for standing on. The rope had a noose tied to the end. A long lever meant to open the hole in the platform for Kori to fall through sat off to the side where the executioner would stand.

Standard gallows construction.

“Come on,” I muttered, both to get us walking in the right direction and shock at the sight before us.Come ontotally covered both.

As the crowd of onlookers shuffled to the right to get the best spots, Steele led me to the left.

The mob roared with unified excitement and I saw the reason for it. Korrigan, hands shackled at the wrists, feet shackled at the ankles, was led by the arm from where she’d been detained. Her face looked puffy from crying. Seeing her, I teared up, too. Solidarity among sisters. Shackle my best friend? Oh—hell no.

For Steel, his one word, “Kori,” spoken softer than a whisper, showed pain greater than any other wound inflicted, and he pulled me closer.

Scores of people threw rotten vegetables at the princess as she passed by them while others booed.

The hangman helped Kori up the seven steps to the platform and positioned her under the noose.

Her own father, the king, stepped onto the balcony and I noticed the ones to throw the rotten food cheered for him while the ones who’d booed their princess turned those boos on their leader. All I saw was another girl made to suffer by the one man who should’ve protected her. Sell Millicent to Leland Barnabas to give Charles and Jules a better life. Hang Korrigan to give yourself a better life. And neither man had a poor life to begin with.

Rage pooled inside me, replacing the fear.

We had allies, and I was going to use them.

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