Page 141 of Thorn Season
A wave of emotion swelled and crashed within me as Father clambered to my side. He gripped my shoulder, about to pull me back, when the guards shifted again.
The king emerged from their formation.
King Erik was only three years into his reign—untested, as Fatherwould say. The people still waited to see how he would manage the Execution Decree and its ripples.
But this new district was proof, wasn’t it? That King Erik was different from past rulers, finally channeling funds into the capital again.
As the young king amiably approached the sympathizers, I felt the first stirrings of hope. He would hear their objections. And slowly, he would implement change.
“My friends,” he called, quieting them. “There is no cause for animosity here. Please, celebrate this new district with your fellow citizens. Show our guests from Vereen how we pay homage to their craftwork.” With one broad sweep, King Erik looked around to our throng of nobles. I jolted as his ice-pale eyes skimmed mine—a bland, brief glance that inexplicably raised the hairs on the back of my neck.
“Or else return to your sacred Backplace,” the king went on, “where the monarchy has generously allowed your freedom of speech. This day is for festivity. Join us or be gone.”
The citizens yelled in agreement, the fiddler playing a little lick to send them off.
But the sympathizers stood firm. Then one of them walked forward: a rugged, white-haired man who must have been powerfully built before age had worn him away.
“Lilliana Swan,” the man boomed out. “She was my wife. Your coward Hunters came for her while she slept and left their heinous mark on our door. I won’t rest—we won’t rest—until we have our justice.”
Another surge of noise from the sympathizers. More discomfort from the nobles. I was breathing so fast through my open mouth that my tongue had gone dry.
King Erik smiled kindly upon the man. “Your wife was a criminal, my friend. And you are a criminal for keeping her hidden from the law. ButI see your anguish... and I offer you a pardon. Accept it humbly, and take your boisterous companions away with you.”
A tense, swollen silence ensued. The man drew a long breath.
And then spat at the king’s feet.
A gasp rushed through the Opal, like a whooshing through leaves.
“You are no king,” said the man.
King Erik smiled again—a kind of smile I’d never seen on anyone before. Father’s hand went rigid on my shoulder.
Then the guards pounced. In a scuffle of boot-stomps and clanging armor, they tied the man to a lantern pole. He panted wetly, his lip bleeding from where they’d been too rough.
“Your words are treasonous,” said King Erik, all mildness and composure. “Do you wish to recant?”
The man looked toward his fellow sympathizers—toward those warriors, those criers of justice. They would tear at those ropes. They would make the king listen. I looked with him, already bursting with trust and bottomless gratitude—
And found a sea of gaping mouths.
Their staffs clattered to the cobblestones. The fury drained from their eyes.
The man lifted his chin, resigned. “I won’t recant the truth.”
King Erik sighed but did not seem disappointed. He nodded, and one of the guards drew a wickedly thin knife from his belt. The blade flashed light in my eyes, and before I’d blinked out the dazzle-spots, the guard had slashed through the man’s shirt, baring his torso.
Father’s hand slackened, sliding off my shoulder. He stood frozen in horrified attention.
“And now, friend?” asked the king. “Now will you recant?”
The man spat again, the glob full of blood. “I do not fear death.”
King Erik laughed, bright and careless, and I wondered how I’d ever seen him as anything but a beast. “And why should you?” he asked. “There is no suffering in death.”
The man lasted twelve seconds before the shriek tore from his throat.
They started at his ribs, peeling away the skin as surely as flaying a deer. The man writhed and the crowd writhed with him—at the blood and tissue and gore, all glistening wet and red in the afternoon sun. When asked again to recant, he shook his head, tears streaming. They moved up to his chest.
