Page 57 of The Eye of the Fifth
Gedeon lifted his head, brow furrowing.
After a beat, the Empress nodded to her right at the two sentries guarding the side door, who exited immediately, as though they’d been awaiting her signal. Within seconds they returned, but with a third, much smaller figure between them.
A child, thin and trembling. A cloth sack covered her head, and rope bound her slim wrists together.
Gedeon rose to his feet. They left her a metre or so away from him, but he knew who it was even before they removed the sack from her head.
Amala. Quivering from head to toe with all-encompassing terror.
He stared at her for a moment. Then, and with enormous struggle to keep his cool composure, he looked back at his mother. ‘What is this?’
‘Your brother tells me you have a connection to this girl,’ the Empress said. ‘That you have… shown her kindness.’
Sekun’s smirk was widening. Gedeon gritted his teeth. ‘Is that a crime?’
His mother smiled, and it was anything but gentle. ‘Of course not, Gedeon. But this girl is the daughter of a rebel. She herself has showntraits of a rebel too. Does treachery run in the blood, I wonder? Or is it learned?’
‘Her father is dead,’ Gedeon said coldly. ‘Sekun saw to that. Amala is not her father and should not be condemned forhismistakes.’
‘This girl has been known to wander the castle without permission,’ the Empress said. ‘She asks questions that do not concern her, and yet she asks them without thought or consequence. If we allow this behaviour to go unchallenged, I allow my power, my influence to be weakened.’ She straightened her back. ‘One small opposing voice can threaten an entire empire if it is not silenced. For the greater good… her voice must be eliminated.’
Abhorred, Gedeon hissed, ‘She is achild.’
‘A child whose ambitions and ideas will only grow as she does!’ the Empress thundered, her face reddening with rage. Her voice dropped low. ‘You will be the one to do it.’
Amala squeezed her eyes tightly shut, whispering something to herself over and over again in the curling language of the Agni people.
‘You wish for me to prove myself to you? By doingthis?’
‘You refused to burn Phaenon city to the ground for lack of justification,’ the Empress said, her turquoise eyes burning with the flames around her. ‘But this order has been justified. If youarewith me, if your loyalty remains true, then you will not hesitate in fulfilling it.’
A sentry moved from her formation, pressing a longsword into Gedeon’s hand. He looked down at it, realising it was his own. The lava rock coated hilt was unmistakable. His fingers wrapped around it with welcome familiarity.
It had been planned, then. This sickening arrangement had been put in motion from the second Sekun had disembarked the ship with his limp body in tow. It would not surprise him if the entire meeting had been his brother’s idea. A seed planted in their mother’s mind.
At the Empress’ side, Sunsi’s face was stricken. She subtly shook her head from side to side. Duchess Ysabell still stared, expressionless, at the floor.
Amala lifted her chin high, and Gedeon’s gaze locked with hers.
She did not beg for her life. She did not even look frightened anymore. It was as though she had submitted to the caressing hand of death already, as though she was ready to see her father again, if the Gods were good.
He knew what he had to do.
The grip on his sword tightened, both hands grasping the hilt. Amala’s gaze did not waver as he lifted it high, ready to strike.
But Gedeon did not swing his sword. He did not cleave Amala’s head from her body.
He threw his palm skyward, to the ceiling where Xados glowered down at him, and rained unyielding night down upon them.
All light stripped from the room with that surge of power as darkness rippled from him like an unforgiving current. Not even the throne’s flames could penetrate it.
Pain pierced the base of his spine so intensely, he doubled over with a gasp.
A voice of unabated fury screamed through the thick blackness:‘TRAITOR!’
Gritting his teeth against his throbbing back, he reached through the darkness and scooped Amala up with one arm. The other hand gripped steadfast to his sword. ‘Hold tight to me,’ he ordered before sprinting through the Throne Room, vision unimpaired like the feline eyes of a cat in the night, as he dodged the sentries fumbling through shadows in an attempt to locate him.
‘DO NOT LET HIM ESCAPE! I NEED HIM ALIVE!’the Empress roared.
