Images of my mother, my father, and my beloved Kassian filled my mind. I would see them soon.
They would wrap their arms around me. They would not fault me for crying. Did Kassian cry when the Sworn ripped him apart? Did my mother, my father? Soon, I could ask them. I could kiss them and bury my face against them, confess my weakness to them. Were they watching now?
Soon.
The guard swished the whip behind me again, preparing to strike for the fourth time.
I forced my legs to straighten as I stood and steeled myself for the blow. I closed my eyes.
“Stop!” a voice shouted.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE CRY WAS curt, angry, and loud enough to carry across the crowd. There was silence on the platform. The fourth strike did not fall.
Neil? Was it he who’d called out to save me?
I opened my eyes a crack. My grandmother’s face, taut and pale, with her lips pressed together resolutely, swam into my field of vision. But she was not the one who had called for the guard to stop. Beside her, Neil had his knuckles pressed to his mouth as if to hold in a scream. His eyes and nose were red, and he looked as if he’d aged a hundred years.
It had not been him, either.
Boots thudded on the wooden stairs behind me. I heard the scuffle of the guard’s feet as he drew away from me hastily.
I trembled. Had another, stronger guard come to finish the job? Had Creeb decided to watch? Was he merely delaying the inevitable until he could find a better position to view the execution?
Despite the agony, fury swirled in my stomach, giving me strength, and I pushed away thoughts of dying. Of succumbing. I lifted my head as a surge of adrenaline shot through my veins. One final blast of courage strengthened me, and I wanted to yank my hands from these ropes and punch the governor in his face. If Creeb were here to watch me die, he’d get a show of defiance that he’d never witnessed before in his life. He’d see that even when Riders were beaten, they were not broken.
But the voice that spoke behind me was not Governor Creeb’s wilting pretense at a noble accent. Nor was it the nasal tone of the warden.
The accent was crisp, cultured. Not from these parts.
“What,” the voice demanded, at once velvet-soft and cutting as the whip had been against my flesh, “is going on here?”
“Forty lashes, sir,” the guard said. He sounded shaken. “Orders of the warden, sir.”
Sir?
I turned my head as far as I could and caught sight of a glint of silver.
My stomach shriveled.
Vixor Rae. The right hand of the Alpha.
The Silver Wolf stood at the edge of the platform, arms crossed, his long black cloak fluttering in the wind behind him. He was like an angel of destruction come to take my soul.
I tried to stand tall. My legs were still shaking from shock, making it difficult. I ground my teeth together and drew in deep breaths, concentrating on straightening myself. For such an audience as this, I must be especially brave. Even braver than I might have been for Governor Creeb.
A mere three lashes should not be enough to bring me to my knees. Not in front of the most dreaded Sworn in the kingdom.
Vixor Rae wasn’t looking at me. He laughed at the words of the guard, and it was a harsh sound that promised pain to the one who’d inspired it. “Surely Resset didn’t give this order,” he said with complete confidence, speaking of the warden. “He doesn’t have the balls. She is a Chosen.”
The crowd gasped and began to murmur among themselves.
And like that, my greatest shame was known to all.
The guard swore under his breath. I suppose he didn’t know either.
“Give me that,” Vixor said, and I heard the sound of the whip being passed from hand to hand. The Silver Wolf’s armor creaked as he changed position. My skin tingled with terror and painful anticipation. I struggled to control my breathing, to force back the tears that threatened because of the pain burning across my back.
Was he here to finish the job properly?
If anyone were allowed to kill a Chosen, it was him. Only humans could not kill the Chosen, and Vixor Rae was definitely not human.
Not anymore.
The whip made a dull thud as it hit the ground. With a grunt of disgust, Vixor crossed the platform to stand in front of me.
I raised my head to stare at him, and he looked back at me, his eyes dark and impenetrable in that silver-threaded wolf mask. His cloak snapped like a flag in the wind. His gloved hands glistened, the leather polished to a glossy black.
“Release her,” he ordered the guard.
The crowd below murmured again. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my grandmother’s mouth tighten into a straight line. What did she think was about to happen? Did she think the Silver Wolf would do worse harm to me? Beside her, Neil’s eyes were lit with hope.
“I will interrogate her myself,” Vixor added.
Any fledgling hope that had risen in my chest withered at those words. He’d probably tear me limb from limb with his bare hands.
The guard hurried to do what the Silver Wolf had commanded. He cut the ropes that kept my arms raised above my head, and I lowered them slowly, stiffly, the blood rushing back into my cold wrists and fingers.
Vixor reached out with one gloved hand and caught my arm, the one with the mark declaring me Chosen. He turned it over to confirm the truth, but the woven honeysuckle collar-necklace—the one my mother had made me for my birthday on the day she died—I wore wrapped around my wrist slid down over the mark.
His thumb paused on the strands a moment before he flicked it up, exposing the mark.
A shiver ran through me.
“Chosen,” he said in a clipped tone to the guard. As if anyone would have dared to question his word.
The guard didn’t say anything, but he turned a pale shade of green around the corners of his mouth.
My knees buckled then, and the Silver Wolf caught me with one arm before the whole world went dark.
~
I regained consciousness lying on my stomach on a clean, white-sheeted cot. The sharp scent of antiseptic filled my nose as I turned my head and saw plain stone walls and a window, the panes frosted feathery-white from the cold outside.
I didn’t seem to be wearing a shirt anymore. Or my cloak. But the air in the room was warm, and something soft covered me.
My back wasn’t hurting, I realized. A cool tingle rippled across my shoulders and down my spine, and when I moved my arm, something tugged back. A line. I turned my head to the other side and saw a tube taped to my non-marked arm, the end of it disappearing into my flesh beneath a wad of gauze. I looked at my other arm. The skin over the mark was shiny, as if someone had wiped it with a substance to determine whether was a forgery.
The door to the room opened, and a woman in a white coat slipped inside. She crossed to my side without speaking and checked my arm as if to make sure that I hadn’t ripped out whatever they were putting into me.
“Where am I?” I croaked, my voice rusty. “What is this?” I moved my arm. “What have you given me?”
“Antibiotics and saline for your injury,” she said without looking at me. “Along with morphine for the pain. We don’t want you getting an infection, do we?”
She spoke brightly, as if to soothe me. As if I was a guest, not a prisoner.
This must be what it was like to be a Chosen, I thought dully. The mark on my arm had gotten me medical care, even pain relief. No wonder some girls did everything they could to receive the tattoo on their flesh, even making their own tattooed forgeries with charcoal and dulled needles.