He gave me a ghostly salute and was gone.
The remaining six soldiers stared at their fallen friend with grim faces.
“There’s got to be a way,” I said. “There’s got to be a way to make it easier.”
As I drew my knife, Kellan said, “What are you doing?”
“Whatever I can,” I replied, before drawing a quick line across both of my palms. I felt the magic inside me stir. “Tell them to climb. All of them. I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to do this.”
“Do what?” he asked, but I had already knelt and pressed my palms to the stone of the wall.
The magical current whirring in an endless loop inside the wall seemed to eddy at my touch, humming as if it recognized me. I allowed the magic passage through me, as if I were just another part of the conduit, and began to stretch my perception to where my soldiers were ascending. There I pulled back on the current, letting the magic part and swirl around them, like rocks in a river stream. It strained against my hold, and I began to sweat and pant with the exertion.
“Hurry!” I said as prickling numbness spread from my fingertips up into my arms. “I can’t hold it much longer.”
And then Kellan said, “They’re here! They’re all up!” And I let go. The magic I’d redirected snapped back into place, and all six of the soldiers were knocked to their knees, writhing in agony as it scorched their insides with vengeance.
“I’m sorry,” I said as they slowly came out of it. “I know it’s terrible. But at least you made it over first. At least you didn’t fall.”
“Warren was a brave man and a good lieutenant,” Kellan said to the rest. “He died in service to the princess, which means he died in service of the queen. May the Empyrea keep him.”
“Empyrea keep him,” the others intoned.
When we made it off the wall and into the city, everything was eerily quiet. “Where is everyone?” one of the soldiers asked.
“They hold their public events in the square by the castle,” I said. “That’s where they’ll be.”
We zigzagged through the abandoned streets, listening as the sound of the crowd grew from a buzz to a murmur to a loud hum. We approached the square from the east, keeping to the alleys to stay hidden from the guards. Swords drawn, they had formed lines on each side of the square, penning the people within it like cattle.
Kellan motioned to a ladder on the back of one of the buildings. We climbed it and scrambled across the sloping roof to view the scene from behind the peak.
At first I couldn’t make sense of it. Zan and Lisette were facing each other, holding their bleeding hands together. Toris was standing behind them, clutching his beloved Book of Commands. And that’s when I understood.
This was a wedding, and the entire city had been invited to watch.
Toris’s voice was loud enough to carry across the square. “It is by the authority given me as a magistrate of the Great Tribunal—?”
“I won’t do it,” Zan declared.
“. . . that I do bring this man and this woman together now to join them as one in name, blood, bone, and purpose. Do you, Lisette de Lena, take this man, Valentin Alexander, as your husband, willingly, now and forevermore?”
“Wai—?” I tried to cry out, but Kellan clapped his hand over my mouth.
“Don’t.” Zan closed his eyes, shaking his head. “Don’t say it.”
Quaveringly, she said, “Yes.”
Toris turned to Zan. “And do you, Valentin Alexander, take this woman, Lisette de Lena, as your wife, willingly, now and forevermore?”
“No.” His voice was loud.
“Say yes, boy,” Toris commanded. “Say yes now, or regret it.”
I struggled against Kellan’s grasp. He put his finger to his lips and pointed to the Achlevan guards on the ground. To my horror, I saw that every single one of them had a citizen under his arm, swords drawn.
“No,” Zan declared, more vehemently.
Toris turned his attention to the crowd.