They went to their deaths hungry and unwashed, like numberless criminals before them.
It was Yorek who came down into the prison, accompanied by no fewer than ten imperial guards. He appeared in the doorway between the stone golems, his eyes wide in the dimness.
"Take them," he said.
Mhera heard Matei's cell door open. He came into view, roughly jerked forward by one of the guards. He did not resist. A second guard stepped up behind him, a length of rope in hand. He bound Matei's wrists behind his back.
She stood up as two guards approached her cell and opened the door. Yorek, standing to one side, looked in at her with disgust, eying the dirty clothes she wore. A moment passed as the guards simply stood there.
"What are you waiting for?" Yorek demanded. "Take her, too!"
Hesitantly, one of them stepped into the cell. They tied her hands behind her back, and she did not resist them. Her mind was still and quiet, even as they took her by the arms and led her out of her cell. She was thinking of what lay ahead.
Zanara grant that this may be the end to it, she prayed, for now. Guide them, Goddess. Guide them to their victory when the time comes.
The stairway to the outside was long and narrow; it was hard to walk abreast. Yorek went first, followed by three of the guards; then came Matei, pushed slightly ahead of his wardens, who walked shoulder to shoulder. After him came Mhera, struggling to walk while her escorts pushed her ahead. The last three guards were at the rear.
As they progressed up the stair, Matei spoke. "Ten men for one broken-down rebel and a lady? Damn, Yorek—you take no chances."
The councilor did not dignify the mockery with a response. Mhera wondered if he noticed that Matei knew his name.
When they emerged into the morning, the light was blinding. Mhera closed her stinging eyes and turned her face toward her shoulder. Even before she could see, she heard the roaring of a crowd some distance away.
They were in the blacksmith's courtyard. The guards followed Yorek, turning to the left and walking along the shaded alleyway toward the Sovereign Square. They emerged into the crowd, which parted to permit them passage. Mhera tried not to look around. Her bravery was deserting her now, when she needed it the most. The staring faces, Starborn and Arcborn alike, turned to watch them. She looked only at the back of Matei's head, grasping desperately for the peace and the calm she had felt up until this moment.
She spoke a prayer into the silence of her heart. Take us, Zanara, our Mother. Don't forsake us now. Please let me be brave. Let me face this; let there be peace.
As the folk parted to let the soldiers through, Mhera saw a familiar platform erected in front of the statues of the Blessed Sovereigns. The crowd stretched beyond in a sea of mingled faces, staring and talking and shouting. The executioner stood on the platform, his sheathed sword at his belt.
Next to him was the emperor himself. The rest of the royal family, except for Kaori, was assembled on the steps of the palace. Yorek was there with a man Mhera recognized despite the long years that had passed since last she saw his face: Archmage Jaeron.
She searched, but did not see the faces of her parents. She wondered if they knew what would happen here today. They must not. No message could reach them in the space of a night, wherever they were. Even if they knew, she did not know if they would care. They could not take her side. Not against the emperor.
Gella was there, though; she stood behind the small figure of Kochan, Koren's son, and Mhera could not see her expression from so far away.
The guards took Matei and Mhera up the stairs. As they stepped onto the platform, Korvan did not look at either of them. When they reached the center of the platform, each of them held fast by their pair of guards, Korvan stepped forward.
Mhera did not think she had ever seen so many people in one place before, and all eyes were on the emperor. He raised his voice to address the crowd.
"People of Karelin," he cried, "You look upon the source of all your fear and want! This man, who is called the king of the rebels, has sown dissent and conflict between the Arcborn and the Starborn in Penrua! I need not enumerate his many crimes against us all. You will remember well enough how the rebels' cruelty and violence has touched your lives. You will remember the many men, women and children who have suffered and died beneath his banner. With his hands, he has lain waste to a world built by generations of righteous men!
"I, your emperor, carry the will of the Goddess upon my shoulders. Thus, it falls to me to bring justice to this man. I cannot show him mercy."
Mhera could hear her pulse in her ears, even through the sound the murmuring crowd. She felt it beating in her wrists beneath the coarse rope that bound her. She wished she could reach for Matei's hand. She wished they could meet this end together. Instead, it seemed, she would be forced to watch him die. She drew a shaking breath.
"Now, look upon the maiden at my side," Korvan said. Mhera did not detect a hint of hesitation in his voice. His resolve was hard and cold. "This is Mhera, my own niece. You recognize her as a lady of noble birth, the daughter of my dearest sister!"
The world turned its penetrating gaze upon Mhera.
"She was once a pledged Daughter of Zanara, living under the gray veil, but look how far she has fallen. She allowed herself to be seduced to darkness and has been cast aside by the Goddess. Do not turn your eyes away from her fate!
"Witness the extent of my commitment to you, my people. I will tear out the seeds of corruption and sin from within the sacred garden of my own family. It grieves me, but for peace, Mhera must die!"
Voices rose in a wave of sound. Mhera could not tell what they said.
"Let us end this war with my sacrifice," Korvan cried. "Let us put this bloodshed behind us and have peace!"
Mhera saw Arcborn faces turning, Arcborn people muttering. Were they convinced that this could truly be an end? They would simply go back to the way their lives had always been. Mhera wondered if that would be peace. She did not see hope in their eyes—only resignation.
Suddenly, her heart skipped a beat. Whose face was that in the crowd?
Uachi was gazing up at her, looking grim as death. His shadow paint was washed away, and Farra was not with him. His cowl was pulled down, settled like a dark scarf around his neck. A round, freckled face could be seen at his shoulder: Aun. How had they come to be here, and why?
He had seen her recognition. Slowly, Uachi raised his gloved hand in a silent salute. A farewell.
Aun repeated the gesture. And who was that? Sashta, somewhere back farther in the crowd? There were others, too, raising their hands in acknowledgment and blessing. A face there—and there—more people she recognized from the encampment, their visages swimming in anonymity among hundreds of others. The movement rippled out through the crowd.
Mhera whispered, "Look," and she heard Matei reply, "I see."
Korvan stepped back from the front of the platform. Still, he did not look toward his prisoners; he moved across the platform, ready to descend and leave them to their fates. Mhera looked wildly back at the crowd, straining to see Uachi's face. There were so many people that she failed to glimpse him again.
But now there was someone on the palace steps who had not been there a moment before: the lorekeeper. Next to him was Kaori, sitting on a litter. Four palace guards had carried it; they set the chair down on the step next to Eovin before taking the poles away.
Was it fair to feel betrayed, she wondered? No. If the prince were to stand with them—with Mhera, Koreti, and Esaria—then he, too, would die.
The guards who held Matei began to move him toward the front of the platform. Mhera shook. Now that it came to the end of it all, the fear she should have felt every moment the night before came crashing over her. Peace, give me peace, please give me peace, she prayed, but Zanara had exhausted her good will, it would seem, for there was no peace at hand for her.
Then a voice rang through the courtyard, raised so loudly it cracked at the edges. "Wait!"
It was Kaori.
A silence fell over the people. The guards holding Matei, who had begun to move him toward the front of the platform, hesitated. Faces turned toward the prince, some seeing him for the first time. The lorekeeper, standing at Kaori's side, bent down and slid an arm around his back. Kaori draped his arm over Eovin's shoulders, clutching him, and together, the men stood up.
"Your lust for blood knows no bounds, Father!" Kaori said.
A murmur rippled through the crowd as those who could hear the prince clearly passed along what he had said to those who could not. Mhera turned, straining to see the emperor's face. He had paused on the top stair.
Korvan gestured. Matei's guards continued. He struggled now, straining to look at Mhera's face, but they thrust him down to his knees.
Kaori cried, "The emperor will murder an innocent woman—murder her as he murdered my mother, the empress! The man who stands here is my lost brother, Koreti, another victim of his endless lust for blood!"
Korvan's expression moved swiftly through shock and into astonishment. He turned to look at the man kneeling on the platform. The perplexity on his face made him look like a younger man.
Everything was confusion. Across the courtyard, Mhera saw Prince Koren moving toward Kaori. From so far away, she could not read the expression on the firstborn prince's face, but he was pushing past people, nearly knocking over his wife and Madam Gella as he went.
"It's true, Koren!" she screamed, and the prince stopped to look at her across the crowd. One of the guards who held her raised his hand to smother her words. She bit him fiercely. He swore, pulling his hand away and savagely pushing her. She barely kept her footing.
Emperor Korvan had recovered his wits. He made a furious gesture. "Get on with this!" he cried. "Do you believe them? Koreti is dead! He was killed by rebels—rebels like this criminal! Execute him!"
Matei met Korvan's gaze. He knelt without struggling on the platform, one guard still standing on either side of him. "No rebel killed me, Father."
Korvan shook his head. "No. You lie! I should have your tongue ripped out before I take your head!"
"You cast me out that night, but I never died. Whose bones lie next to my mother's, Your Grace? Whom else did you kill to keep your ugly secret hidden?"
Korvan had not known. Mhera could see it in his face: the disbelief, the dawning horror, the pain. He shook his head again almost frantically, his shoulders rising and falling with panicked breaths. "No. No. I have no patience for this filth—these lies—"
Mhera looked out across the assembled witnesses. They had expected to come to see the end of a rebellion, and now, every face was slack with shock.
Without thinking, she cried, "My people! This man fights for the Arcborn—he fights for Penrua! He fights for peace! He came willingly to the sword to bring peace to all of you—Arcborn and Starborn alike! He is your ally! Do not stand by and watch him die!"
Koren could be heard to cry in instant reaction, "She lies!" as the crowd began to roar.
Korvan was moving toward her now. He took her by the front of her tunic and shook her. "Wretch!" he screamed. She felt his spittle on her face and flinched away.
"Don't touch her!" Matei cried. He struggled, trying to gain his feet, but the guards—too bewildered to know precisely what to do—held him where he was.
Korvan threw Mhera away from him and turned to flee the platform. With her hands bound behind her, she could not catch herself. She fell sprawling onto the platform with a painful thud. Struggling for breath, she turned, trying to see where Korvan had gone, but from her vantage point she could not see him.
Thwick!
One of the guards holding Matei fell over, an arrow protruding from his chest. Before what was happening could register, the other one dropped, crashing into the guards who stood before the executioner's platform. In the space of a breath, both of the guards who had held Mhera fell, too.
The world dissolved into chaos. Over the tumult of the crowd and the clang of weapons, Mhera could hear Matei shouting, "Uachi, you fool!"
Mhera rolled onto her side, trying to push herself up off the platform, but she was thrust back down as Matei threw himself over her, shielding her with his body. "Stay down," he said. "They've drawn their weapons, the fools—"
A flash of light. A crackling sound. Screaming. Someone had unleashed magic.
More screams tore through the courtyard, reverberating off the high stone walls of the palace and the surrounding buildings.
Suddenly, booted footsteps shook the planks of the platform, and Mhera felt Matei being pulled bodily away from her. "No!" she screamed, rolling onto her back, but when she looked up she saw it was Uachi. He had a dagger in his hand. He sliced through the bonds that held Matei, then pushed Mhera roughly onto her front so he could free her, too. "Stay down," he said.
Matei, on the other side, had scrambled to his feet. He stood with his palms overflowing with white light. Uachi slipped his dagger back into his belt and drew his bow in one fluid motion, stepping in front of Mhera.
"People!" Matei cried. "My people! Lay down your arms!"
On the other side of the crowd, Mhera could hear Kaori's cracking voice, and Eovin's, too. All of them were crying for peace. Kaori was commanding the guards to lay down their weapons, to lay off the assault.
But no voice could seem to rein in the confusion. Onlookers were scattering as Arcborn and Starborn clashed. It was unclear who was on whose side; the guards took up arms against the marked and unmarked alike, vainly trying to quell the violence that had broken out. Mhera heard the sickening sound of a sword driving home somewhere near at hand. She looked wildly around, turning in time to see the man fall.
"Stop!" she cried. "Stop—let us have peace!"
She could still hear Matei and Kaori demanding the same. The battle continued in stops and starts; there was no clear path forward.
Fitfully, almost one-by-one, the people came to a tense standstill.
The courtyard had half emptied as bystanders fled. At last, the ones who remained stood still, their fists white-knuckled around the hilts of their weapons or their hands sparking with vicious power. Everyone was taut as a bowstring, ready to loose.
Mhera rose to her feet, stepping cautiously out from behind Uachi, who had an arrow nocked and ready. She sought Matei's face.
At the same moment, he turned, seeking hers—but he could not seem to look at her. He raised an arm, crossing it in front of his face and lowering his head as if it hurt his eyes to see her. "Mhera ..."
Mhera turned to looked behind her; she saw nothing but Uachi's broad chest. She opened her mouth to speak, turning back to Matei, but when she saw him, the words caught in her throat.
She could not look upon him. She couldn't see his face. It was too bright; it shone with a light like the sun.
Mhera turned her face away, squinting against the brilliance and raising her hands to shield her eyes. After a moment, she dared to look up at Matei from under her lashes.
There was a point of light gleaming on his brow: a four-pointed star.
A sound of awe passed through the crowd, not unlike the whisper of the ocean that was so familiar to Mhera—first a hush, and then the crash of voices calling out in amazement.
"A light from heaven!" someone cried.
One after another, the folk surrounding the platform knelt down on the cobblestones: man and woman, peasant and nobleman, Arcborn and Starborn; even the imperial soldiers knelt. Those who wore helmets doffed them, bowing their heads and making the holy gesture of respect to Zanara, the Mother, in acknowledgment of what they saw.
Mhera felt the heat of the star on her brow. She reached blindly for Matei's hand and found it, moving closer to him.
She heard a voice then. It spoke in her heart, somewhere deep down inside. Well done, Daughter. Well done.