A Dangerous Destiny: The Pure One Book I

Chapter Fifty-Seven

Ok, let's get back to Fiona and Alex. I'm sure you have all been wondering what happened to them since the attack! As most of the chapters in this section of the book are short due to POV changing, I have decided to group most of them together for the wattpad version. This section is meant to be fast paced switching so hopefully it will work:-) The beginning of this first Fiona chapter has a fair amount of exposition in its current from. Hope its interesting. I wonder if it is bothersome to not be "in scene" immediately? I'd love your opinions on that. Anyhoo, hope you enjoy!

Fiona

Fiona had spent more than a week with the Vox Populi now, hidden beneath the cellar of the Lucky Horse Alehouse, though it was hard to accurately keep track of time with no sign of the sun or moon in their windowless seclusion. The atmosphere was tense. While the traitor within their ranks had been exposed, and the King made to look like a fool in his attempts to stop their attack, in the end, the assault on the House of Lords had failed to achieve its ultimate goal. Henry Bastario still lived.  

She and Alex had both decided that any attempt to leave the city was not wise, at least until things had settled. After the attack, Henry had immediately placed the Auresir under lock down. Curfew had been assigned for all districts within the Capitol, including the Royal City, and word was that the King had dispatched armed retinues to impose similar restrictions on all towns within a thirty-mile radius of the city, ensuring that no rebels could escape far beyond the Capitol's gates.

When their cell received word only two days after the attack, that announcements of a public execution had been spreading through the city, they all breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed that the plan to sacrifice the informant as a scapegoat had, at least for now, proven to be acceptable to the Crown. Henry wanted a swift and decisive display of justice against the perpetrators of their crime. They had managed to avoid detection or capture long enough that the Empire was forced to show action with or without the rebel leader as their prisoner. They gave thanks for Henry's impatience.

She and Alex had even attended the event. Dressed in heavy hooded cloaks they stood in the crowd, brazenly watching as three men lost their lives for crimes of which they were innocent. Listening to the throngs of Erestian citizens, crying out with enthusisam to see the condemed met thier end, Fiona's heart had pounded furiously, filled with a mixture of guilt and exhilaration as innocent blood was sacrificed on the scaffolded alter to appease the people and the King.

One of the condemned was little more than a child and made for a disturbing victim to the King's anger. But Seleb Hill had been informing the Crown of their activities for months and it was difficult to find too much sympathy for the one who might have cost them everything, including their lives. Still she was glad that his end was swift.

The other two men were unknown, even to Alex. It seemed likely that the High Prison Commissioner had merely put them there for show. Three dead members of the Vox Populi to send a message to the people. The Empire would, at all costs, hunt the rebels from their midst and make them pay. To cement his point, the Henry had ordered the bodies of the hanged men left up after the execution. Gruesome ornaments along side a spike on which Hill's head was placed for display.

The ransom for the live capture of Harrison was now set at ten thousand gold talers, one thousand for his head, either reward being small fortune for most. But she was alive. Alex was alive. The Vox Populi would not be silenced, and she was certain now, that it would only be a matter of time before they brought down the villains who ruled the Empire.

This sham execution, the added guards, the charade of control, could only be maintained for so long. As the people were deceived into believing in their King's strength, Fiona felt all the more emboldened with the truth. Henry Bastario was desperate.  Once the Vox Populi had taken Erestia for the people, all of the crimes, for which they were accused, would be granted absolution. The true evil would be punished, and a new age of leadership would guide the Empire from the darkness that had plagued them for far too long.