The Queen of Grass and Tree (Southwind Knights #2)

Chapter Five

Chapter V: The Execution

Sun beams burned through Asher’s eyelids.

The light cut through the fog of sleep, dissolving a dream of soft skin and forcing Asher’s eyes to squint open. He was in his castle quarters. In the long wait for dawn, he’d fallen asleep. He jumped out of bed. The sun was cresting. The hanging had begun.

Bursting out his door, he dodged around servants and barreled through the corridor, down the stairs, and into the castle courtyard. He blew by both gates’ guards and ignored their panicked shouts, barely leaving a footprint in the Pretty as he entered the clustered City and dove into its shifting crowd. A sense of déjà vu seized him as he shouldered through the mob, fearing that Finn was already dead.

The gallows were easy to find. Executions were made public, and he just had to follow the flow of the people who moved en masse toward the site. As Asher drew nearer, the crowd grew thicker, and as he rounded the curve of the outer wall, the stage came into view.

A wide platform of wooden planks had been raised against the vine-laden eastern wall. The left half of the stage was for the condemned. Great beams of wood formed a rectangular arch along which dangled ropes, their ends tied into nooses pointing down at the floor’s square trap doors. Two ropes had been arranged for this day, strung high to ensure that their victims did not fall below the platform. The crowd was meant to watch them die.

The right side of the stage was a duplicate of the Queen’s dais in her tower. A great blue rug lay over the wood, and a row of chairs provided comfort for the authorities overseeing the execution. Behind the chairs, a door was cut into the stone wall, providing a way to and from the assemblies.

Queen Lilian stood there with her Princesses, and as Asher twisted his way to the front of the mob, the two prisoners were led onto the stage. A moment of relief lifted him. Finn was alive, first in line, hands bound behind his back. He struggled against two grimacing guards who wrestled him forward to his spot on the gallows. The rabble-rouser followed, twice Finn’s size but going quietly, weak with hunger, feet dragging in delirium.

The crowd roared a low tone of disapproval, the sound wave making Asher swoon for a moment. This was a hundred times the size of any Southwind mob.

A hand grabbed Asher’s arm, spinning him around. He found Galen’s scarred face before him, shadowed under-hood, dark eyes full of worry.

“Asher—”

“Finn!” Asher said, and he tore away. He had to keep going. There was no time. The condemned were positioned over the trap doors, nooses laid loosely around their necks.

The Queen stepped forward, hands held high for silence. Hannah and Miriam took their seats as Asher squeezed toward the stage, drawing close. A hush swept the crowd.

The Queen’s voice was powerful. “These—” she turned her head for a moment, looking at Finn, “—men have been found guilty of treason and taking up arms against the Crown.”

The people booed on cue, and Finn fought to break free. One of the gallows guards stunned him with a punch to his bruised temple; the flailing stopped. The soldiers tightened the nooses and retreated to the back of the platform.

“Let it be known,” the Queen continued, “that any act of treason will be met with the utmost retribution. Those who threaten our peace will be dealt with. Justice will be swift and without mercy!”

Asher broke through the front of the crowd, and he flung himself toward the platform steps. The stage was circled, however, by a ring of soldiers. With shield and spear they held the ground between the mob and the spectacle. Hands seized him as soon as he appeared, locking him down.