Page 31 of A Promise of Lies (Shadows of the Tenebris Court #3)

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Bastian

N ight’s chill still clung to the morning air, misting my breath as I waited in the city’s central square with hundreds of others. Arms folded, scowl in place, I played the part of the Bastard of Tenebris, distant and disinterested in the event, only here because it was expected of the Night Queen’s representative.

But the hand that had gripped my throat since Kaliban’s arrest loosened with every minute. This day would see him freed.

The prisoners waited in a guarded enclosure behind the platform where Cyrus sat upon a sunstone throne. The prisoners blinked at the clear sky above and the clouds blowing in from the nearby sea. How long since some of them had seen the outside world? It had been a week for my athair . I tried not to look at him, check if he was all right, but the tug on me was all the stronger now. I never stopped loving you. My boy .

Lucan was long minutes into a speech about forgiveness and benevolence, and the importance of justice.

From my position on a lower dais off to one side with the rest of the Convocation, I managed not to glare at Mored as he sidled up to me, but my shadows swirled in discontent.

I’d finally managed to catch up with Elthea. However, she’d been ordered not to discuss the topic of hair dye with anyone and had been threatened with a geas if she couldn’t comply.

She hadn’t said who exactly had threatened her with one, but my money was on Mored—as the Master of Magic, he ultimately oversaw everything at the Hall of Healing. If he had a whiff of the hair dye and wanted to keep that information suppressed, he was in the prime position and had the power to do so.

“You’ll be pleased about the prisoners, won’t you?” he said, just loud enough that the other Convocation members would hear. “Isn’t your father amongst them?”

I clamped my teeth around my tongue. He was trying to undermine my position by reminding the others that I’d been raised by traitors and couldn’t be trusted to make sound decisions now.

I tasted copper before I dared release my jaw. I lifted one shoulder. “We’ve barely spoken since my other father’s death.” My gaze shot to him and I let my shadows seethe. “You remember, the one I killed.”

Mored went pale and backed away.

Sometimes, being the Bastard of Tenebris was useful.

Free of that irritant, I was keenly aware of Katherine’s presence in the crowd. Her red hair was a beacon, but I kept my gaze away. Instead I caught Ella’s eye and gave her a faint smile. She blew me a kiss in return.

She was better at this game than me.

Lucan’s voice rose as he reached the crescendo of his speech. “… And to that end, His Majesty?—”

“Has decided to personally see justice is done.” Cyrus flowed to his feet with a thin smile.

At my side, Asher stiffened and glanced at me, no doubt wondering if this was part of the plan.

This was very much not part of the plan—at least not the Convocation’s version of it.

Cyrus was meant to smile and wave and be seen presiding over the freeing of all the prisoners, giving them another chance at life with the stern reminder that should they fall foul of the law again, punishment would be swift and harsh.

I squeezed the buckle that usually attached my scabbard to my belt—no swords allowed in the king’s presence. Probably just as well. Too much temptation when I’d already come too close to harming him—and by extension, endangering Kat.

“For what justice can there be if the very worst are simply let free?” He raised his eyebrows and spread his hands. The crowd nodded, muttering agreement. “Bring forth Justice.”

My blood ran cold. The world slowed as if it too was freezing.

Two green-haired members of the Kingsguard brought forward the greatsword. Two serpents, one black, one silver, made up its hilt and crossguard, tiny stars glittering in constellations upon them.

Flashing a cruel smirk, Cyrus drew the sword, letting it glint in the cool sunlight.

Ancient text gleamed along its huge blade, spelling out the only purpose it could be wielded for and its name: justice.

“Bring the first prisoner. Give me a murderer. They deserve to pay, don’t they?”

Some in the crowd looked at each other as if wondering whether this was a joke or a trick. Others nodded. A few cheered. The guards between them and Cyrus squared their shoulders.

Public executions were barbaric. We hadn’t done them in centuries. It was part of why rolling what I’d thought was Sura’s head across the throne room had been so shocking. Such uncivilised behaviour proved the taint of my unseelie blood.

But that didn’t stop Cyrus as he had the woman brought before him.

“Your Majesty,” Galiene lurched forward, “this isn’t?—”

Cyrus swung Justice in her direction, pointing. An instant later, its blade clanged to the floor. “Guards, ensure I’m not interrupted.”

They leapt to obey, surrounding Galiene until she backed off. She was the head of the City Watch, but Dawn’s palace guards had just shown they were loyal to their king.

Once the square was quiet again, Cyrus seized the prisoner’s shoulder and lifted Justice—it moved easily despite its great size. In one movement, he sliced.

Blood spattered the front row of the crowd as the woman’s throat opened up. Gurgling, she slumped to the ground.

Cyrus hadn’t stopped. For a moment, I’d clung onto the idea that this was some stupid joke of his, designed to scare the prisoners and shock the rest of us. I’d expected him to stop with the blade against her throat.

At my side, Asher muttered something.

“It’s all right.” I nodded as much for myself as him. “The sword will only lift for a just death. As soon as he reaches an innocent, it will be too heavy for him to wield.”

Someone like Kaliban. I prayed to every god that his past crimes didn’t make his death right in the eyes of Justice.

Because Cyrus wasn’t stopping at one. He called for the next prisoner.

The short man was brought forward. He’d violated others. Another death Justice deemed worthy of its bite. I couldn’t blame it. This time Cyrus stabbed him through the heart, smiling as the man slid from Justice’s blade.

As the guards bundled more fae to the platform and Cyrus cut through them, I weighed my options. But only the Night Queen herself could stop this, and we were far from sunset and almost a month past the eclipse.

The bodies piled up and the crowd grew ashen. Even those who had cheered at first had grown quiet. Convocation members kept swapping covert glances, not wanting to risk revealing that this hadn’t been planned and their king was unpredictable and uncontrolled.

At last, the grandmother of a shapechanger family who’d been part of the mass arrests came to the platform. She pulled away from the guard and approached Cyrus with her shoulders back. “We are guilty of what we are, nothing more. My nature cannot be a crime. There has been no trial, and I do not recognise your laws against my kind.”

Faolán stood behind me in a bodyguard position, and I could feel the need to move simmering in him before he reached my side.

I grabbed his shoulder. “Do you believe her or Cyrus?”

Gaze locked on the grisly show, he wrinkled his nose in a snarl. “Are you gambling that family’s lives on the whims of an ancient sword?”

“This isn’t just. The sword knows.”

But as Cyrus scoffed at the shapechanger and tightened his grip on the serpent hilt, I held my breath.

Justice didn’t move.

Nostrils flaring, he flashed a quick, disbelieving smile and heaved. But try as he might, he could not lift the blade.

I exhaled, shakily and released Faolán. “Justice is on our side.”

“I hope you’ll bring this to the Convocation.” Asher inclined his head, determination in the set of his jaw as he glowered at Cyrus. “It’s a clear sign this rubbish is entirely made up and it needs to end.”

“It’s past time,” Faolán growled.

“Long past.” I squeezed his shoulder before releasing him. “And this will help us argue that.”

At last, Cyrus laughed, but it was strained and high-pitched. “Won’t you look at that? Justice has spoken.” He spread his hands with a tight smile. “The elder must speak some truth. Clearly the City Watch wasn’t on the side of justice when they arrested these good folk. But I shall free them.”

They were only arrested because of you . I gritted my teeth, jaw aching as I battled to keep the words in.

“In fact”—Cyrus shoved the sword’s hilt into a guard’s hand—“free them all. Let my forgiveness be a lesson to you all. Do not stray onto the wrong side of Justice again.”

Guards opened the enclosure and unshackled prisoners as they filed out. It roused a few desultory cheers from the crowd, but they still looked pale. I met Kat’s gaze for a moment. She looked away quickly, too close to Cyrus’s eye line to avoid his attention for long, but she held her hand over her heart, an unspoken message.

As my athair reached the front of the line, the grip around my throat eased and my shadows sank to the ground, still for once.

“But.” Cyrus’s voice cut through the square like a single strike on a great drum. “A king cannot forgive everyone.”

I started forward before I even realised what I was doing. Guards closed in, not grabbing me, but blocking the way. Their fingers twitched, ready to draw weapons. I mastered myself, hand squeezing the buckle again.

“Bring Kaliban here.”

Folk murmured in recognition of the name.

Cyrus lifted his chin, lips thin and flat as he watched my athair approach. “The turncoat who married an even greater turncoat. You chose a false queen, then changed your allegiances in the middle of the war, did you not? And your husband joined Princess Sura’s ill-fated coup. By my reckoning, that makes you a traitor twice—perhaps even thrice over, and now…” He held up his hands as though the truth was self-evident.

He’d already plotted against one monarch, of course he’d orchestrated the murder of another.

“Bastian?” Faolán’s voice was low and urgent. “What do we do?”

I’d held him back. And now, although my muscles roared at me to get my athair away from Cyrus, I had to hold myself back, too. The prong of the buckle pierced my palm, a sharp counter to my pulse, which begged me to step in. “He isn’t guilty. Trust in Justice.”

At the foot of the platform, Kat lurched forward. “But…” Her strained voice barely reached me before the guards turned their attention to her.

“Kneel,” Cyrus said with a sneering smile. He peered down at my athair and Kat. “There are those who have pressed me for leniency. There are those who have petitioned for it and offered all sorts of favours in exchange for your life. How it must feel to be so popular! Yet, I am the King of Elfhame, and what kind of king would I be if I set such an example? Any fae may murder their ruler and walk free? No. That is not the message I would give my subjects.

“I’m sure the Night Queen would agree.” He turned that mocking smile upon me, and I thought my chest would explode from the wild surge of my heart as it demanded his blood.

“He isn’t guilty,” I whispered, staring at Justice, which waited in a guard’s hands, tip resting upon the floor.

Still, it was the most painful gamble of my life. My athair had atoned for his sins. He’d turned coat to support Braea because the other side had summoned the Horrors and used them on soldiers and civilians indiscriminately. He’d tried to make that nightmare right. It was their defection at the final battle that ended the war. Without that, we might have wiped ourselves out.

If those things weren’t enough, he’d been punished plenty, too.

He’d had his titles and position stripped for backing the wrong side in the first place. He’d lost the man he loved and his son in one fell swoop. He’d lived in miserable isolation ever since, with Kat as the only bright spark in all those years.

“ He isn’t guilty. ” This time I said it with a dip of my chin. Justice was on our side.

“It is my right, as the son of the murdered man, to take the life of the one responsible.” Cyrus spread his arms wide, presenting himself as the wronged party before kicking my athair’s back, so he bowed forward. “It’s only right that I should use my family blade.”

He drew the Brightblade, which swallowed up the thin sunlight remaining as clouds closed in. The sword flared to life.

I’d barely registered his words as I burst forward, body and shadows as one.

But there were so many guards. I dodged them, but they slowed me. Even the darkness I sent ahead hadn’t reached my athair yet.

Cyrus’s sword rose above his neck. I was still ten feet away.

I leapt, shadows helping me up the platform as I drew my dagger, ready to block the strike.

My lungs heaved. My muscles burned. My arm stretched. I could make it. I could?—

The Brightblade fell, scorching the air, searing my eyes.

“I’ve got you,” I whispered as I caught my athair and braced.