Chapter 3
Elara's POV
Kael left for the border two weeks in.
Orc uprising in the east. He rode out at dawn with half the army, and I watched from the balcony in a borrowed robe, waving like a housewife seeing her husband off to war.
Except he wasn't my husband, he hated me, and I was waving goodbye to the only thing standing between me and everyone in this city who wanted me dead.
Have fun storming the border, Your Majesty. I'll be fine. I'll just be here, alone, in a palace full of people who despise me.
What could possibly go wrong.
Answer: everything.
The rain stopped the day after he left. Not gradually. It just stopped. Two weeks of nothing — no clouds, no drizzle, no dew in the morning. The crops went brown. The Magic Spring dropped a full hand's width, and the priests stopped letting people look at it.
By week two, the city was buying water by the jug. By week three, people were fighting in the streets over it.
That's when High Priest Malachi decided to do something about it.
He climbed the temple steps with his gold staff and his voice pitched to carry across the whole square.
"THE MOON GODDESS HAS TURNED HER FACE FROM US!"
Dramatic. Effective. Everyone stopped and stared.
"WHY?" He spun, robes flaring. "WHY has she withheld the rain?"
Then he pointed. Straight at the palace. Straight at my window.
"BECAUSE THE KING BROUGHT A CURSED WOMAN INTO HIS HOUSE! A commoner! A barren commoner! Her womb holds no life — only drought! Only death! Only the wrath of heaven!"
Murmuring in the crowd.
"The goddess demands fire!" Malachi raised both arms. "Give her the flame, and the rain returns!"
I was counting gold when they kicked the door in.
Let me be clear about the gold. It was my salary. My monthly stipend. I had counted it four times that morning and I was about to count it a fifth, because it was mine, and it was the only good thing in my entire life.
I sat cross-legged on the floor with the box open in my lap, genuinely, deeply happy for the first time in weeks.
Then the door came off its hinges.
"Hey! HEY — what are you doing—!"
Temple knights. Full armor. Sunburst on the chests. They grabbed me by both arms and hauled.
"MY GOLD!" I kicked. I grabbed. I hugged the box to my chest like a firstborn. "That's MY SALARY! I earned that! I got poisoned for that! I got shot at for—"
The lead knight backhanded the box out of my arms.
Coins everywhere. Rolling across the marble. Under the bed. Down the drain grate.
That's my rent. That's my whole escape fund.
"Heretic," the knight said. "Witch. You brought this drought on the empire."
"I brought what?"
They clamped irons on my wrists.
They paraded me through the city.
Past the bakery. Past the fountain with three days of water left in it. Past the crowd that had been friendly to me two weeks ago and now threw rotten fruit at my head.
I ducked a tomato. It hit a knight instead.
"Sorry," I said, out of habit, before remembering he was kidnapping me.
Malachi was waiting at the square, standing next to a woodpile twice my height, holding a torch like a scepter. Seraphina stood ten feet behind him, in a beautiful dress, somehow back in the capital despite a direct royal order. I hadn't seen her since the soup.
She smiled at me. I smiled back.
How's the estate, Your Grace? Still locked down?
"You look well," I said.
"You're about to die," she said sweetly.
"Still well."
But Malachi hadn't just stacked wood. He'd hired help.
I'd been watching the shadows since we left the palace. Three separate teams of it.
The first was on the rooftops.
I heard the bowstrings before the bolts.
Three of them. Thick, fast, dark with poison. Aimed at my back.
And I only heard them because I bent over.
Because my shoelace came untied.
"Hang on — hold up—"
I stopped dead in the street. Bent double. Ass in the air. Grabbed the lace.
Thwip-thwip-thwip.
Three bolts cut the air over my spine so close I felt the wind of them.
They hit the knights walking ahead of me.
Right in the butts.
"AAAAAGH—!"
Three knights down. Foaming at the mouth. Twitching on the cobblestones.
The assassin on the roof lowered his crossbow and just stared.
I finished my bow and stood up.
"You guys okay?" I said, looking at the knights. "That looks like it hurts."
The second team ran an apple cart.
Covered in apples, packed underneath with enough blasting powder to level the street. Timed to go off as I passed.
I did pass.
Then I stopped.
Something in the gutter caught my eye. Small, round, shiny, wedged into a crack between two stones.
Is that — is that a silver piece?
I dove. Full dive. Both hands. Face in the gutter. Nobody in the history of this empire has ever hit the ground that fast for a coin.
The cart went up behind me.
BOOM.
Late. Wet fuse. The blast went forward instead of down — apples everywhere, wood shrapnel, the whole cart flipping sideways. The rear wheel came off and flew across the street like a discus.
It hit the apple vendor in the back of the head.
He went down. Out cold. Still wearing the apron.
I dug the coin loose, blew the dirt off, pocketed it.
Nice.
The lead knight looked at his downed men. At the flaming wreck. At me, standing there with gutter water on my face and a silver piece in my pocket.
His hands were shaking.
"What kind of dark magic," he whispered. "What are you?"
"Tired," I said. "I'm a very tired person."
The third team never showed.
Apparently the leader got sick from bad carp the night before and the other two quit that morning. One of them left a note.
So they marched me the rest of the way without incident, past a crowd that got quieter with every step, to the pyre.
They tied me to the post. Chains and rope.
Malachi climbed up beside me with his torch and gave me the face. That special priestly face — eyes heavy, mouth sad, like he was doing me a favor.
"Poor lost lamb," he said softly. "Your death will bring the rain. The goddess forgives you. Go in peace."
I looked at him.
"First of all," I said, "you're a bald fraud and everyone here knows it. You're doing this because someone told you to. Second—" I twisted toward the crowd, raising my voice, "—second, when the King gets back and finds out what you did to the woman he's contractually obligated to keep alive, you're going to be so—"
"Light it," said Malachi.
A torch hit the wood.
Fire went up in sheets. So hot I felt it on my face instantly. Smoke came next, thick and black, and my skirt was already starting to curl.
Seraphina was laughing. I could hear her over the roar.
Okay. Okay, think. This might be the one. This might be the one where the luck finally doesn't—
