Half of Ruby

Chapter 3

Ruby's eyes widened as she thrust her knapsack down. She raced towards the northwest entrance towards the Square, the one she always came through in the mornings, the one where the clash of steel had sounded from. 

"RUBY!" yelled Lina as she passed by. "STAY BACK!"

But Ruby continued to hurtle through the people, shoving aside the mass of panicked traders and shoppers as she approached the entrance. 

A figure knelt on his knees in between two of the cloaked figures, his hands forced through a rope behind his back, scowling at the ground.

All air escaped Ruby's lungs. The world blurred before her, melding into a terrible mirage of gray cobblestone and steely sky and dark cloaks and the glint of Jinx's pale hair. 

"And where did you get this?" asked the leftmost figure coldly.

Ruby's eyes widened, recognizing the sack Jinx had tried to make her take this morning.

"From my family heirlooms," said Jinx with equal sangfroid, tossing a strand of his straw-blond hair arrogantly out of his face. "I had to melt the gold down with the help of my friend."

The guard on the right snorted. "Which is why it's Giant gold? Your family had Giant gold? I don't think so, my friend."

"Well, I do," snarled Jinx.

The guard on the left chuckled. "You lie, Jinx. Yes, we know your name," he said, anticipation in his eyes and a smile across his lips at Jinx's momentary shock. "Do you really think we'd let a Giant murderer get away so easily? Especially one who murdered the crown prince?"

The crowd erupted into furious discourse. Ruby's face drained of all color. A Giant murderer? Jinx murdered the crown prince?

The Giant court consisted of one Giant King, one Giantess Queen, four princes, and four princesses. If Jinx had murdered the crown prince, the heir to the Giant throne....

Protests. Violence. Uproars. War. 

Horror boiled through Ruby, horror at what Jinx had done, desperation for what awaited him. Strangely, guilt plagued the inside of her stomach, bubbling and churning. But shock contained all of her terror and hopelessness in a bubble of disbelief, a paper-thin membrane around her anguish. 

Jinx couldn't have murdered a Giant. No, he couldn't have, because he had to be good, he had to have—

Ruby remembered the images in her textbooks, the garish scarlet of blood, the ragged silver of steel, the foul black of cobblestone littered with the corpses of both Faekind and Giants. The images of the Fae-Giant war.

The death of the crown prince, especially at the hands of such a lowly Fae peasant, would cause something much worse than that. 

Evidently the crowd realized this too, arguing and jostling and yelling and screeching—

"Silence!" commanded the right-hand guard, slashing his sword through the air. A peasant woman screamed, almost toppling over backwards into the crowd.

The leftmost guard turned back to Jinx. "You'll be coming with me. Up on your feet. Off to Queen Reinevra."

The cobblestone had bound Ruby's feet to the ground. Shock glued her entire body in place. Jinx stood up, still scowling, and followed the guards out.

The rest of the troops followed as the crowd behind Ruby exploded into furious discourse. 

Ruby didn't stay for any of it, but slipped out after the soldiers.