Conquering The Unbroken

Chapter 37

I don't have time to process my shock. I need to vomit. But there isn't time to do so. I'm pushed forward, Renit whispering reassurance in my ear that everything is all right. Everything is not all right.

Mills, Mani, Piper, Darius.

Mills, Mani, Piper, Darius.

Who else? Who else died? Was there a nameless guard that smiled at me in passing; a servant to Renit's tower that lost her head? My hands won't stop shaking, and yet, my inside is solid rock. Through the internal shock barreling through me like blazing fire searing through a tunnel, I can't tell whether my heart is standing for me or if it's my stomach, steeling away the nerves so I don't vomit during this operation.

For the sake of Binx's illusion, I hold it down.

Mills.

What do I tell Dalis? How am I supposed to break the news that the only family that ever cared about her...is dead? The memory of his face is in my head now, I can't unsee it, and Binx's hand on my back is little to no help at all. They're guiding me forward to the side of the courtyard, these steps are not my own. Yet I'm moving. I'm moving because that's the only thing I can do.

My hands are clutched tight against my chest, fingers intertwined together. I've never seen such a hollow...black in Binx's eyes. I meet his stare only for a second and we share a knowing look. Dalis is close to both of us, it's merely a fifty, fifty chance who gets to break the news to her.

Your father is dead. The king beheaded him. When we arrived, it was too late, and he spiked your father's head on the gates for all of Mailan, and us, to see.

I can imagine the crumbling of her face, the umber toned hand shaking while she reaches up to cup her quivering mouth. The silver tears shed down her cheeks and the sobs, quiet enough that the rest of Arego can't hear them. I never witnessed her cry, not over Celestine, at least. But she did it in silence, the only evidence I saw was her puffed eyes, red-rimmed and exhausted. She was awake all night battling the tears and tending to wounded soldiers.

This...Dalis has been through enough. And whether it's me or Binx that shares the news with her, we're adding something else to the list. We might as well snap her in half. The pain is the same.

Mani was my servant and never harmed anyone in his life. We had lost touch after I came under the king's control; he stopped tending to me and only spoke to Celestine in hushed tones. The grey hair he kept perfectly quaffed into the tallest mohawk I'd ever seen...the king cut it off. Mani didn't have immortality, but he had style. It was the one thing he had and the king, before the helpless servant died, cut it off.

My moves are mindless as Renit and Binx hoist me over the wall. I climb down with shaking hands and my boots hit the cobblestone in the courtyard. Silence. Except for laughter. I look up through the fog in my mind, still being suffocated by the smell of their blood, and spot the guards along the castle. They're on patrol, they're watching, they're laughing. As if those heads on the gates are nothing more than prized ornaments; they don't care. These guards are likely the king's men and probably the ones that took their heads.

It was a clean cut, at least. If there's one thing I can hope for, it's that the four victims on the gates and whoever else died faced a quick death. Then I'm reminded the king doesn't do his business by swiftly cutting off heads—there's no theater in that. His victims first face a beating, either from his own fists or by that of a whip or a hot iron. They're beaten, punished, and then when they're begging for death...that's when he grants it.