The Ivory Rite

Chapter 13

Blood is everywhere. I feel like I'm drowning in it. 

We're all drowning in it.

The body has fallen off the platform, all the way to the ground, and the executioner has already taken his leave. The stone itself looks as though it's bleeding, blood running over its side in a small river. Something about it is vaguely familiar.

I hold onto Adair's hand like a life line, my vision blurring. Despite the screaming crowd, all I can hear is that man's voice. His last words, over and over again.

I die for the Queen.

I die for the Queen.

I die for the Queen.

"Diem. Diem!" Margret whispers loudly, trying to get my attention. I finally look over, realizing that her gaze is locked on my handhold with Adair. Every muscle in my body is clenched. I don't think I could let go of him if I tried.

"It's alright," he whispers in my ear, before standing to block the crowd's view of me. "It's time to go, Diem. Come on." I turn away from Margret and allow Adair to lead me to the exit.

"She has to stay for the close," Margret hisses.

"That's enough. Let her go," I hear Thane say. "It'll be easy to explain with her reputation for illness." He stands, moving to speak to Adair in a hushed tone. His eyes flit to our hands, which are still fitted together. Something silent passes between them, and then Adair leads me into the dim tunnel.

Although I remember our walk into the Theater as taking a small eternity, we arrive outside in a few short minutes. Adair releases my hand only after we're shut into the carriage, alone. The absence of his skin on mine fills me with an immediate sense of loneliness.

My throat feels raw for some reason, as though I've been screaming. I try to say something, to thank him, but I'm interrupted by the sound of his helmet hitting the inside wall of the carriage. He's thrown it with so much force I'm surprised it hasn't left a hole.

"Don't you ever, ever, do that again." His demeanor has changed in a split second, his tone laced with fury. He towers over me, refusing to sit down, but unable to stand to his full height in the enclosed space.

"What?" I croak out, confused.

"You just defended a Rust in front of the entire kingdom!" he screams, startling me so badly that I actually cower. The carriage starts to move.

"What are you talking about? That man is dead!" I can't keep my voice from shaking. "That innocent man is dead, and I did nothing to stop it." My stomach churns, and I think I might vomit. I double over, clutching my stomach.

So much blood.

"The woman!" He's still yelling, his face reddening more with each passing moment. "You commanded a member of the White Watch to release that woman. You defended a Ruadh woman." His chest is heaving. He clenches and unclenches his fists, looking as though he might punch something.

"Lower your voice." I say each word deliberately, looking up at him. His anger invades, filling the carriage, making the air hard to breathe. I start to feel it myself.

"You cannot do that! We have not had a ruling queen for generations, and upon your introduction, during the very same ceremony that seeks to pay penance for a queen's warm blood treason, you show them mercy!" He rakes his hands though his hair, taking exactly three paces back and forth across the carriage floor, over and over again.

"I said lower your voice!" The anger is flushing through my veins now, spreading to every part of my body. "How can you feel nothing? It was the worst moment of that woman's life, and that Watchman was manhandling her! A man, twice her size! They are people, Adair! People, not cattle! How can you defend this? How can you stand for it?" I'm screaming back at him now, my knuckles white from clutching the edge of my seat. How can one of these hands have held his only moments ago? Nothing seems more impossible.