Starkeeper of the Fractured Crown

He pulled up the hood on the jacket I had let him borrow, one I had gotten Mark for the later years, and smiled from the shadow of it. “Let’s go.”

~~~

Two days passed and Cole was getting pretty good at helping me thieve.

I was successfully turning a praised General into a common thief, and I found decent satisfaction in that.However, when Condemnation came into view today, horror filled me at what I saw.

Cole ran into me, whispering an apology as I turned to him, the narrow alleyway only wide enough for us towalk one in front of the other. Which meant he hadn’t seen what I had.

Not yet.

I had come into the city at a different point today, closer to my target. Condemnation is usually where I enter and exit the city, but I hadn’t today. I had missed this. I shouldn’t have missed this.

Stupid, idiotic girl.

“Have you ever actually been to Therian?” Did he know what my High King did here? Did he reallyknow?

I suppose even if he didn’t know, it wouldn’t be a huge shock to him with what they did in Oridian, but he still deserved to be warned. It was the decent thing to do.

Cole’s eyes flicked behind me and back, suspicion growing. “I know about Condemnation, but no not since before the War of Ruin. Trick usually takes care of business here.”

Yeah, I had found plenty of stories of the Fallen kidnapping humans to torture and dissect. Those stories were far more gruesome than this but reading it and seeing it were two completely different things.

I glanced back towards the alleyway entrance. I had written stories with things like this within them. Describing them forced me to desensitize to it so that when I was able to help those hanging on those crosses, I could do it without them seeing the fear in my eyes. But this?

I closed my eyes and turned back to Cole, only opening them again when I knew I would find his. “You wanted information, so I’ll give it to you. I’llshowyou what my High King does. It shouldn’t be too big a shock becauseit’s exactly what yours does, but you can’t react. We are thieves. Drawing attention to ourselves is a death sentence.”

He nodded once and only once. “Understood.”

I searched his eyes for another second before turning to the alley entrance. There were a lot of eyes here, but every pair was focused on Condemnation, so we would be fine.

Even so, crowds scared me. They were as easy to get caught in as they were to get lost in. We would have to stick to the sides of the buildings, try to get a glimpse through the people what lay before us.

I walked up to the entrance just to get a quick look to make sure no one was paying attention before I slipped into the crowd, Cole at my heels.

A crowd had flooded the streets around the crosses, people whispering, talking, but no one shed a tear, the guards placed around the area made sure of that. If anyone even looked like they felt bad about what happened, they would be deemed a Sympathizer and theirs would be the next body hanging on those crosses.

When I found a small empty spot, I finally turned to what lay before us.

Condemnation held five crosses embedded into the concrete. The beams six inches on each side, wrapped in barbed wire.

People were nailed up with iron nails, and sometimes, if their hands broke free of those nails and they were still alive, the people of the city got to watch as the guards replaced the nail, driving it into their wrists instead.

Three people were hanged today.

A warlock.

A Fae.

A wolf.

Cole stopped beside me, the anger falling from him so palpable, I felt it just as I felt the crowd ebbing and flowing around us.

He either actually cared about the other species’ in this world, or he just hated Raphael that much.

My blood had turned to ice, my stomach twisting with the fear I felt.

The Fae, a male or female, I couldn’t tell, had been skinned alive. I could see the tears in its wrists, see its bones, from where it had struggled to get free.