Chapter 120: Execution

I did not know it would go that far. But some part of me did.

Quinn was tortured for three days without rest. By the end of it, he confessed to something he had never done and had never been. He said he was a member of the Twilight Order, and that he had been trying to take control of the money inside the palace.

Every word of it was a lie, and every word of it was exactly the kind of lie a man tells when there is nothing left of him to protect. It was also the best thing that could have happened to me. A confession is a door that only opens one way. Once a tortured man has said it, no one in the palace can ever say it was untrue.

I stood in the great hall and waited for the bells.

In this place, watching execution was mandatory.

Everyone was ordered to attend, from the soldiers to the guests to the cooks, and no one was spared. Anyone who chose to stay in their room was seen as breaking the rule, and the soldiers would simply add them to the next execution. It was a clean, efficient cruelty. Culex did not need to threaten his people. He only needed to make them watch.

His word was law, and the law was a hand around every throat.

The great hall was packed so tightly that the air felt thick. Torchlight crawled over the crimson windows. High above us, the lightless chandelier hung like a dead crown, and beneath it stood a podium on wheels.

Quinn was on it.

He was alive. That was the worst part.

Blood had streamed from his shoulders and hands and dried into dark, flaking streaks.

His fingers were swollen and bare, and I saw that his nails were gone, plucked out one by one, probably on the first night. His head hung low and his eyes were barely open. He swayed with each shallow breath, as if even standing was a task the world had forgotten to take away from him.

Nobody stood on the podium with him.

The captains formed a tight half circle close to it, their faces stiff.

Behind them were us, the soldiers in their green shirts, rank on rank. Behind the soldiers were the guests, hundred and fifty of them, pale and silent and pressed shoulder to shoulder.

I could see the guests who had bought from him in the crowd, their faces gray, their hands clenched at their sides.

They were spared, announced earlier as a gift of King Culex’s benevolent "mercy".

The voices began slowly, a hum that grew into a roar. People whispered, people prayed, people said his name in a dozen tones. It all blended into one vast, restless noise that scraped against my skull.

I was struggling, and I did not understand it.

One part of me said, he deserved this. He bullied people. He took coins from the weak, he sold Gifts that should have been shared, and he had spat on me once and laughed. He was a rotten man.

Another part said, he did not deserve this. He was not that bad. He had only been greedy and cruel in the small, human way that most people are.

And a third voice, quiet and cold, said, you are no killer.

And yet here I was, looking at him with my shameless eyes.

The noise was getting on my nerves. I wanted to sink through the floor and dissolve into the stone like a drop of water.

He deserves it. He does not. You are no killer. He deserves it. Why? Why? You are no killer.

Then it came...

Then it struck... Like a frost creeping over a window, like ink bleeding into pure water. Like a shadow swallowing a lantern’s light, like a sudden eclipse in a clear sky. Like a hand closing tight around a throat.

The voices stopped in the middle of a breath. A woman near the back made a small sound and then covered her mouth. My own lungs forgot how to work. My spiritual power, resting quietly in my Core, curled up like a frightened animal.

King Culex was coming down the spiral stairs.

He wore long robes of black that moved as though they were alive. He was tall, taller than any man in the hall, and his skin was paler than pale, so white that the torchlight seemed to slide off him.

His eyes were redder than red. His hair, beautiful and long, swayed over his shoulders with each step, and I was ashamed to notice it.

He walked slowly. He did not need to hurry. Every person in the hall bowed as he passed, and I bowed too, my forehead nearly touching my knees. My heart hammered in a rhythm that had nothing to do with acting.

I remembered Mary’s words.

’Watch how Culex reacts, not what he says.’

I tried to raise my eyes. I could not. Something in his presence pushed them down.

’Can we defeat this person?’

The answer arrived at once, as plain as a crystal in my head: No

He stepped onto the podium and stopped two feet from Quinn. Quinn did not look up. He could not have moved even if he wanted to.

The hall was silent. Not a breath dared to be loud.

"People," King Culex said. His voice was calm and deep. "Have I not given you enough? Have I, your ruler, King Culex, not given you shelter and food and entertainment? Have I not given you things that are unthinkable in this realm? Have I not protected you from the dangers that wait outside these walls?"

No one answered. No one dared.

"And yet you defy me. You do what you shall not." His gaze swept the hall, and every face it touched seemed to shrink. "This man was a member of my army. And so? The law is the same for everyone. No one in this palace has the authority to defy it. Are you strong enough to stand against me? Against your King?"

Quinn whimpered. It was the smallest sound I had ever heard a man make.

King Culex turned his head and looked at him. His eyes were as cold as ice. Quinn did not dare to raise his face.

"I, King Culex, your Lord," he said, "shall be your executor."

I did not think Quinn even minded. To him, death was a kindness. It was a better thing than the pain that had been lingering inside his body.

Culex lifted his left hand. He only slapped him, a casual motion.

Crack!

Blood flew across the podium and over the front row of captains. It spattered a pale stripe over the floor.

When the dust of it settled... The right side of Quinn’s face was gone.

The body stood for a moment, held by whatever the chains had left. And then, it collapsed.

The execution was done. And I was guilty for it.