“Well, have you something to say, girl?” the executioner pressed.
She did have something to say, but the words would not formulate in her mind.
The crowd grew silent, all eyes on her, and then the executioner blindfolded her.
On her knees, she reached forward, feeling for the block, sensing its smoothness beneath her fingertips, and resigned to her death, she leaned forward and rested her chin on the wooden edge.
Father, she thought. Sartes. Nesos.
Rexus.
Then, to her disbelief, an image of Thanos formed in her mind, and she finally realized that even though she loved Rexus, she had fallen for Thanos, too.
And just as she grasped that, she hated herself for it. She was happy he would never find out.
She swallowed the tears back, exhaled a breath, and the crowd went silent as she waited for it all to be over.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Rexus was filled with rage as he lay on a rooftop and watched thousands of citizens being held captive in Blackrock Square, surrounded by Empire soldiers who encircled the outer edge of the piazza, preventing escape. Standing before them atop a platform, General Draco was reading the king’s proclamation, and each word deepened the rage in Rexus’s heart. They were preparing to take away more firstborns, the best men the people had to offer. He tightened his grip on his sword, preparing for battle.
Yet seeing so many Empire soldiers, Rexus began to second-guess his decision to lead the revolutionaries into yet another battle they weren’t entirely prepared for. The rebellion had grown, yes, but it was still barely over a thousand men. The only way to victory today was if the citizens below joined in and helped attack the enemy.
But would they?
When General Draco finished reading, he looked up and his narrow eyes raked the crowd.
“Before we collect the firstborns – a warning. Rebellion does not come without punishment!” he yelled.
He nodded toward his lieutenant, and the lieutenant opened one of the slaver carts that stood behind the platform. Rexus squinted his eyes, wondering who could be inside.
He was stunned to see captured revolutionaries hauled out of the wagon, Empire soldiers beating them with clubs toward the podium. Rexus felt as if he were stabbed in the heart. One of the twelve groups he had dispatched had been captured.
The soldiers chained the prisoners atop the platform and gagged them, and Rexus’s ire deepened as he watched them dragging a kicking and screaming Anka up to the podium, chaining her to a pole, too, her clothes bloody, her face bruised.
Rexus narrowed his eyes, the sight of Anka up there – Ceres’s friend – causing his blood to boil with fury.
“Lead us to the hiding place of the rebellion, and I will let these people live!” General Draco shouted to the crowd, his voice booming through the square. “Say nothing, and after these traitors have been tortured and killed, I will seize twenty of you, and then twenty more, and yet another twenty, until someone speaks!”
Clamors of panic went through the crowd as frightened mothers embraced their children. Yet the piazza remained silent, no one willing to offer up information.
General Draco nodded, and twenty Empire soldiers marched up onto the platform, holding lit torches, taking their places beside the prisoners. When the general nodded again, the soldiers pressed the torches to the revolutionaries’ faces. Each man and woman screamed, the shrieks of pain burning Rexus’s ears.
The onlookers raged in disapproval, but the Empire soldiers standing amidst the crowd forced protesters into silence with clubs, spears, and whips.
Incensed, Rexus knew he could wait no longer. Ready or not, the time had come.
Rexus jumped down from the roof and mounted his horse, galloping back to where he had left his group of men.
“We attack now!” he shouted.
His men grabbed their weapons and quickly assembled, their faces hardening with fury.
Rexus dismounted and felt for the small mirror in his pocket, the same one each of the leaders of the other groups carried. He turned his mirror in the sun, catching the light, reflecting it, the sign they had made that they were ready to attack.
One after another, bright lights twinkled at him from behind houses, until he counted ten. Eleven, including his group, had made it, meaning only one hadn’t.
Rexus looked back at his group and nodded, his heart racing wild.
“For freedom!” he yelled as pulled his sword from its sheath and ran into the square, the revolutionaries following at his heels. Although his hands trembled and his throat was dry, he didn’t falter in the least. All around him the other groups of revolutionaries dashed out from behind shadows and buildings, their roars filling the square.
Rexus hacked his way through the wall of Empire soldiers, and then past three more inside the square, his eyes glancing at the platform when he wasn’t fighting. He needed to get there before it was too late, he knew, before they lost their lives.
“Fight with us and win your freedom!” he yelled to the civilians as he worked his way through the crowd.
Slowly, he noticed that the men around him started to fight the enemy with their bare hands.
Chaos erupted.
Empire soldiers took to attacking the citizens, butchering any and all who were in close proximity. Rexus redoubled his efforts, slashing down soldiers as he went. As his men swarmed the square from all sides, he looked up to see General Draco being ushered away beneath a mountain of shields. Rexus grabbed an arrow from his quiver, aimed it through a narrow gap in the shields, and released.
A moment later, General Draco cried out and fell, and was lying on the platform with an arrow in his shoulder.
The soldiers who had protected him turned toward Rexus.
“Arrest him!” a soldier yelled.
But Rexus was quick as lightning with his bow and he shot them down so swiftly, not one reached him. He dashed toward the poles, and with the help of other revolutionaries, released the prisoners from their shackles, freeing them before it was too late.
But where was Anka? he wondered, glancing around.
There was no time to search. Rexus stood at the edge of the platform and wound his bow, killing as many Empire soldiers as he had arrows.
Finally, the wall of Empire soldiers encircling the plaza broke open on the northern side, and women and children were rushed to the side streets, leaving only men left battling against their persecutors amidst the clanging of swords and groaning of men. Men fell on both sides, piling up in the streets which ran with blood.
Rexus hopped down from the podium, slaying soldier after soldier, fully engrossed in a battle he knew would either make or break the rebellion.
His heart broke a little more each time he saw one of his men or a civilian fall. He worked himself up into such a frenzy that he imagined he might never die at the hands of an Empire sword.
But just then, two soldiers came at him at once, one stabbing him from the side, the other pounding a hammer at him from above.
The blow to the head was sudden – dizzying – the sword in the shoulder a sharp pain that made a shriek tumble from his lips as he fell to the ground.
Momentarily, he could not see. Flailing his sword out in front of him, trying to defend himself, he felt another sharp stab in the leg.
He tried to focus his eyes, everything a blur.
An outcry made him recoil into a fetal position. The echoes of the battle surrounded him.
Now, he thought, now I die.
And with that thought, he knew Ceres would never know how much he cared.
But no sword punctured his chest. No spear was thrust into his abdomen. Instead, he heard grunts as swords collided.
When Rexus was finally able to focus his eyes again, he saw Nesos going at the two Empire soldiers, carrying a sword in one hand, a spear in the other.
Slowly, Rexus rose to his feet, the wound in his shoulder stinging, the blow to his head still making him feel dizzy, and the wound in his leg screaming. He fell over once, but stood straight back up.