Chapter 32 · The Mark Beneath His Eye

"Take your hands off me, or I'll break the first finger and work upward."

The Directorate guards tightened their grip.

One wrenched my arm behind my back. The other shoved my face toward the blackstone steps. My knees slammed down hard enough to split the skin.

The city saw everything.

Thousands packed the lower square, their voices crashing over me.

"Murderer!"

"She killed the warlord!"

"Take Helen Vale alive!"

Alive.

Marek had chosen that word carefully. Dead women couldn't be questioned. Dead women couldn't be forced to confess.

Alive women could be dragged into a public square and blamed for every corpse the Directorate had made.

"You hear them?" one guard muttered beside my ear. "The city wants your head."

"Then you should've brought a sharper sword."

He jerked my arm higher.

Pain ripped through my shoulder. I bit down and looked past the platform rail.

Rafe wasn't there.

That was the problem.

That was the lie everyone had swallowed.

Before dawn, Marek's voice had filled every public speaker in Veyrhold—