Chapter 30 · The Trial's Verdict

"Take one more step, Cassian, and I'll put this blade through your heart."

Cassian stopped with one boot on the cracked trial dais.

Black water curled around his ankle. The drowned court had filled the chamber without opening a door. Wet voices pushed up through the stone, speaking words my blood understood before my mind did.

Kill him.

Cassian looked down at the tide blade pressed to his chest. The edge sat right over the hard beat beneath his coat.

"You always point that thing at me when you're scared?" he asked.

"You always keep walking when an entire dead court tells me to kill you?"

"Usually."

His mouth barely moved, but I saw the strain around his eyes.

Silver lines crawled from the sigils beneath his boots. They wrapped his legs like chains. Each breath pulled them tighter.

His face had gone pale.

I shoved the blade harder against him. The metal warmed beneath my palm. His pulse kicked against the edge.

"Tell me what they want."

"You heard them."

"I heard a command. I didn't hear a reason."

"They don't give reasons to people they're planning to bury.