Mari led the way to safety, none alive who could keep pace with her bounding lioness form. Stasia followed at a growing distance, legs pumping, lungs burning, and heart thankful for every single mile she’d run around their countryside estate. She looked back only once. The blue-armored paragon had climbed out the broken window and stood in the center of the street, spear twirling lazily in his hands. She could not see, not at such distance, but she knew with absolute certainty that the bastard was smiling.

CHAPTER 21

CYRUS

Cyrus watched the hanged bodies sway. Each had a hand outstretched to the other, bound together with rope, and then bolted palm to palm with a long, single nail.

Why didn’t you tell me they enacted parts of the Joining Laws?

Stasia had screamed it at Thorda when she and her sister returned home earlier that day. Cyrus had caught only a glimpse of her before she stormed into her father’s room. Blood had been splashed across her clothes, and bruises covered her body. The thin walls had offered no protection against her anger.

“The Joining Laws?” Cyrus had asked Mari upon her transformation back to her human body. And so Mari told him of the rules governing marriage, property ownership, and adoption that were implemented throughout the empire. They required mandatory religious service attendance, changed inheritance laws, and outlawed the print and distribution of anything deemed critical of the God-Incarnate. All of it was under the guise of establishing the proper order of the world, the hierarchy from child to god that guided all their principles.

“They’re normally enacted ten to twenty years after a nation is conquered,” she’d explained. “But Regent Goldleaf declared them law here in Vallessau a few months ago, while you were still training at my father’s mansion.” She’d glanced at the door to Thorda’s room, and the argument roaring within. “I meant to tell Stasia, I really did.”

Afterward, Cyrus had come alone to stare at the swaying bodies, the pair hung in the middle of the street where the Dead Flags used to stand. He imagined Stasia’s body hung by the neck. He imagined her hand bolted to Clarissa’s. The pit in his stomach swelled and grew.

“It’s been months?” he’d asked Mari, horrified by the details she so calmly explained. “Why haven’t we done anything?”

“But we have,” Mari had argued. “Every day, every mission, every kill, we fight back. Nation after nation, rebellion after rebellion, that’s what we do. Why would you think we’ve ever stopped, Cyrus?”

Except that answer wasn’t good enough for Cyrus. Gordian had been the one to announce the laws, and so Gordian should be the one to pay. Thanet would not be forced into a mirrored reflection of the empire’s cruelty. Yet what had Thorda said when Cyrus demanded action?

Patience. Always patience.