She ignored him and slowed their pace, relief and dread coursing through her when Jaren started wading his way through the horde, reaching them mere paces from the gallows steps.

“Stay here,” Kiva ordered both him and Tipp, unwrapping Tilda’s arm from around her neck and unceremoniously swapping places with Jaren, leaving him to help support the sick woman. Without a word of explanation, she forced her way through what remained of the near-suffocating crowd and bounded straight past Naari and the three-guard escort, taking the steps two at a time until she stood at the top of the wooden platform.

Immediately, five sword tips were pointed at Kiva as the Royal Guard leapt into action. Conversely, Warden Rooke became as still as a statue, his diamond-shaped scar almost hidden by how far his eyes had widened upon her appearance.

The audience hushed in an instant.

“Who are you, girl?” the closest guard demanded. “Where’s the Rebel Queen?”

Don’t let her die.

Drawing in a wobbly breath, Kiva straightened her shoulders and looked beyond the guards to the masked prince and princess, declaring in a loud voice the only words that could keep Tilda alive.

“My name is Kiva Meridan, and I claim her sentence as my own.”

Chapter Eleven

A deafening quiet fell when Kiva uttered her words, but it was quickly followed by an uproar from the gathered crowd, the wave of sound so loud that she staggered on the platform.

“SILENCE!”

The amplified roar came from the guard nearest to the prince and princess. Where the other Royal Guards had an emblem over their hearts etched in a darker shade of silver, his was engraved in gold: four quadrants representing elemental magic—earth, fire, water, and air—behind a sword crossed with an arrow and topped with a crown.

The Vallentis family crest.

“Let her through,” ordered the man with the gold emblem—the Captain of the Royal Guard, Kiva realized. Her knees nearly gave out.

The guards lowered their swords, and she stepped forward on shaking legs, her heart galloping in her chest. They didn’t stand down completely, their stance warning of immediate action should she make the slightest wrong move.

It felt like an eternity passed as Kiva made her way to the center of the platform. She didn’t dare make eye contact with the still-frozen Warden, nor did she look up at the hangman’s beam rising into the air above her. She tried to remind herself that the first Ordeal was the easiest, and offenders could—and did—live through it. She refused to think beyond that, to consider the repercussions of her hasty actions or wonder what the later Trials might bring. The chances of surviving even this one . . . Kiva knew she might have just signed away her own life, all to spare Tilda’s.

Don’t let her die.