Page 58 of The Dragon Queen
The fear of the end finally came into his eyes, and instead of looking like a king or even a soldier, he looked like a boy afraid of his father. His fingers relaxed on the hilt of his blade, and he dropped it beside him. Then he dropped to his knees, pathetic and pitiful, and looked up at me. “I killed your family so no one would oppose my rule, not because I desired it?—”
“Vivian would never have opposed your rule. You could have let her go.”
“Talon—”
“I would grant you mercy if you’d just let her go.If you’d just fucking let her go.” Tears squeezed from my eyes and ran down my cheeks. I felt my eyes grow red in rage. Felt all the tendons in my body grow taut and nearly snap.
The dead moved behind and secured Kael’s wrists behind his back. He started to protest and fight, but there was no escape. They did the same to Jairo, while others went into the castle to grab his wife and whoever else they could find.
Barron didn’t look behind him—but he knew. “Talon.” He pressed his palms together and begged. “Please…”
The tears continued to roll down my cheeks.
“If I could take it back, I would.”
“Only because you now know the consequences. How can someone desire power to such a degree? I would have been perfectly fucking happy living in a hut in the forest with my wife and child. All you had to do was let them go.”
“You would have come for me?—”
“I would never have risked my wife and child for vengeance,” I snapped. “I would have stayed at their side always. You took a kingdom from a beloved king and poisoned it with your treason. You killed beauty and made it ill. You tainted your soul, and all for what? To starve your people. To treat your citizens as prisoners. To hand over the keys to monsters. So let me ask—was it worth it?”
He bowed his head.
The dead secured Kael and Jairo to the stake. The army came forth with a woman with her wrists bound behind her back. She said nothing, like she accepted her fate and even cravedit. Others followed, Jairo’s and Kael’s wives and their young children. The youngest seemed to be the age of five.
“Was it worth it?”
He kept his head down as he started to tremble. “Please…”
I stared without an ounce of pity.
“Talon, I know I don’t deserve your mercy?—”
“You’re right, and I’ll never granted it. But I enjoy watching you beg for it. Perhaps you don’t remember how hard I fought for you to spare my wife, but I do. I cried harder than I’d ever cried as a boy—and you fucking smiled.”
Tears splashed down his cheeks when he broke.
A powerful triumph exploded inside me. A surge of revenge that tasted better than any gourmet meal or aged scotch. It was raw power in my veins, satisfaction so tender. “Look at me.” I felt the smile stretch across my lips, felt the sick pleasure at the fall of my enemy, at the revenge I secured for Vivian.
He hesitated before he lifted his chin to meet my gaze.
But all he saw was my smile, the biggest smile I’d worn in a very long time. “Start with the children.” I stepped away from him and approached the stakes.
The women started to scream. Kael and Jairo tried to fight their bindings.
The children cried as the dead skeletons came for them and dragged them to the stakes. The women tried to fight them off, but they were struck down then restrained.
Barron didn’t turn around.
The crying children were tied to the stakes, their fathers using their entire bodies to break free of the stakes but unable to move. It was horror. It was chaos. Screams and cries pierced the night, sounding exactly like another night twenty years into the past.
I continued to smile. “Bring him here.”
The dead grabbed Barron and dragged him close, right into the center, the stakes on display around us for him to watch. He cried the way I’d cried, cried as they secured his wrists behind his back so there was nothing he could do but wait for his turn to burn to ash.
The kids were probably too young to truly understand what was about to happen, but they cried their hearts out anyway.
Khazmuda dropped to my side and waited for my command to burn them.