Robert’s short friend railed and cursed. “The whore lured my best mate into the alley and stabbed him in the bloody heart.”
“Liar!” I tore away my hood. The soldiers balked when they saw my face. My cheek ached and burned. I could only imagine what it must look like. “That man tried to force himself on me. He tried to—” I couldn’t bring myself to say it aloud. The bastard was gone. Dead. He couldn’t hurt me anymore. He couldn’t hurt anyone else.
The one with the golden pins kept his weapon trained on the two lying bastards glaring at me. He nodded his chin toward the alley. “Check it out, Clive.”
The other soldier jogged into the darkness.
“What’s your name?” he asked in a softer tone.
“Lady Aveen Bannon.”
His eyes widened as he took in the state of my clothes and hair.
“My father is Lord Michael Bannon of Graystones,” I added, hoping the detail would make him believe me.
The soldier emerged from the alley, giving his partner a grim nod before pulling the two men aside for a chat.
“They’re insisting she attacked him,” the other soldier shouted.
“It’s not true.” He’d believe me. He would. He had to. It was the truth.
The soldier who had saved me grimaced, withdrawing a pair of shiny manacles from his thick black belt.
“I’m afraid I’ll have to put the bonds on you, milady,” he said reluctantly.
He was only doing his job. Following procedure. The truth would come out in the end.
“Once we have everyone’s statement, we’ll sort this right out,” he assured me.
I held out my hands. The metal cuffs clamped over my wrists, scalding as if they’d come straight from the blacksmith’s forge. A scream wrenched from my chest. I twisted and scraped, desperate to remove them. They were too bloody tight, and if I didn’t get them off right this second, whatever poison they’d laced them with would eat through skin and bone, cutting my hands clean off.
“Take them off! Please! I’m begging you. Please. I’ll come with you. I swear. Just take them off.” Try as I might, I couldn’t get my hands through the holes.
The soldier tugged me closer to get a look at my hands, then let me go just as quickly. His face paled. “This woman’s a bloody witch!”
“I’m not a witch,” I cried, my body trembling. I rubbed the manacles against my skirts in a useless attempt to scrub off the poison. “Take them off. Please, please. There’s something wrong. They’re burning me.”
The soldier who’d been so kind before now gripped my elbow hard enough to make me cry out. He dragged me down the street, not bothering to stop or slow until we reached a towering fortress on the river’s edge. He brought me through a barred door at its base and down a set of musty stairs.
We passed a guard’s station across from a second door. Through a hallway to a line of empty cells. The only light in the room came from a single candle on a table next to a haggard old man with a set of metal keys hanging from his belt.
When the guard saw us, he pushed to his feet and shuffled toward the first cell. The door creaked when he opened it. The only place to sit was on the gritty dirt floor scattered with moldy bits of hay.
“Please.” I held my hands toward the soldier and the guard, begging for them to remove the shackles.
“Do I look like a fool to you, witch?” snarled the guard. “I’ll not have you casting any curses on my watch.”
There was no sense telling the man I wasn’t a witch. He wouldn’t believe me. “What will happen to me?”
“They’ll notify the proper authorities of yer trial, and ye will be sentenced.”
I pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes and let the tears come. They’d do no good. Nothing would now.
How could I hope to save Rían from the Queen when I couldn’t even save myself from this?
Low scratching noises came from the darkest corner of my cell. Were there mice or rats? I scooted closer to the bars. The ache in my wrists eventually went numb.
Everything went numb.