Page 103 of Death of a Mortal

Dumb cleared his throat, and they both stopped talking. They remembered I was down here. What fools.

They had no idea they were onthat one’skill list.

* * *

It was severalmore nightmare-laced sleeps after that whispered conversation before anyone else came down to see me. This time, it was a male I recognized from the dinner at the ball—Chamberlain Vanthe, the smug bastard in a smug velvet get-up.

“Ignacia Corren, it is my solemn duty and great honor as the Royal Chamberlain of Ashthorn Castle that I, Luceron Vanthe, stand before you to inform you of your charges. You await trial for the following.” He unfurled a scroll of parchment and fixed a monocle over one eye. Seriously, this guy couldn’t look any more smarmy if he tried.

“Intentional murder of a royal guard. Permanent disfigurement and assault of a royal court member. Assault on the crown prince. Treason for collusion with rebels. Each of these charges is capital in nature, and the punishment is death. Should you be found guilty of any or all, your punishment will be a public execution at the hand of the reigning monarch, King Caedryn Veylor.”

My heart rate picked up. I didn’t think I would get away unscathed from what I had done in the ballroom, but a formal trial? A death sentence?

“Why am I on trial? Why not just kill me?” It wasn’t that I wantedto die yet, but the question had been nagging at me. Why keep me alive?

He looked down his nose at me with his thin lips turned down in disgust. “You are fae. It is the law that all fae are tried fairly. No matter how heinous the crimes.”

It clearly tore him up to call me fae, to be the same as me. Another silver lining to the change. But now I knew why the king hadn’t already had me executed—due process, which was laughable. Funny, except for the cold, hard fact that due process was only owed to fae and not mortals, according to the law anyway.

“Right. Thanks for that. Will that be all?”

He gave me ahmphand then turned and left.

“Wait, when is this trial?” I yelled to him as he disappeared from my view.

“You’ll be informed the day of.”

The day of… I wasn’t sure if waiting in suspense or counting down the days was worse.

The trial didn’t scare me. Death didn’t even scare me. I’d already decided I would die once I eliminated everyone on my list if I ever got out of here. But dying before I can avenge Nella made my heart squeeze and my gut churn.

* * *

On what Ibelieved to be the next day, I heard unfamiliar voices. New guards. It seemed that Round and Dumb had graduated from guarding a surely dead prisoner in the dungeon and had been replaced.

I couldn’t see the new males, but I caught small snippets of whispers.

“Operation Reignite” and “Dray” were two distinct and unknown things I caught. Maybe Dray was one of their names, but Operation Reignite? Perhaps something with the king’s fire. Or couldit be related to the inevitable purge? It seemed fitting for Caedryn to use his demonic fire to rid the continent of mortals.

My gut churned. I, too, had demonic fire, apparently.

I listened hard for more details but couldn’t pick anything up.

One of the newcomers brought the usual disgusting slop to my cell and just stared at me.

“What, never seen a mortal turned fae turned prisoner before?” I snorted a laugh, and his face showed I appalled him. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been down here, but I knew it was long enough for me to smell like I was already dead.

He just continued to stare with his differently colored eyes and long hair pulled back into a low ponytail. I had never seen anyone, fae or mortal, with one blue eye and one brown eye. If I didn’t despise him for being a castle guard, I might have thought he was intriguing.

But it only reminded me of my different eyes—one blind, and one that didn’twantto see the cruel world around me.

“Hey, new guy, how long have I been down here?”

Ponytail looked at what I assumed was the other new guard with concern on his face before looking back at me. “The incident at the ball was over a month ago.” He said it delicately, and yet…

My stomach dropped. Over a month? Added to my imprisonment leading up to the ball, it had to be at least two months that had passed since I folded my last linen next to Nella. Four months since we’d left Briarstead.

I also did not like the way he called Nella’s death—the death ofmanymortals, it seemed, along with my dark and fiery explosion—anincident. I decided I did not like Ponytail.