Chapter 19: The Bargain Spoken

At five to midnight the whole shore was lit gold.

Both courts stood on the sand, and my neighbors stood behind them with their lanterns and their coats buttoned to the chin.

Cassian walked me out to the end of the dock.

I leaned on his arm, and I had stopped feeling my legs an hour ago.

Odile knelt on the beach between two guards with her hands tied.

Her veil was gone.

Her hair hung in her face.

The Regent stood well away from her, with the iron crown on his head and his eyes on the water.

The lake went still.

The gold column rose out of it.

Rook walked down the light onto the surface with his two winged guards behind him.

He wore white and gold, and he carried the long knife in his right hand.

"Linnet Ashgrove," he said. "The hour comes."

Nobody on the shore breathed.

"You have refused my mercy," Rook said, "and I will not force it on you. I will only take what is mine."

"What is yours?" said Cassian.

"The Light I lent her, Prince. The last of the Wane. It is stored in her, and at midnight it comes home."

"You mean it feeds you."

Rook's face did not change.

"I serve the Light."

"You've been eating her for seven years."

The old man smiled sadly.

"You are a grieving man, and you've had a long day."

"I've had a clear one." Cassian let go of my arm and stepped to the edge of the dock.

"I'm going to tell the shore something. Stop me if I lie."

He drew a breath, and the voice that came out of him was the one he used for courts.

"Seven years ago the night before my sentence, the Archon of the Light told Linnet that my life would end in unmaking at dawn."

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