Chapter 20: Poisoned Posts

Torin's POV

The ring lay in a bowl of pale rock a mile from the Keep.

By dusk, the day before the full moon, it was already ringed with torches.

I walked it alone with the captain of the guard.

She had a list in her gray fist, and she read it as we paced the sand.

"Every weapon is surrendered at the gate. The envoy will say so aloud at dawn. Knives, chains, anything with an edge."

"And a cane."

"Anything carried, Your Majesty. I'll have it said by name."

She looked at me.

"Miss MacBain told me about the cane last night. I'd have asked her to tell you herself."

"She did."

She had told me in the hall, in four sentences, with her hand around Garrick's wrist.

I had said nothing at all.

The truth was that I had wanted to carry her out of the Keep and put her somewhere no blade could reach.

I had wanted it more than anything, and I had known it was the one thing she would not forgive.

So I had said, "Thank you."

We came to the north post.

Four iron posts stood at the compass points of the ring, taller than a man.

Each had a length of chain bolted at the base.

Seconds stood at the posts.

I crouched and ran my thumb along the chain, and the skin of my thumb stung.

It was a thin bright burn, the kind that comes before a blister.

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