Ash

My lips twitched, even though I didn’t say the words out loud. “Dreg, tell them I’m ready to face the Enders if that is my punishment. I will take it gladly.”

He backed away. “I’m sorry, Ash.”

“I’m not. And if you’re smart, you’ll stay the hell away from the fight.”

He shook his head as he backed up. “I won’t have a choice. None of us do.”

Dreg all but ran from the cell block and up the stairs. Peta peeked out from around my legs and looked up at me. “You think this is a good idea.”

“It’ll get me out of this goddess forsaken cell, and allow me a chance to . . .” I was about to say kill the king, but I wasn’t sure if I’d get that chance. I didn’t know if Raven would be there, if he would try and stop me.

“I’ll fight them, and try not to kill them all. Then we’ll make a break for it.”

“Shazer isn’t here.”

That was a surprise. I’d just assumed he’d stuck around. “Where is he?”

“I don’t know. He dropped me off on the outskirts of the Rim and said he had something to do.”

So Shazer wasn’t going to be much of a help then. “We run, Peta.”

“I’m fighting at your side,” she said.

“No, you’re not. Lark would kill me if I let anything happen to you.” I rolled my shoulders as I focused on loosening my muscles, getting them ready to move at top speed.

“And you think she would do less to me if I let you die when I could have saved you? You are a fool. I had thought better of you, but apparently, you are as dumb as the rest of the men in her life.” She took a swat at me with a paw and I dodged her claws. But just barely.

I held up both hands. “Peta, I would welcome your help, but you are not my familiar. That alone precludes you from the fight, and we both know it.”

She slumped with that. “Damn.”

“Yes, rather.” I wasn’t stupid. Having Peta at my side in a fight would give me the leg up I needed, but there was no way the king would allow it. I knew it and so did Peta.

I stood in the center of the cell, waiting. I knew the drill of what was about to go down, seeing as I had set up the protocol. I’d spent a lot of years as second-in-command for the Enders and as such had done a great deal of the grunt work. Part of that grunt work had entailed contemplating all possible scenarios when dealing with prisoners—those who would be banished, and those who would be executed.

I was the one who designed the program on how Enders and Rim guards would respond in all the different situations. Funny enough, I never thought I would actually see the scenario roll out where there was an Ender in the cells being brought before the king. Certainly I’d never thought it would be me in the dungeon.

“Peta, three Enders will be sent to escort me to face the king in the common field where judgment will be held.”

“Where?”

“The same open field where Cassava spelled the Terralings while the lung burrowers ripped through our family.”

She blew out a big breath. “I remember Lark pointing that out to me. It’s at the far end near the planting fields.”

I nodded. “From there, I will either be executed, banished, or otherwise punished. I highly doubt that ‘otherwise’ is even remotely possible. So expect that I’m going to be executed or banished.”

She looked up at me. “Or maybe both.”

I grimaced. “Maybe both.”

“And you have a plan, right?” Her one eyebrow flicked upward as if she knew the truth. I had no plan. I had no idea that this scenario was even a possibility. She rolled her eyes. “No plan. Really?”

I shrugged. “Let me think. All your nagging is doing is distracting me.”

She let out a hiss, but there was no real heat to it. We’d been together long enough that we both knew there was nothing behind the sound.

The problem was, my plan came to me as the sound of heavy thumping feet clattered down the stone steps.

“Peta, hide and follow us up after.”

She ducked under the bed without argument, and crouched in the shadows of the small cot. I turned away from her and faced the cell door. The Enders approached in a line, three abreast. Dreg, Elk, and Blossom. The two men had stony faces, but Blossom’s skin was red and blotchy as if she’d been crying. She wouldn’t look at me, but she still did her job for this protocol, which was to step to the side of the cell door and hold it open wide with one hand, while she kept her short sword out in the other.

She had heart, Blossom did, I would give her that.

Dreg and Elk stepped into the cell and moved to either side of me, their weapons out and pointed. Elk was on my left, sword leveled at me, and Dreg had a crossbow held at the ready, his finger on the trigger.

I didn’t move, just sat on the edge of my cot, waiting for them to say something. If I so much as twitched, I had no doubt Dreg would let loose the crossbow bolt on me. And while elementals are tough as steel, a crossbow bolt to the head would be the end of my story.

“Ash, you are to be brought before our king. Will you do so peacefully?” Dreg asked.

I looked up at him but otherwise kept still. “And if I do? What is to be my sentence?”

Blossom let a sob escape her before she pulled her emotions back under control and she spoke through her tears. “Banishment, cut off from the mother goddess, then immediate execution.”