My eyes are fixed on my wrists, suspended above my head. My breathing slows fractionally. I imagine it will hurt, but I can survive a flogging. This is far preferable to being dragged by a horse or having my bones broken one by one.

I close my eyes and wait for the first bite of the lash.

Instead, I hear another set of feet being dragged along the cobblestones, someone else’s fractured breath, so much quicker and more panicked than mine.

My heart stops even before he speaks. “No,” he says. Chains rattle, and I know he’s struggling. “Please. I don’t know anything.”

Tycho.

My hands jerk against the chain. There’s no give, and I can’t see anything but bricks and darkness. “Rhen!” I yell. “Don’t do this. Let him go.”

A thin whistle splits the air. I barely recognize the sound before leather lays into my back.

It hurts a thousand times more than I thought it would. It’s worse than a blade. Worse than an arrow. The lash seems to bury itself in my skin before dragging free. I cry out without meaning to.

Another thin whistle. I brace myself, but this lash doesn’t hit me.

Tycho screams.

I see stars. I plant my feet against the wall and brace against the chains.

Another whistle. Another lash lays into my back.

I can’t breathe. I can’t think.

Another lays into Tycho.

“Rhen!” I can’t hear myself speak. I’m not even sure I am speaking. “Rhen, stop! He’s a boy—”

Another lash. This one is lower, and I swear I feel it touch my spine.

I’ve stopped hearing the whistle. I just hear Tycho scream.

Then he’s babbling, the words thick with tears. “Please. Stop. Please. Please. Please.”

He’s talking to the guards, to Rhen, to anyone. He’s not talking to me.

But he knows I could stop this.

Another lash tears into my skin, bringing pain like fire. The stars in my vision multiply. I’ve pulled so hard against my chains that I can no longer feel my hands.

Tycho screams again. He chokes on his breath and makes a gagging sound.

He is no one to this fight. He is nothing to Rhen. He deserves none of this. My rage seems to swallow me whole, burning me up with fury. Stars fill my eyes with blinding light.

Another lash strikes me, but this time I barely feel it. I hear the crack of the whip striking Tycho, and his resounding scream.

Something inside me snaps. A crack of lightning fills the air, a blinding white that steals my vision, as if the sun fell to earth. Wind rushes through the courtyard, raking across the wounds on my back, stealing my breath. For an instant, I think I’m dead. I can’t see. I can’t hear.

Then it’s gone. The stars in my vision shrink down to nothing. The wind is gone.

The courtyard is silent.

I wait for the next lash, but it doesn’t come. Blood is trickling from the wounds on my back, hardly noticeable on top of the raging pain. All I hear is my breathing, quick and ragged.

I struggle against the chains, expecting another lash to catch me in the back, but none comes. I manage to brace my feet against the wall, then twist against my bindings to see what I can of the courtyard.

Everyone has collapsed. Each person lies in a heap. Some have collapsed on top of each other.

None move.

I search the wall for Tycho and find him twenty feet away, hanging from his chains, unconscious.

Or dead.

My breathing is ragged for an entirely new reason. I use the chains to lever myself up the wall, until I’m high enough to unhook my shackles. It takes longer than it should, and my arms keep threatening to give out. Once there, I brace against the hook and pant with exhaustion. Every breath, every movement, causes pain in a new way. I lost count of how many times they struck me, but my back feels laid open.

I unwind the chain, then drop to the ground.

A bad choice. My injured leg gives out, and I stagger, falling to my knees. My vision goes hazy and I need to shake my head and blink.

I touch a hand to my side, where the lash curved around. The wound is deep and bleeding freely.

Rhen is not far off, collapsed on the cobblestones like the others. He is breathing and uninjured. He could be sleeping.

What happened?

I can wonder later. I need to free Tycho. I need to escape.

When I make it to his spot on the wall, I discover he’s breathing, too, but it’s a labored wheeze, and his back is a crisscrossed mash of bleeding lines. Tears soak his cheeks. He vomited on himself at some point. I try to reach high enough to free him, but my back protests and I cry out, sagging against the wall.

I try once more and fail. My vision goes hazy again, and I shake my head to clear it.

A shout goes up from somewhere in the castle, then another.

I redouble my efforts, but I’m too weak to lift his weight enough to pull the chains free.

A shadow appears beside me, hands closing on Tycho’s waist to help lift. “Here,” says a soft female voice. “I’ll help you.”

Lia Mara. The girl from Syhl Shallow. My thoughts are so addled and my eyes are blurry and I wonder if I’m hallucinating. “How—how did you—?”

“Hurry!” she says. “The guards in the castle did not collapse.”

I hurry. I grit my teeth and leap for the bar, levering myself up the way I freed myself. Sweat drips into my eyes, and my muscles tremble, threatening to give way, but with Lia Mara supporting Tycho’s weight, I’m able to twist his chains and brace against the wall. I need one inch. I throw every ounce of strength into it.

His chain clears the hook. Lia Mara tries to ease him down, but Tycho all but collapses to the ground. I nearly fall right on top of him. My fingers dig into the cobblestones, but I can’t move. My arms are twitching with fatigue, and my thoughts loosen and drift.

Lia Mara is on her knees in front of me, her hair glowing red in the torchlight. “You have to run.”

I can’t run. I can’t even stand.

“Go,” I say to her.

Her eyes go from me to Tycho to the castle.

“Go,” I say again. My voice breaks. “You won’t find peace here.”

The shouts reach the courtyard, and then guardsmen and castle servants are flooding through the doors, pouring into the open space. Lia Mara slips into the shadows.

“Find Healer Noah!” a woman shouts, followed by a man yelling, “Secure the princess!”

“No!” Harper’s voice calls across the courtyard, high and panicked. “Where is he? Where’s Rhen?”

“Here!” shouts a guardsman.

Suddenly Harper is there, crouching over the prince. “Rhen,” she says. “Rhen, can you hear me?” She picks up his hand. “He’s breathing,” she says. “Noah, he’s breathing.”

I blink and Noah is beside her. “Strong pulse,” he says, a hand against Rhen’s neck. “Seems like a syncopal episode.”

“A … what?”

“He fainted.” The healer moves to Dustan’s prone body, lying just beside Rhen, then presses a hand to his neck. “They all did.” He sounds confused. “Lay them all flat,” he calls to the dozens of guards and servants now swarming the courtyard. “Jake! Make sure they have an open airway.”

Harper looks around. “So they all just …”