Any last thoughts of escape dissolved. If she fought Rogan off and somehow ran to safety, the others would have no hope.
Rogan studied her, and she willed her face into a mask like Luca’s. Emotionless. Unflappable.
Luca was nowhere in sight. Anger straightened Touraine’s back, and she said coolly, “Firing squad, then.”
“Yes. First.” He sidled closer to her. His presence rose goose bumps on her naked torso. “They won’t kill you, though. Not immediately. I will shoot you myself in a noble coup de grâce.” He leaned closer, the heat of his lips on her ear. “I’m going to put you down like a dog.”
She stilled the shiver of fear, tried to cool the heat of her racing heart. She only had to look at the men and women she had led into this mess. It quenched everything inside her but a seed of resolve.
Rogan pushed her in front of a squad of riflemen. With the onlookers on her right and the other prisoners on her left, the space behind her was empty for missed shots. Aranen met her gaze steadily, her eyes red rimmed and glassy.
You could still run. Let Luca save you.
You are choosing this.
Aranen prayed with her eyes closed. Touraine looked up at the sky instead. Sky above.
Cantic stepped close to Touraine and spoke in a voice audible only to her. “I know the princess offered you another chance, Lieutenant. You’re sure this is how you want to spend it?”
Not counting last night, it was the first time they had spoken since Touraine had leaked half of the gun stash to the general. The months in Qazāl had taken a toll on both of them. Cantic’s blue eyes were bloodshot, the skin around them tight. A scarf hung low on her chin. It seemed like years ago that Touraine wanted to be just like this woman. Part of her still wanted that. From the very beginning, Cantic had represented respect and power. When Cantic was the Sands’ instructor, back in Balladaire, people listened when she spoke. They had obeyed her. Touraine had obeyed her, hoping she would learn enough to follow in Cantic’s footsteps.
“Did they make you do this? Tell us,” Cantic hissed.
“I’m choosing this,” Touraine said aloud.
Instead of becoming like Cantic, Touraine had learned enough to know that the general, too, wanted to mold her into something perfect. And perfect, to Cantic, to Beau-Sang and the lord regent, Duke Nicolas Ancier, meant not Qazāli, not any kind of Shālan. It meant Balladairan born and bred, and she would never be that, so she would never be completely worthy.
Touraine stood up straighter. She didn’t need to be worthy to them.
General Cantic shook her head, like she still couldn’t believe what had become of her protégé. A turncoat.
“Touraine. Ex-lieutenant of the Balladairan Colonial Brigade. Aide to Princess Luca.” Cantic’s voice was cold with disappointment. “You’ve been charged with desertion and treason. How do you plead?”
Touraine couldn’t see Luca, which meant she wasn’t there. She didn’t know if that made her feel better or worse, didn’t know if seeing Luca’s face would strengthen her or break her. It was better this way.
“I didn’t desert. I was made a free citizen by writ of Her Highness Luca Ancier.”
Cantic’s frown lines deepened. “And the charge of treason?”
“Guilty.”
The general nodded to Rogan.
Five musket pans sparked powder.
Time yawned. Bullets hit her in the chest. Lung, hip. Shoulder, stomach, ankle, calf, knee—her knees gave out; her body danced. The acrid metal taste of her own blood in her mouth before it tickled down her chin. She swallowed. Coughed. Swallowed the blood back down.
Jaghotai yelled from her spot in the prisoners’ line, and a soldier cracked her in the base of the skull with a musket butt in response.
Rogan approached Touraine in blurry slow motion. His own pistol cocked and pressed against her forehead. The sulfur of gunpowder. The smell of home.
For one overwhelming moment, she thought she could hear the heartbeats of everyone around her. Rapid or slow or stuttering still.
She had made her choice.
It was dawn.
Luca was due outside any minute now. As the princess, it was her right to witness sedition against her rule punished. Instead, she waited just inside the door of the command building, hand hovering over the door handle. Everyone else who wanted to witness the end of the rebellion was out there. The staff, the soldiers who were able, the civilians bitter enough or frightened enough to be awake at this hour.
Any minute now.
Any minute now, they would haul Touraine out of her cell, stand her up against the wall, and shoot her like a rabid dog. Luca could already imagine her dead. The blood in a pool beneath her body. It wouldn’t spread. The thirsty earth would drink her up.
A moan wrenched out of her.
Any minute now, she would push the door open. She would walk out and take her place beside Cantic, who would ask her if she had any testimony to offer. Luca would watch Touraine shake her head, and then watch her die.
Or, if there was a kind god at all in the world—Are you so desperate that you would pray to it, if it would grant you this thing?—Touraine would say she was mistaken. That she had moved in misguided judgment, that she would serve penance however the crown saw fit. Luca would pardon her, and they would figure out what came next together.
A volley of coordinated shots made her hand spasm over the door handle.
No.
Luca sprinted with a foal’s tangle on rubbery legs. Fifty yards in front of her, Touraine swayed on her knees. Her naked chest ran crimson and dark with blood. Captain Rogan stood with his pistol pressed against her forehead.
“Stop!”
Everyone watched
