Sienna Du’for's Arc

Chapter 25 of 30

Sienna turned her horse toward the crowd. She had one hand on the reins and the other on Clementine's arm. The bridge planks creaked under two hundred feet of villagers waiting to see what she would do next. Behind her, Cecilia's voice cut across the courtyard. "Take her." Sienna looked back. Cecilia had stepped down from the stone at last. Not to greet her. To point. "Take my sister off that bridge," Cecilia said. "Bring her to me." A line of soldiers moved out from the gate. Six of them. They stopped at the arch. One looked at the woman with three children in the crowd. Another looked at his own boots. "I gave an order," Cecilia said. The soldiers did not move. "Now." They came then. Slow at first. Then faster, because the second word had been louder. The villagers closed in around Sienna. An old man stepped in front of her horse. The woman with three children pushed her children behind her legs and stayed where she stood. A boy picked up a stone. Aldric drew his sword. He did not raise it. He held it at his side and set his horse across the bridge mouth. "Back," Aldric said. One word. To the soldiers. The soldiers slowed. Then Cecilia called out again, and from the far arch the vanguard knights came through. The twins. Dark gray armor. Halberds down and level. They did not slow at the sight of the crowd. They cut into it. The first villager went down under a halberd shaft. The second was struck aside and did not get up. A soldier behind them flinched and stopped walking. Another lowered his blade an inch. The twins kept moving. "Stop," Sienna said. They did not stop. A third villager fell. The old man raised his arms and was knocked flat. Clementine's hand tightened on Sienna's sleeve. "Stop!" Sienna shouted. She swung down from the horse. Her boots hit the planks. "Stop. I am here. I will come." The twins halted. Halberds still up. Waiting. "Sienna," Clementine said. Flat. "No." "They will kill them all." Sienna did not look at her. "Every one of them. For me." She pulled the pendant off her neck and pressed it into Clementine's hand. Then she walked past Aldric, past the twins, past the fallen bodies on the stone. The soldiers closed around her at the arch and took her arms. Cecilia was waiting in the courtyard. She was smiling again. "There she is," Cecilia said. She tipped Sienna's chin up with one gloved finger. "The crown princess. Who kneels for peasants." Sienna did not answer. "Look at me," Cecilia said. "Look at who wears the crown now." The gate began to close. Sienna heard Clementine call her name from the bridge. Then the doors met and the sound was cut off.