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СКАЧАТЬ me charcoal and paper? The queen can’t have forbidden that.”

      “Are you planning to write a message to the rebellion?” the servant asked.

      Thanos shook his head. “Nothing like that. You can read what I write if you want to.”

      “I… I’ll try.” She looked as though she might have said more, but Thanos saw one of the guards glance their way, and the servant hurried off.

      Waiting was hard. How was he meant to watch guards constructing the gallows from which he would be hanged until nearly dead, or the great wheel on which he would be broken afterwards? It was a small cruelty that said that even if Queen Athena managed to get a grip on her son, the Empire would be far from perfect.

      He was still thinking about all the cruelties that Lucious and his mother might inflict on the land when the servant arrived with something tucked under her arm. It was only a scrap of parchment and the smallest stick of charcoal, but she still passed it to him as furtively as if it were the key to his freedom.

      Thanos took it just as carefully. He had no doubt that the guards would take it from him, if only for the small opportunity to hurt him more. Even if there were any who weren’t completely corrupted by the cruelty of the Empire, they believed him to be the worst of traitors, deserving all he got.

      He hunched in over the scrap, whispering the words as he tried to write, trying to get it exactly as it should be. He wrote in tiny letters, knowing that there was a lot in his heart that he needed to get down there:

      To my darling wife, Stephania. By the time you read this, I will have been executed. Perhaps you will feel that I deserve it, after the way I left you behind. Perhaps you will feel some of the pain that I feel knowing that you have been forced into too many things that you did not want.

      Thanos tried to think of the words for everything he felt. It was hard to get it all down, or to make sense of the confusing mess of feelings swirling inside him:

      I… did love you, and I came to Delos to try to save you. I am sorry that I could not, even if I am not sure we could ever have been together again. I… know how happy you were to learn about our child, and I was filled with joy as well. Even like this, my biggest regret is that we will never see the son or daughter who could have been.

      Just the thought of that brought with it more pain than any of the blows the guards had inflicted. He should have come back sooner to free Stephania. He should never have left her behind.

      “I’m sorry,” he whispered, knowing that there wouldn’t be enough space to write everything he wanted to say. He certainly couldn’t get his feelings down in something he was going to entrust a stranger to deliver. He just hoped that this would be enough.

      He could have written so much more, but that was the heart of it. His sorrow that things had gone wrong. The fact that there had been love there. He hoped it would be enough.

      Thanos waited for the servant to come near again, stopping her with an outstretched arm.

      “Can you take this to Lady Stephania?” he asked.

      The servant shook her head. “I’m sorry, I can’t.”

      “I know it’s a lot to ask,” Thanos said. He understood the risk he was asking the servant to take. “But if anyone can get it to her while she’s still locked up – ”

      “It’s not that,” the servant said. “Lady Stephania isn’t here. She left.”

      “Left?” Thanos echoed. “When?”

      The servant spread her hands. “I don’t know. I heard one of her handmaidens talking about it. She went off into the city, and she didn’t come back.”

      Had she escaped? Had she made it out of there without his help? Her handmaiden had said it was impossible, but had Stephania found a way anyway? He could hope that it was possible, couldn’t he?

      Thanos was still thinking about that when he realized that activity around the gallows had stopped. Looking at it, it was easy to see why. It was finished. Guards stood waiting beside it, obviously admiring their construction. A noose hung, dark against the skyline. A winding wheel and brazier stood nearby. Towering over it all was a great wheel, chains set into it, a huge hammer resting on the floor beside it.

      He could see people gathering now. There were guards standing in a ring around the edges of the courtyard, looking both as though they were there to prevent others from interfering and as though they wanted to see Thanos’s death for themselves.

      Above, looking from windows, Thanos could see servants and nobles, some looking down with what seemed like pity, others with blank faces or outright hatred. Thanos could see a few even perched on the rooftop, looking down from there since they couldn’t find another spot. They were treating this as if it were the social event of the season rather than an execution, and a thread of anger rose in Thanos at that.

      “Traitor!”

      “Murderer!”

      The catcalls came down, insults followed by fruit from the windows, and that was the hardest part of it. Thanos had thought that these people respected him, and would know he could never do what he’d been accused of, but they jeered him as if he were the worst of criminals. Not all of them insulted him, but enough did, and Thanos found himself wondering if they really hated him that much, or if they just wanted to show the new king and his mother which side they were on.

      He fought when they came for him, dragging him from his gibbet. He punched and he kicked, struck out and tried to twist free, yet whatever he did it wasn’t enough. The guards caught his arms, twisting them behind him and tying them in place. Thanos stopped fighting then, but only because he wanted to have some dignity in this moment.

      They led him, step by step, to the gallows they’d built. Thanos climbed up without prompting onto the stool they’d set beneath the noose. If he was lucky, maybe the fall would snap his neck, depriving them of the rest of their cruel sport.

      As they set the noose around his neck, he found himself thinking about Ceres. About everything that could have been different. He’d wanted to change things. He’d wanted things to be better, and to be with her. He wished…

      There was no time for wishes though, because Thanos felt the guards kick the stool away, and the noose tightened around his neck.

      CHAPTER SIX

      Ceres didn’t care that the castle was meant to be the Empire’s last, impenetrable bastion. She didn’t care that it had walls like sheer cliffs or doors that could withstand siege weapons. This ended here.

      “Forward!” she yelled to her followers, and they surged in her wake. Maybe another general would have led from the rear, planning this carefully and letting others take the risks. Ceres couldn’t do that. She wanted to take apart what was left of the Empire’s power herself, and she suspected that half the reason so many people were following her was because of that.

      There were more now even than there had been in the Stade. The people of the city had come out into the streets, the rebellion spreading again like burning embers given fresh fuel. There were people there in the clothes of dockhands and butchers, hostlers and merchants. There were even a few guards now, their imperial colors hurriedly torn away when they saw the tide of humanity approaching.

      “They’ll be ready for us,” one of the combatlords beside Ceres said СКАЧАТЬ