"Hail, King Jared, the rightful king of Mar-golan!" Kalay shouted as the executioner fitted the noose around his neck. The crowd murmured, but Tris made no response other than to raise his hand and let it fall in signal to the officers below.
Beneath the prisoners' feet, trap doors sprung open. The men plummeted and jerked once, dying instantly as the noose snapped their necks. Tris could feel their spirits lurch free of their dangling bodies. Their fear and disorientation washed over him, and he could feel the taint that clung to their souls. The hangman's craft failed the last two men, who twisted and writhed, feet scrabbling in midair to gain a toehold, bucking and gasping for air. The hood slipped off of one of the men, and Tris saw that it was Cerys. Coincidence? Or was there someone in the executioner's party who wanted vengeance as much as I did? Minutes passed. Finally, the two men's struggles slowed. Cerys's eyes bulged and his face blackened as his swollen tongue lolled from his mouth.
Cerys and Meurig's souls wrenched free from their bodies. Tris felt the pain of the severing. They joined the others on the Plains of Spirit. Tris heard a sound like distant thunder, and the rush of wind. Darkness swept over the spirit realm. The Formless One was present, and, even as a Summoner, Tris's own soul shuddered. In the darkness, he heard the screams of the souls She harvested as a vortex opened and pulled them into its maw. As quickly as it had come, the darkness was gone, and with it, the souls.
When the last of the executions were finished, Tris signaled an end to the spectacle. A phalanx of guards protected him as he crossed the courtyard. Once they reached the safety of
the walled garden, all but Harrtuck and two soldiers returned to their duties. Two guards with crossbows kept sentry at the entrance to the garden, and two more patrolled the portico. Still trying to clear his thoughts from the hanging, Tris – looked at the ruined garden sadly. Come spring, I'll make sure it's planted with Kait's favorite flowers, he promised himself. While the garden had been left to wither under Jared's rule, it had never been abandoned by the palace's ghostly servants, who favored the cool, shadowed corners and the fountain that now lay broken in the' middle. Tris could sense the spirits' presence, and wondered if they, too, missed his mother and sister as much as he did.
"Danger, my Lord!"
Tris heard the whisper of a ghost. The ghost shoved him hard to the right. His mage sense flickered a warning, and Tris glimpsed something streaking toward him a fraction of a second before it slashed deep into his left shoulder. Blood started down his chest, and he staggered.