The Crown of Gilded Bones (Blood and..

Innocent.
Behind her, people scattered into the dirty streets,
rushing toward the Rise. They carried nothing but
themselves and screaming, red-faced children. They were
just mortals caught between the Blood Crown and me, and I
could see from where I stood, that the gate to the city was
closed.
And I knew that the Ascended who still remained within
wouldn’t open it. They would’ve already done that if any of
them had been like…like Ian. I sucked in a broken breath as
I stared at the people crowding the gates of the larger Rise,
their fear a pulsing mass.
I was not what Alastir and the Unseen claimed.
I was nothing like the deities they feared.
And I sure as hell wasn’t like my mother.
“I’m sorry,” the Handmaiden said, and my gaze snapped
back to her as a jagged tremor rocked me. “I really am. I
knew Ian. I liked him. He wasn’t like…a lot of the others.”
Despite the grief and the rage tearing its way through
me, I focused on her, opening my senses. That ability still
worked as it had before because I knew I was reading her
emotions. I could taste them—the tartness of uncertainty
and the bitterness of sorrow.
“But you need to leave. The Blood Crown has already
left here. No one remains who played a role in what
happened.”
“Except for you,” I countered.
There was a slight wince. “Did you have a choice when
you were the Maiden?”
I stared at the Handmaiden. She could’ve struck me
with one of the shadowstone arrows at any point, and I
doubted she would’ve missed. But she hadn’t. She stood
between me and the villagers outside the city, the poorest
among those who called Solis home. Not between me and
the Ascended.