Free Saven Defiance (The Saven Series Book 4) by Siobhan Davis

downfall, brother ,” Dante says.
    The irony isn’t lost on me. What a douche.
    The crowd starts heckling, and the older male steps forward. “Your people are growing impatient. Let’s get on with this, Dante.”
    “My father would be very disappointed in you, Advisor Mellor.” Logan slants a heinous look his way.
    “Your father was an insufferable tyrant, and I couldn’t care less what anyone thinks of me. You had such promise, Logan.” He shakes his head.
    “Strap them in,” Dante instructs two guards. The dark-haired one clasps my hands behind my back as he wrestles me forward. Logan is being similarly restrained. He makes no protest, and I follow his lead. We are led to the strange high-rise crosses. The crowd hollers and cheers as we are strategically positioned into place. There’s a distinct clanking sound as bands whip around my neck and my outstretched wrists and ankles, hooking me into place. “What’s going to happen to us?”
    Awkwardly, I twist my head to the side to peer into Logan’s eyes. The steel band cuts into my flesh, drawing a little blood. “This was used during my grandfather and great-grandfather’s reign. My father retired it as other devices of death and torture were created. Dante clearly wants to stage a ‘show.’ Essentially, we will be hoisted high into the air and hit with a concentrated volt of electricity. It destroys our electrochemical structure from the inside out.”
    “ So, we’re literally toast.”
    Guards finish pinning Logan in place and step back as Dante begins addressing the crowd. Logan and I continue to stare at each other, drawing quiet strength from one another.
    Dante puffs out his chest as he clears his throat. “Today we will punish my brother and his Eterno intended for their sins against the Saven. Tomorrow, we will begin the fight to reclaim our birthright as the most formidable superpower in the galaxy. Let this serve as a warning to anyone who dares to threaten my reign. I will not bow down. I will not be terrorized into submission. The Saven are a force to be reckoned with again.” The crowd roars its approval as I face the front. While most of them appear sated, pumping their fists in obvious support, there are pockets of dissatisfaction dispersed across the auditorium. Not everyone is clapping and cheering.
    A bright flash at the corner of my eye captures my attention. I eagerly scan the crowd for a sign, but there’s nothing. It was nothing. “They’re not going to make it in time, are they?” I twist my head back around to Logan.
    “I’m sorry I failed you, Sadie. That I couldn’t give you the life you deserve. I will love you for eternity, wherever or whatever that may be.”
    Tears prick my eyes as I stare at him. “ I’ll find you in the afterlife, because my soul can’t exist without yours. Thank you for loving me, and you should have no regrets. You haven’t failed me. You’ve made my l—” I stop mid-sentence as I start to rise off the ground. My cross lifts upward at the same time Logan’s does. My heart rips a new anxious beat, and butterflies throw the mother of all parties in my chest.
    Crap. I really didn’t think it would come to this. My panicked eyes flit to Logan. He’s unnaturally calm. His quiet assurance seeps into me, cooling my frayed nerves. “I wish I could hold you in my arms one final time.”
    “I wish that too,” I tell him. “Don’t look away from me. I want to be staring into your eyes when the time comes.”
    “There’s no other view I want.”
    I smile at him, and my fingers twitch restlessly at my sides. Fire zings throughout my internal wiring, and I curse the irony. Griselda is going to get her wish after all, just not in the way she had envisaged it.
    A cold breeze wafts around my legs, and though I don’t look down—I refuse to look anywhere but at Logan—I can tell we are already dangling quite high in the sky.
    “What’s your best memory of all time?” Logan asks in a