Free Trials of the Hierophant: Vol. II of epic fantasy The Sundered Kingdoms Trilogy by Ethan Risso

his throat.
    “Caden!” Kendric cried, instinctively struggling to get to him. But another punch to the stomach dropped him to the floor.
    “You are hereby placed under arrest,” Grigor Boraste announced, crossing his arms, “for sedition, high treason, and the murder of King Braith Denorheim. You and your co-conspirators are to be publicly hanged from the neck until dead. Furthermore, you and any descendants are hereby stripped of title and land by order of the king.”
    “We have committed no such crime!” Kendric shouted.
    “You poisoned the king in his own chambers! And, in an attempt to protect a known dissident who would seek Prince Madoc’s rightful throne, you placed her in the Cærwynian province of Gweliwch with the aid of Gweliwch’s own military forces. As such, it is seen that you acted against the kingdom in order to support another. Or do you deny this?”
    “I have done no wrong!”
    “Then you refute the signed confession by the young officer of the Gwelian army?” Valifor held a parchment up to his eyes, but Kendric would not take the senator’s word as truth.
    “You signed?” he said to his lover. “Is this true?”
    Caden looked at the ground, unable to bring himself to look into Kendric’s pained eyes.
    * * *
    Kendric bit through his bottom lip to keep himself from screaming, and the taste of blood filled his mouth. A muffled gurgle slipped through his pursed lips as the hempen rope stretched his arms further upward toward the wooden beam on the ceiling. Sweat poured down his brow. His toenails scraped across the floor. Were he to lift his feet to relieve his pain, his arms would pull out of their sockets.
    His energy waned as exhaustion set in. The faces of his captors blurred through his tears and, in his near delirium, he could barely hear their voices.
    “Usurper!”
    “Valifor, you bastard,” he managed to croak.
    The white hot brand hissed and seared into his flesh again, and he wailed in agony. As Culhwch Valifor pulled it away, it tore his skin, leaving his torso bloodied and scorched.
    “You nithing.” Valifor tossed the brand back in the coals and leaned forward, mere inches from Kendric’s face. “You are only suited for utilitarian work and toiling of war. You would do best to serve Annwyd to the greatest of your ability. It would give some merit to your lowly existence.”
    “Piss on your kingdom,” Kendric grunted through the pain before lapping his tongue across his bottom lip.
    “That is what you would have.” Grigor Boraste took a step toward him. “You would have Annwyd swimming in a trench of piss while her people drown. Only then would your Gwelian hounds descend upon us.”
    Kendric looked around the room through blurred vision. How could he have been trapped so easily? He was a soldier of Gweliwch. When he received word that Caden wished his lover’s favor, he came running. If Caden could only see him now‌—‌garishly bruised, bloodied, and hanged naked like a hog for slaughter.
    As a cold draft blustered through the room, it chilled the sweat on his body. But it could not cool the heat that radiated from the nearby brand. He whimpered, shutting his eyes in anticipation, but the pain never came.
    Valifor smiled his yellowed smile as he hovered the brand over Kendric’s stomach, relishing in such control. “You look pale,” he chided.
    Hatred oozed from every open wound Kendric’s captors had inflicted upon him. He grew breathless. The weight of his body compressed his chest, and each breath took more and more effort. He struggled to free himself from his restraints, but the rope cut into his wrists as he pulled, and his shoulders burned. A swift fist to the stomach was his only reward for his struggle. His cheeks tingled as though needles pierced his face. Shock soon set in, and as Valifor grasped his face and jerked his head backward, Kendric drifted further from consciousness. He finally gave up, collapsing into his weight.
    “Now, now,”