Chapter Nineteen
The cart rumbled beneath her, and Helena focused on each bump of the road. They had bound both her and Edmund with ropes tethered to the side of the wooden wagon. Two speckled mares pulled them through the city streets.
Beside the cart, Quinn and his soldiers rode large steeds.
In the waning light, Madra looked unchanged. In Helena’s heart, everything had changed.
As they approached the city center, Helena saw shops boarded up and the streets of the once busy marketplace were now empty. At this time of night, the shopkeepers should be closing up their stalls for the day and going home to their families. They were the backbone of the kingdom. The citizens who were neither merchant nor pauper.
And yet, where were they?
Quinn’s low voice seemed to come from everywhere a
