Chapter Eighteen
The guards released the people from the dungeons and escorted them back to their village. Alex did not accompany them. Instead, he rode into the village near the castle gates.
The streets were deserted. Faces appeared at windows and promptly disappeared. Word of the army’s intrusion into other villages had stretched across the kingdom.
When his father was king, he’d send the army into a village to force people from their homes in advance of the king’s arrival. They’d have to wave and cheer as if they had not a care in the world.
Eventually, the people would come out willingly–after the purge. They were grateful for the king’s removal of magic folk.
Alex had done the same thing, and yet they now cursed his name.
As he rode through the empty streets to the place where
