Tes glares over my shoulder at Callum, hiding her smirk at my triumphant tirade. “So what, you would rather we put our faith in him? A man born with a silver spoon in his mouth, who has never known what it’s like to struggle?”
“Callum may have been born a royal, but that does not mean he hasn’t endured struggles.” I gesture to him, fighting every instinct not to take his hand in mine. “He is a good man, one who will make a fair and just leader.”
Callum steps forward, standing next to me. “I feel certain that if you gave me the chance to explain my positions, listened to what I hope to accomplish, you might change your mind.” He presses his palm to mine, linking our fingers, and a wave of peace washes over me.
“Enough!” Lady M rises from her chair once again, throwing off Rosa’s hold over her.
Rosa stumbles back, her hands flying to her forehead. “What did she just do?”
My hands immediately reach for my dagger. “She can block yourGifts, just like she can amplify them when she wants to use you and drain you, like she did to Andra.”
“And do you know what your sister Saw for me, my darling daughter? She Saw me becoming more than the Scotan candidate. She Saw me becoming Queen. I had no intention of ever harming poor, sweet, malleable Harold until Andra told me what she Saw in my future.” Lady M crosses around the table, her movements slow and deliberate. “We all know Andra’s visions are never wrong.”
The shift in the room is immediate, even if Lady M doesn’t seem to notice it. She stands in the center of the room, Callum and me in front of her, the rest of the La Puissance Gifted behind her. She thinks they have her back, that they will move on us with a single word from her. She hasn’t realized she is alone in this fight.
Meri’s eyes narrow on Lady M’s back. “You assured us that Harold was going to be fine.”
“And he is,” Lady M spits. “Your little friends managed to save him, though he won’t be around for long if I have anything to say about it. He was always weak. To think I Bonded with someone so fragile. Once I am free of him, my Gift will be limitless.”
I watch Meri gear up, preparing to throw some kind of illusion over Lady M, something to give us time. And I watch her realize she no longer has access to her Gift, though that doesn’t stop her from trying.
Callum and I exchange a look. Now is our chance to take Lady M out, but whether the rest of the Gifted are on our side or not, it doesn’t much matter. None of us have access to our Gifts. We’ll have to do this the old-fashioned way.
Cal strikes out first, and either he’s still feeling the lingering effects of the events of the past few days, or he underestimates Lady M, because his punch is weak and slow. Lady M dodges easily, and from that one movement alone, I can tell this isn’t going to be aneasy fight. Callum is the only one of us with any formal training—I learned the basics of defense during the Uprising, but my skills are weak and I’m out of practice—and it appears he and Lady M might be evenly matched.
She knocks him to his knees after just a few minutes of sparring. “Rosa!” she calls as she circles him.
Rosa looks to me, eyes wide.
I shake my head, silently begging her not to oblige.
Rosa crosses the room, standing shoulder to shoulder with me. Her hands immediately fly to her forehead once again as Lady M reinforces the block on her Gift.
“We have to do something,” I whisper fiercely, standing back and watching Callum and Lady M go blow for blow, strike for strike, feeling so utterly helpless.
And then the doors of the dining room fly open.
Before I have the chance to count how many more Gifted are joining the fray, my body is lifted clean off the floor. I fly across the room, colliding with one of the stone walls and landing in a heap.
My lungs seize and I fight to inflate them, wondering if this is the same woman who killed Dom. But I don’t think I’m being strangled, I just had the wind knocked out of me when I hit the wall with such force. I regain my breath, struggling to my feet as I take in what’s happening.
Meri has picked up a chair, using it as a shield as a Gifted throws sparks of lightning at her face. Tes is on the ground, straddling another woman, delivering punch after punch to her stomach. Her opponent gets her weight under her, toppling Tes so their positions are switched and now Tes is at the mercy of her fists.
Callum and Lady M are dancing around one another in the center of the room. A gash on his cheek is bleeding profusely, but he’s still standing.
And I’ve been still for too long.
A pair of arms encircles my neck.
I immediately grab at them, but it’s fruitless trying to break the Gifted’s hold. I dig an elbow into her side, aiming for the ribs. I connect with enough force to loosen her grip slightly. Ducking away, I reach for Callum’s dagger, holstered at my thigh. I shove the woman against the wall, pressing the knife to her neck.
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
She struggles against my grip. “Go ahead and try.”
I dig the knife in a little deeper, enough to draw a line of blood. “How can you not see that she is using you? Lady M is manipulating your Gifts for her own benefit, and you’re letting her.”
“My parents sold me to a brothel when they found out I had a Gift. And not a brothel like La Puissance,LadyCaterine,” she says with a sneer. “The kind where you don’t have a choice. Where you are forced to do things so depraved your head would spin.”
