He does it without question, and I’m so fucking grateful and honored by his trust. Ryker and I start cutting them down, and they go from random strangers I don’t recognize to people I know in a blink. I cut off Mave’s arm and then stab her through the heart. The sisters lose their heads one by one, and then Beth steps into my path.
I shake my head at this illusion. “You got the wrong face,” I tell the Sentinel behind the illusion. Beth stabs me in the stomach with a short spear-looking thing. I push forward against it and shove my hands against her chest. Flames erupt all over her, and she screams as they lick up her body and catch her hair on fire.
I’ve always wondered how I would feel if I could give Beth a taste of what she dished out to me my whole life. Would it make me feel better to starve her and beat her? Would I find comfort in verbally tearing her down and breaking her like she so often tried to do with me? I watch Beth fall to the ground, completely engulfed in flames, and realize the answer isno. It doesn’t change anything.
Ryker quickly dispatches the last of Siah’s attackers, and I reach up and caress Siah’s face.
“It’s over,” I tell him softly, and he opens his eyes and leans into my hand.
“Thank you,” he whispers, his voice pained.
“I’ve got you,” I tell him, our vow coming full circle.
I give him a soft smile and then move away in the direction of the room he said Enoch and the others are trapped in. Valen and Bastien join us, and relief spreads through me when they smell right. There’s a bottleneck of people at the doorway into the room. The presence of so many of us makes it easier to identify the enemy. The illusions seem to work better when it’s more one on one. It’s as if the magic can really only focus on the people in one person’s life at a time.
With me, Ryker, Siah, Valen and Bastien there, the people stuffed in and around the entryway take on various identities. Laiken comes for me again, as does Keegan. Bastien cuts them both down before they can take two steps in my direction. Ryker cuts through Silva and a woman I recognize from a picture Bastien has in his room.
“It’s not real,” I yell at Bastien and Valen as they both watch Ryker slit their mother’s throat.
Tears well in Valen’s eyes, and he blinks rapidly to clear the emotion away. My throat gets tight. I want to scream and punish and kill these fuckers for putting the ones I love through this torture.
I call on my short swords and get to work. My Chosen and I move like the unit we are as we weave in and out of each other, spinning, dipping, bending and leading in a death dance. One dead Sentinel at a time, we make it inside the room. I step over bodies and through the doorway. I find Enoch, Kallan, Nash and Becket each battling several Sentinels, while Suryn stands there...guarding the fucking Sovereign.
I take one look at the leader of the Sentinels and know exactly who we have to thank for today’s trauma fest. I’m surprised she’s even down here getting her hands dirty, but maybe she has to be within a certain proximity to keep the illusions up. Neither she nor Suryn have noticed that we’ve just walked in on their little party. The Sovereign’s entire focus is on Suryn, while her stare is locked on my Shields.
I don’t know what illusion the Sovereign is making Suryn see or if she’s even making her see an illusion. Didn’t she say something in the hall that night about getting Suryn on board. Maybe Suryn, the first in line to rule the Sentinels, doesn’t give two fucks about the males her magic has marked getting slaughtered in front of her.
As soon as that thought enters my mind, it feels wrong. The way she reacted at the training facility isn’t the way someone reacts when they don’t care. She may talk the Sovereign’s talk when it comes to Enoch, Kallan, Becket, and Nash, but I don’t actually think she believes it. At least not the way the Sovereign and her cronies do.
There’s a glimmer in the air around the Sovereign and Suryn. I study them and try to drown out the battle cries and sounds of weapons and magic clashing all around me as my Chosen unleash hell on the Sentinels attacking my Shields. Suryn doesn’t take her eyes off of what’s happening, and the Sovereign stares at her with such intensity it makes the hair on my arms rise. I move fluidly against the wall, chanting a steady mantra ofyou don’t see me, you don’t see me.
The massive bed in the room splinters as Sabin picks up a Sentinel by the throat and slams him down on top of it. Furniture is reduced to a pile of rubble as it’s used as a weapon or a projectile, and still Suryn and the Sovereign seem unfazed. I push magic out toward the barrier, but I can’t get a feel for what comprises it. It doesn’t feel threatening, more like a magic brick wall of some sort. I approach from behind and place a hand against the barrier.
It gives as I push against it, and I hesitate. I can get through here. Unease strikes through me as the wordstoo easytwist around in my head. No one has noticed that I’m here, and I push further into the magic wall around the Sovereign. It feels similar to when I walked through the barrier into Tierit. I shove through it and call on my throwing knives as I surface on the other side.
I shake off the staticky feeling that coats my limbs and pull my hand back, ready to end the Sovereign and her reign of terror. And that’s when she looks over her shoulder at me and smiles.
30
Her lips pull back in a grin filled with pure malevolence, and my blood turns to ice in my veins.
“Nice of you to join us,” she coos venomously, and then she flings out her palm and slams me square in the chest with a white bolt of pain. I’m shoved back against the now rock hard interior of the barrier, so hard I can hear my bones crack.
I can’t even scream, it all happens so fast. I make a haunting, gurgling sound as my vision tunnels, and my skin starts to feel like it’s melting off my fracturing bones. I can’t think through what the fuck is happening, my mind is so overwhelmed by pain.
A tinkling laugh fills my ears. “Thought you could just waltz in here and play the hero,” the Sovereign tuts and then sends another bolt of pure torture into me with her other hand.
I can taste the blood gurgling up my throat, and whatever it is she’s doing...is killing me. I try to call on my weapons, but nothing happens. I beg my runes to give me their shields and protect me, but my magic doesn’t respond. I grit my teeth until they feel like they’re going to crumble to nothing in my mouth, and reach out to grasp the white bolt hammering into my chest.
It feels like lava in my hand, and I look down, fully expecting my limb to crumble to ash, but it doesn’t. It fucking hurts, but it’s still there. I tighten my grasp, and like I’m kinking a hose, the stream of agony flowing into me tapers. I reach out with my other hand and grab the second bolt the Sovereign shot into me. I grip it as tightly as I can, and the mind-numbing pain diminishes just enough to give me hope that there’s some way to survive this.
I hold onto the bolts like the misery-filled lifelines they are. I push away from the barrier I’m pancaked against, each step feeling like it’s taking every ounce of energy I have. I stare at the Sovereign, her waning sneer my only goal. Surprise flickers through her eyes as I hold onto the bolts and take one more staggering step toward her.
She tries to close her palm but can’t. She stares down at her hand like it’s betrayed her, and I can see her try to force it into a fist. I think she’s trying to cut off whatever she’s doing to me, but she can’t. She scowls up at me, her eyes glittering with malice. She looks down at where I have a stranglehold on her magic, and snarls.
The Sovereign yanks her hand back, and the bolt of torment slips slightly out of my grip. I don’t know what will happen if she can retract the crackling pain filled strikes, but I’m not about to find out. She tries to dislodge them from my grasp again, and I almost lose my balance, trying to hold on to them, and I cry out as I struggle to keep my feet underneath me.
“Suryn!” the Sovereign screams out.
