At her touch, Reese let his weapon drop. His face going slack as his pupils swallowed a chocolaty ring of color, and without a word of protest he returned to his post. Face forward.
Lips parting on a shocked gasp, I frowned.
But before I could utter a word, she said, “There’s so much I could have taught you.” Extending her fingers, she ran pale digits down the side of Aiden’s cheek and ensnared yet another elite—I could see it now, in the sheen of glossy blank eyes. “So much potential left untapped.”
All around us, the general’s booming voice continued to drone, but every scrap of my attention was focused on the Head Priestess. The calm confidence that had rendered two elites obedient slaves with nothing more than a touch.
“You’renota priestess,” she said again, and joined me on equal footing. Flanked by no less than six empty-eyed elites who moved in time with her unspoken commands. “Not trained to use your gifts, powerless without the empath as your crutch, but”—a gentle breeze caught her unbound, silver-blonde hair and sent it dancing between us—“I will not allow you to become another tool for the empire to soil.”
Pure, unfiltered terror slid into my guts. Slithering in a coil that spread through my entrails, only to double back and wrap around my heart.
“Sasha,please,” I whispered, eyes forward. Hardly daring to look at the woman I’d once hoped might become my greatest ally. My sister in rebellion.
On the stage before us, one inaugural elite after the other stepped forward to be introduced to the royal sibling. The general read from a list of their attributes and accomplishments, before sending each of the youths back into line.
“Every priestess who has ever been,” she whispered, electric blue gaze fixed to the general’s face, “has the potential to become an empath. This is a secret the empire can never possess.”
I nodded, quaking deep in my middle. Knowing she meant to act. That she couldn’t allow me to live and compromise the rest of her flock.
The last of the young elites stepped back into line, and with a hideous grin, General Tilcot turned to the captain, and said, “And now to mark the beginning of the festivities, my own cousin, Captain Asher Rawlings of the Special Forces will use his golden priestess to usher us into a new era! One of unimaginable power brought on by anewgeneration of priestess!”
When a cool, dry palm landed on my elbow, I didn’t bother to flinch. No matter the way my heart hammered in my chest, the floundering of my breath, I set my jaw and readied myself for what came next. “This is the last weapon I have left.”
“She is a priestess of rare power!” the general boomed. “One whose innate gifts have been the subject of rumor and gossip, for with a single shot”—he strode across the dais toward the weapon that would spell my doom—“the captain was able to quell a rebellion!”
“Elites are born and bred for war,” the Head Priestess murmured, brow wrinkled as she watched her counterpart through a sneer. “But only a priestess can take something corrupt and make it new.”
I took a shuddering breath. “I don’t want to be their weapon,” I whispered, blinking. And despite my best efforts, tears spilled over my lashes. Hot and salty, I was shamed before an audience of Caledonians. Weak and pathetic at the very end, no matter the frost of numb blanketing me from head to toe.
“I think you are that new thing,” Sasha murmured, watching as the captain stepped forward, jaw a tight, grim line. “The priestesses are all gone. Taken and enslaved by the empire. All exceptyou.”
My head snapped toward her, eyes wide as I tried to pull meaning from her words. Tried to make sense of what she said, despite the way my head spun. “Sasha—I don’t—”
“Pray to your heathen gods,” the general spat, kicking the rebel soldier before he stooped. Hands outstretched to claim the weapon.
But she gave me no time to understand. “I’ve had something delivered to the captain’s rooms,” she said, and smiled. “I think you’ll know what to do with it. That it isn’t the answer for the rest of them.”
She took another step—and her elites followed without a word of command. Claimed puppets, absent any hint of self-preservation or individual thought, they followed.
Each one offering up a flood of unimaginable power for her to redirect. To make new.
The general’s hands landed on sleek metal.
A trap snapped shut.
Sasha’s veins lit with a blinding gold. Flooded in the space it took me to stumble forward, a warning bursting from my lips.
Too late.
Forearms bunched with corded muscle, the general cried out. Unable to drop the cannon that surged with a blaze of poisonous green fire. Charging with a high-pitched squeal that warned of too much power, surging too fast.
A blazing goddess dressed in cleansing blue flames, Sasha merely continued her advance. Her elites a tightVof protection and sacrifice, they were a perfect contrast to her magnificence—they were drained of their vitality. Their magic gobbled up by a master, sent to kill a general.
And there, beneath the skin of powerful men, Sasha’s elites showed the strain.
Their veins turned black before my eyes.
“No!” I screamed, stumbling after her. Inhaling the scent of baking flesh, I gagged. “Sasha! Please don’t!”
