And, as if watching from outside of myself, I saw the Lieutenant General take the stage. Firearm glowing hot in a clenched fist. His was a power that was pale and dim to my eyes that had seen the breath of something all-but divine.
“I want every man who owns a priestess in the dining room,right now,” he snarled, white-lipped with fury. And then, pausing to let his eyes land on each and every one of the women gazing cooly back at him, he forced, “And bring them with you, gentlemen,” through clenched teeth.
The captain held me back as the courtyard emptied of the funeral goers. His grip was loose on my nape, because the leash he held was anchored so much deeper than mere flesh.
A tide of power buoyed me closer, and I moved on boneless legs. Drunk, luxuriating in the sensation of rough hands keeping me steady.
“Asher!”
My head swiveled. Drawn to the alarm in that voice, for it rang louder than the crowd, louder than the roar of power washing me clean of any pesky, stray thoughts. A memory fluttered through the fog—of a riot full of armed soldiers who fired at civilians.
But only one weapon had been aimed true.
Marco.
He shouldered through the layers of my mind, bursting through the misty haze to appear before us. White-knuckled alarm and blazing, hissing cannon aimed true. “Asher—”
The captain lifted his hand, calm in the face of his would-be assassin.
In response, the soldier glanced once at me, met the captain’s eyes, and quirked his brow. A question unspoken, but heavy with the shades of murder.
“I expect this meeting is going to be something of amonster,” the captain murmured, not blinking as he held Marco’s gaze. “We’re going to be late, but”—he shrugged—“I’ve already dealt with it the biggest problem. Not your plan or mine, but you were right. She couldn’t be trusted.”
Dark glare flicking back to my face, Marco sniffed. Fidgeting with his weapon for a moment before he said, “You’re certain it’s handled?”
“For now,” the captain returned, and an arrogant little smirk twitched at the corner of his lips. “I’ll tell you about it when we’re done here. Don’t wait up.”
I shook my head, reaching to trace that tiny smile with the tips of my fingers. “Something new—”
The captain caught my wrist and stole my voice without bothering to glance in my direction. “Please escort Tyra and her son to their rooms,” he said. “We’ll be fine.”
“I’ll help you get them settled,” Carina volunteered. In the crook of her elbow, she cradled the infant—his tiny head tucked tight beneath her chin—and with her free hand, she struggled with Tyra’s dead weight.
The widow was slumped over in her chair, unconscious.
And then there was movement. The sensation of time thawing around me as I gazed up at the hard edges of the captain’s profile with dewy, soft eyes. My feet and lungs all moving at his command, I was left serene. Unconcerned by the deep ocean of rage I could feel boiling beneath a calm surface. Fury that was restrained by necessity, merely waiting for the moment that it might be unleashed.
On me.
I was dimly aware that we were packed into an intimate room. Ringed by an audience of nervous elites, the priestesses were all corralled in the centre. And me, with no memory of walking.
No memory of anything at all except the halo of power I saw with every blink.
The doors banged shut.
“So,” the Lieutenant General said, voice deadly calm as stormy grey eyes flicked from face to face, searching—until they landed on me. “Which one of you started it, hmm?”
For a moment, silence dominated that tightly packed room.
Silence where a leviathan crouched over its kill, ready to defend what it had claimed. No matter the cost.
Unaware, the Lieutenant General took a step, watching me without so much as a blink, when he should have been watching Asher.
Movement caught my eye. A twitch in the shadows, where a ghost with wide, blank eyes and sagging joints was imprisoned. The only priestessnotcaught in the web of sisterhood.
“I’ll ask just once more,” the Lieutenant General said, his every syllable measured and crisp. “Which one of you started it?”
My eyes drifted back to those that were stormy with accusation.
