Bodies that were frozen started to slowly, slowly, move again.
Caelena was grimacing, targeting Audrey, who now had to focus her strength on fighting off our ally.
But the memories felt like they were too much. I couldn’t process all this new information. I desperately wanted to sit down and analyze every moment I saw. Every memory of Drustan’s I gained access to.
But I couldn’t. Because time was speeding up, and I was running out of it.
I shoved one last, disgusting, moist clod of dirt in my ears, silently praying to the goddesses of this realm that it would be enough to protect me from Ilia’s command.
“This is ridiculous,” Ilia spat, watching his sinndra control both Caelena and Sergei. How could Ilia’s sinndra possibly becapable of this? Sirens couldn’t manipulate other sirens, so why could Ilia? A theory hit me.
Sirens are connected. The king got his power from his people.
Strength in numbers, now used to weaponize that strength against those very numbers. Sergei fought aggressively, years and years of combat training showing through as he focused all his strength to take down Liam. Quickly, after flipping the fae over his large body, Sergei turned and raised his sword.
No!
He struck Liam directly in the chest, twisting.
“NO,” Audrey screamed, drowning out Liam’s own. Her scream echoed an omen across the courtyard. I was positive that if the dirt in my ears weren’t protecting my ear drums, that they would start bleeding from her otherworldly pitch. Siren men and women momentarily halted their battles to register the sound of her torment, watching Sergei pull his sword from Liam’s heart.
Sergei looked tortured as he studied the fae prince at his feet.
Audrey’s wrath grew with the power of her agony, and light overpowered the entirety of her eyes.
“Drustan!” I yelled, hoping the sound of Audrey’s continued cries of agony hid my own enough from Ilia, “Drustan!” I shouted. Audrey struck Caelena down, pinning her by the throat with thorned roots. She turned her attention to Ilia, who just smirked at her. The smirk of a man who would rather die than consider taking a woman like Audrey seriously.
The smirk of a man who should no longer exist in any realm. A fact Audrey had seemed to accept, based on the cold and lethal look in her eyes as she glared at him.
“Stop.” Ilia didn’t bother to project the word. He didn’t need to, because Audrey obeyed. Tears streamed from her cheeks, her teeth clenched in a grimace as every muscle in her body halted from the command of Ilia’s sinndra.
Drustan!I started chanting in my mind, struggling to amplify my mental cry.Drustan! Drustan!
“Call back your gift,” Ilia ordered next. Roots, branches, and other greenery started to shrivel. A sob erupted from Audrey’s throat as muscles in her neck tensed, desperate not to listen to the king. I was reduced to only mentally calling Drustan’s name, because the eerie quiet of the courtyard as Ilia commanded his own people against their will, absorbed everyone’s attention.
Soon, the courtyard that was once overrun with fresh, thriving growth was nothing more than shriveled, dry, dead debris.
Caelena and Sergei stayed frozen, still under Ilia’s command.
“A siren’s sinndra cannot be used on one of our own,” a siren soldier muttered a few feet ahead of me. “It is unnatural.”
Ilia turned his head toward the sound of his soldier’s acknowledgement, before flicking his gaze to a nearby companion and muttering, “Kill him.” I gasped, fighting the urge to cover my eyes, as a nearby soldier charged him.
“No, wait,” Ilia chuckled to himself. “Let him live.” The soldier had his sword raised but froze. “None of you are good to me dead. Listen to me.” Ilia’s voice boomed over the courtyard, making all sirens in the vicinity freeze. They held their weapons and turned their full attention toward their king. Even I could feel the power of his impulse wrap around my body, searching for my compliance.
It seemed as if the dirt in my ears was enough to protect me from his sinndra after all. I needed to call Drustan, but shouting mentally wasn’t working. Perhaps I didn’t even knowhowto properly shout at someone mentally. How thehelldid one project thoughts? But Drustan and I were now the only ones not under Ilia’s control. But I couldn’t communicate to him, because if I called for him, Ilia would hear me.
Kill me, and then his son.
I needed a distraction. A sound barrier of some kind. I started frantically patting my pockets, desperate.
“I am tired of this foolery,” Ilia spat to his people. “I am done with it. If you cannot be trusted to behave…” He shook his head, like a parent reprimanding a child. “Then you are a threat to the peace in this realm.” Dread weighed in my gut as I shoved my hands in the pockets of my pants, the pockets against my calves.
My fingers folded over a small box.
A matchbox.
I stared at it in my palm before focusing on all the dried, dead foliage littering the entirety of the space. I toed a small branch curling nearby, and it shattered immediately.
