I search for the voice again and this time I find it.
Odessa.
It’s been a while since I last saw her, but it’s most definitely the girl who made my first few weeks at the academy miserable.
She’s not looking as glamorous as she once did; her chestnut hair ratty around her face, her complexion no longer clear, and her clothes old and worn. There’s the same old hatred burning in her eyes, though. No, even that is different now – it’s ten times more fierce.
Several in the crowd laugh at her words, and it spreads like wildfire until everyone in front of me is laughing. I feel Beaufort step forward, but I hold up my hand.
“If I’m mad, then how can I do this?” I say, letting my light shoot over their heads this time, like fireworks.
“A trick,” Odessa says. “An illusion. We all know that only those with shadow weaver blood in their veins can wield magic.”
I glare at her. “It’s no illusion.”
“This girl is a known liar. A compulsive and vindictive one. She is the reason I was sent here – all because she was jealous of me.”
“That’s not true!” I call out but my voice is drowned out by other voices. It seems somehow, despite the fact that she is a mega bitch, Odessa has gained some admirers out here in Slate, admirers who are willing to believe her word over mine despite what their eyes may show them.
“And you’re traitors, all of you!” she yells out. “You’re wanted by the Empress. You think we don’t know that? You think we’re stupid?”
“She’s labeled us traitors because we know the truth and she wants to silence us.”
“Or you’re trying to steal her throne – you and those shadow weavers,” some man shouts out.
“She always had ideas above her station,” Odessa says, “you should have seen her at the academy. Parading about the place like she was someone special.”
I almost burst out laughing. “You’re mistaking me for yourself, Odessa.”
“She can’t be trusted! She’s a liar.”
I scowl at her, then purse my lips together and whistle hard.
Now the crowd really is looking at me like I’m crazy and have lost my mind.
But that lasts only a few moments – a few moments until a giant dragon is soaring over their heads. Blaze.
Several people scream, covering their arms over their heads or crouching down low. Some just stand there, flabbergasted, with their mouths hanging open. Odessa doesn’t look at the sky at all, she’s still staring daggers at me.
Blaze circles the square, the sound of his flapping wings loud even above all the commotion below. He comes to rest on the roof of the old courthouse, the building creaking and groaning under his impressive weight.
There are more screams from the crowd.
I glare at Odessa. “I’m lying, am I? Is that an illusion too? Would you like me to have him breathe his fire in your direction, just to be sure he’s real?”
Odessa purses her lips together and shakes her head, there’s a flicker of terror in her eyes now too.
“I’m telling you the truth,” I say. “We’ve been fooled all this time.”
“And what if we have been?” an older woman, two children hanging onto her legs, calls from the center of the crowd this time. “We can’t change anything. The shadow weavers are powerful. What do you want us to do, Briony Storm? Rise up against them? They’d kill us all!”
“No,” I say. “They won’t. Because I’m going to change everything.”
And for a moment I truly believe that I can. That I will. That fate has chosen this path for me and fate will guide me.
And I’m guessing the people out there in the crowd feel it too, because that sour, cynical, skeptical atmosphere that hovered in the air only moments ago, evaporates and there’s a sudden feverishness, people whispering to each other in excitement, hope rippling through the crowd.
But then the screaming starts.
