Mainland doesn’t give a damn about half the people in this entire kingdom. Not Undesirables. Not lowborns. Hells, not even highborns.
I clench my fists, seeing red for the injustice of it all.
Neris is the kindest, most loyal person I know. I can’t stand by and watch her be flogged to death.
The ground beneath me rumbles, and shrieks of terror break out all around me. Townspeople flee as the Peacekeepers’ hold their weapons at the ready. I drop my bag and stomp, bringingup a portion of paved ground larger than my head. More screams resound as people dodge and cower. I send the chunk of earth into a Peacekeeper’s stomach, propelling him backward. He doesn’t get up again.
Another draws a crossbow, aiming at me until a chunk of earth crashes into her sneering face.
The town square clears with surprising speed as I send hunks of cobblestone flying at any official who tries to approach me. Until someone cloaked in red materializes on the dais seemingly out of nowhere, a limp body in a tattered pink dress as their shield. My eyes snap toward the whipping pole where blood stains the wood.
Neris is no longer there.
Instead, she’s slumped against someone, a large dagger pressed to her neck from behind. I halt, hands raised, my terraforging keeping varying pieces of stone suspended in midair.
Golden details of the black mask over the figure’s eyes almost glow in the sunset. A black veil covers the rest of their face. This is the same person who’d stood beside Sovereign Rheon on the day of his ascension. The person who now holds a dagger to Neris’s throat. When the person speaks, it’s with a woman’s voice.
“I won’t hesitate to slit her throat if you keep up this overpowered tantrum,” she says.
I blink at her, furious, and release the hold on my magic. The stones drop. The ground of the square is destroyed—pulverized paving where there aren’t craters. People cower, injured and terrified. I shake out my trembling arms and drag in a slow breath, pushing away the guilt that slowly seeps in along with fatigue.
“Come with us, peacefully, and your friend won’t be hurt.” The woman pauses. “Well … more hurt.”
Neris’s breaths appear ragged and uneven, her eyes closed. Her hands are white knuckled on the cloaked woman’s arm.
Palms up and out, I surrender. “Please, release her. We won’t cause more trouble. If you just let us?—”
“No,” she interjects. I cannot see her face to know for sure if she’s smiling, but I canhearit. “Come a little closer, Terraforger.”
I step up onto the platform, each stair making my legs quiver more than the last. Another soldier approaches and my muscles tense, prepared for a fight.
“Ah, ah, ah,” says the masked woman. “Withouta fight, Terraforger.”
I huff out a breath. “If you hurt her more, Iwillfight,” I say tightly, even as my arms tremble with exhaustion.
Neris’s eyelids flutter, and a small whimper escapes her swollen lip.
“Oh, I’m so very afraid,” the woman says, boredom lacing her words. She glances at the soldiers but takes her dagger away from Neris’s throat. A small trickle of blood slides over Neris’s skin. “Shackle the Terraforger,” the woman orders.
Are they daft? They’re going to shackle me knowing that I can likely bend metal? I almost want to laugh. But as the manacles encircle my wrists, an unbearable pressure pushes into my head, into my entire body. Everything goes still around me. The earth feels dead. The stones, cold. It’s suffocating.
What in all the realms …? I cast a frantic look at the figure, my breaths coming quickly now. “What did you?—”
“Dampening runes. Not evenyoucan get through those.”
I swallow the acid creeping up my throat. “What’s going to happen to us?”
“You’re both coming to Paramount Castle, sweetheart,” says the masked woman. The soldiers start pulling me away. “The sovereign has been waiting for you, you lucky, lucky thing.”She clicks her tongue behind her veil. “I expected more, quite frankly. Someone … taller, at least. Ah well, you can never judge a book by its cover, I suppose.”
She grabs my arm and darkness presses in all around me. I’m suddenly tumbling, spinning, unsure of which way is up or down as my stomach twists and jolts. My body feels displaced in time—simultaneously heavy and light, but then the world stops spinning. I steel myself against the assault of queasiness as I’m now facing a large desk piled high with books and a wall of bookshelves behind it.
The room is illuminated with a mellow light, but there aren’t any candles or oil lamps in sight. A bearded man sits behind the massive desk. He has dark hair, which is combed back away from his face, and deep blue eyes beneath thick scrunched eyebrows. He rises from behind the desk, brawny arms defined even beneath his livery. He doesn’t look much different from the others who hold me captive, so it takes me a moment before I recognize him.
Sovereign Rheon Odhran.
My blood runs cold. Beside me, Neris drops to the floor like a ragdoll, the breath leaving her body before she goes completely rigid.
No …
