I look at the golden hands of the clock one last time. At the beautiful details nestled within the brass. The milky white stone veined with mossy green is visible beneath the outer glass rim ofthe clock—where I’d melded it with the watch a year ago to keep it safe for reasons I hadn’t even known at the time. Tears sting my eyes as I think of destroying the last keepsake I have from Father. But he wouldn’t want me to hold on to sentiments for the sake of it. I close my eyes and call to the stone within.
The glass fragments, the shards digging into my skin, then the entire pocket watch practically melts as the stone is drawn into my palm. I drop the broken pieces and close my bleeding fist around the stone. It hums in my hand, heating up until it’s almost unbearable. Like it’s begging to be released or warning me not to release it. As usual, I cannot decipher my own intuition.
“Winnie, no!” Neris says. “Don’t.”
“Is this what you want?” I ask, holding out the stone in the palm of my bloodied hand. I step forward, but the sovereign doesn’t budge. I swear his pupils dilate, but he seems afraid to move closer to me. Or afraid to claim the stone.
“Radika.” His tone is clipped, uncertain.
“That’s the one,” Radika says without him even asking the question.
My eyes shift to Tiernan, who is staring into my soul as though he can see my thoughts. Then I hear his voice, though his lips don’t move. “Release me from the dampener so I can Wield.”
I try not to startle, but my heart jumps. He’s a Mind Whisperer?
“And a Mimic. Release me, then toss the stone toward Rheon. I’ll redirect it.”
I hesitate for only a heartbeat. Then I clench my fist, the cuts on my palm stinging. I will the shackles on Tiernan’s wrists to break—releasing his magic and his body from the post. If it makes a sound, I don’t hear it over the roar of my pulse in my ears.
“Well, Pendry, what are you waiting for?” the sovereign asks. “Give me the stone.”
“Yes, Excellency,” I say. But instead of moving closer to him, I hold my breath and toss the stone in his direction.
Panic fills his eyes as he realizes he’ll have to catch it. He steps forward, but Tiernan holds his hand out and the stone flies into his waiting palm.
No sooner have his fingers closed around the stone than a sizable feline with grey fur hurtles out of nowhere, claws extended, ripped clothing clinging to its body. It pounces on Tiernan, tackling him to the ground. He cries out in pain, and the stone rolls from his hand and into the grass. The wildcat pins his arm with a large, clawed paw, snarling and baring its teeth.
I barely have time to process my own shock when the sovereign shouts, “Seize her!”
As a soldier steps toward me, I pull up a mound of earth and he trips over it. Everyone that comes my way is met with a blast of dirt or rocks in their face. I sink a couple of others waist-deep right into the ground, trapping them.
Between attacks, I look around frantically, seeking Neris. I need to get her out of here. But she’s no longer bound to the post.
Not again!
A man comes at me, his fists flaming. I release the bracelet on my wrist, morphing it into a dagger that I fling into his chest. His flames die before he drops to the ground.
Another Zenith member cloaked in midnight blue appears before me. His dark eyes are wild, a mop of unruly black hair plastered to his forehead and temples. I summon my dagger from the Flamewielder’s chest as I take in this new attacker. Dark veins cobweb out from the corners of his eyes. My gaze dips down from the painfully familiar face to his fists. To the hands that’d gently held my face when he last bade me farewell. Whenhe’d pressed a loving kiss to my forehead and told me to keep my fighting spirit alive in his absence.
These same hands that are prepared to smite me are the same hands that tended many a childhood wound.
A lightning bolt pin sits on his burly chest, and I blink, forcing my eyes back to his feral gaze. A few heartbeats pass before I finally find my voice—barely.
“Father?”I whisper.
He snarls as if the title provokes something animalistic in him. As he lunges for me, tiny sparks melded with dark mist play on his fingertips. Bitterness creeps into my throat, and my heart squeezes agonizingly. As I leap to the side, the hair rises on my neck as the tiniest zap of lightning illuminates the space where I’d just stood.
He haspowers?
“Father! It’s?—”
He shoves his hand toward me, and more sparks laced with darkness form. A breath later, they die on his palms. He looks partly bewildered, partly panicked. Darkness moves beneath his ashen brown skin—as if ink flows through his veins. His eyes seem too large, blackness bleeding into where it should be white. My heart hammers so rapidly that my body goes numb.
“Father!” I call. “Please.Eurig?” I send a chunk of earth into someone in my periphery. I don’t even look to see what’s become of them as Father closes in on me. Weak sparks sputter at his fingertips.
Another chunk of earth hovers at my side, prepared to be brought down upon the head of the man who’d been my greatest role model. Who’d disrupted societal norms to teach his daughter how to defend herself. Who’d believed in her. Inme.
Something flickers in his eyes, the darkness receding and a familiar, tender gaze locks onto my face.
