Fear flashed across the guard’s face and he blinked rapidly, looking from me to the sword on the ground in a pile of dust. He seemed frozen in space, but the other guards weren’t. One of them rushed forward and grabbed my exposed neck with his bare fingers before I could even process what he was doing.
Pain slammed into me and my wail of agony cut through the tavern. I dropped to my knees, breathless, but the guard kept his grip on my neck.
“Fallon Brookshire, you are under arrest for attacking a royal officer,” the guard said.
Pain that felt akin to a hot, searing fire lit along every inch of my skin. I could no longer scream, I had lost my breath. I couldn’t breathe. Everything hurt. I wanted to die.
“Let go of her! She’s cursed to feel pain with any bare touch!” Hipsie yelled in panic.
“I know,” the guard shot back, keeping his hand on my throat.
I’d never sustained touch for this long. It was always an accidental graze and the person retreated quickly. Even as a child, when my father was still experimenting with what I could handle, it had never gone on this long. The sharp, hot anguish was all-encompassing, like every single nerve in my body had been lit on fire. Time seemed to slow to a crawl, amplifying the excruciating pain that radiated from every inch of my being. Waves of agony crashed against my body, drowning out any semblance of respite. My muscles betrayed me as I was reduced to trembling.
He wasn’t letting go, and black dots danced at the edges of my vision. I wanted to die. Anything to end this.
One second, I was staring at the cold-hearted man with his outstretched hand on my throat, and the next, Hipsie’s meat cleaver came down and cut his arm right off.
The fingers fell away from my neck and the pain fled, but only marginally. Agony danced along my skin like I’d been burned alive, and suddenly every fiber of clothing made my body feel raw and beaten. I heard a pandemonium of screaming and fighting erupt as I convulsed on the ground and finally succumbed to the darkness.
FIVE
I came to in a daze. My mind felt foggy and my skin burned like I’d spent all day out in the sun uncovered. I swallowed hard, my throat dry and parched, as my eyes flew open. Panic seized me when I realized I was in a jail cell. Black iron bars walled the space and two dark figures argued in the dim light.
“Can we kill her?” a female asked. I swallowed a whimper.
Kill me? For sneaking into the city? I had heard that the punishment was death, but I had hoped it was a lie.
“Light, no!” a man shot back. “That would activate the other curse and take out your heir.”
The woman growled in frustration. “She’s the daughter of Marissa Bane. Don’t tell me that doesn’t terrify you.”
I froze, snapping my eyes shut in case they looked over at me. I wanted to keep listening, but it was all so overwhelming. They were talking about me?
I’d never inquired about my birth parents. I didn’t really care. They left a helpless infant in a basket with a note. Who did that to a child? They were dead to me that day, but hearing this information stirred a curiosity inside of me.
Marissa Bane.I didn’t know the name, but they certainly feared it.
“Of course it does. But there is no evidence to suggest she carries the same magic as her moth—”
“She turned one of my Royal Guards’ blessed fae blade to ash with her bare hand! She used the dark power,” the woman snapped, and now I knew—the woman who asked if she could just kill me…was Queen Solana. She saidmyroyal guard. The only one who commanded the royal guard was the queen herself.
Light help me.
I’d forgotten about the sword incident. I’d hoped I had imagined it or that it was something he’d done. But now that they said it was me…I feared myself. Maybe it was good I was behind bars. Maybe Ariyon was right and I did hold an incredible amount of power.
A dark power.
“Then we keep her here under lock and key for the rest of her life,” the woman declared. Again I wanted to sob, but kept it together to hear my fate. Living in this cell for the rest of my life? I would rather die.
“No.” The man pressed. “If we do that, she will grow to hate us, and her powers will still strengthen. She will break out of this cage and kill us all.”
“Well, what do you suggest, Clarke?” The woman sounded slightly desperate. I hoped that this Clarke fellow was about to give her advice that didn’t involve me being killed or locked here forever.
“Let her enter The Academy under my tutelage. I can keep her from going dark like her mother.”
Silence.
More silence.
