“Why?” Cassandra asked.
“The decree lacked specifics,” Borea answered tightly, her fiery gaze bouncing among the soldiers. “Though it did threaten my removal and the slaughter of my Sisters if we refuse to comply. Said that we could easily bereplaced.”
A soft snarl rippled from Hella’s lips.
“How many days worth of obliviates is this?” Cassandra asked.
“Days?” Borea laughed, turning to Cassandra, sorrow dampening the cold fire in her pitch-black eyes. “These are just the obliviates from yesterday.”
Cassandra swayed. At most, the Temple in Thalenn had experienced one, maybe two obliviations per month. To have twenty occur in a single day was unthinkable.
“What use could the Emperor possibly have for obliviated humans?”
“I don’t know,” Borea dipped her head into her hands.
A shriek burst through the crowd.
A Fae soldier aimed a stun pistol at a young girl who’d wrapped her arms around the legs of her obliviated mother.
“Don’t take her!” the little girl wailed. “Please don’t take her!”
Infuriated tears stung Cassandra’s eyes.
The soldier yanked the little girl away from her mother and before she could think better of it, Cassandra’s rage spurred her into action.
She swept down the stairs and shoved the Fae male—a Deathstalker with pistachio-green eyes—in the chest. “Leave her alone!”
He stumbled backwards, caught off-guard, and Cassandra cradled the little girl against her hip.
Hella ambled up behind her, flaring her wings, her hands drifting to her own stun pistol and dagger at her hips.
The little girl struggled out of Cassandra’s grip and darted back to her mother.
The Deathstalker soldier straightened, the barrel of his stun pistol directed at Cassandra’s chest. She refused to back down.
“She is interfering with official Imperial business,” the male sneered. “Unless you’d like us to use this weapon against a child, we’d suggest you convince her to back away and let us do our jobs.”
Cassandra crouched down next to the little girl, and Hella tucked in closer, her golden eyes holding the solider with such piercing intensity that the male’s pistol wobbled.
The little girl sobbed quietly, squeezing her mother’s legs.
“Hey,” Cassandra cooed, placing a hand on her shoulder. “What’s your name, sweetheart?”
“An-andrea,” the little girl sniffled.
“Hi, Andrea. I’m Cass.” She wiped a sweat-soaked strand of hair from Andrea’s flushed face.
“Huh-hi.”
“Do you have any other family here with you today?” Cassandra asked.
“No,” Andrea howled. “She’s…she’s my only family. What’s happened to her? Mommy, why won’t you answer me?” Andrea clutched her mother’s limp fingers.
A vision of gray-streaked dark hair and vacant espresso eyes stole through Cassandra’s mind and it was all she could do to keep herself from collapsing on the ground and echoing the girl’s anguished cries.
Cassandra glared up at the soldier, contemplated fighting him for the stun pistol and taking down the lot of them. She knew Hella would back her up. Borea likely would as well. Would shift into her polar bear and rip out the soldiers’ throats.
But to defy the Empire so openly—and in front of so many witnesses—was unwise. She’d not only be risking her own future, but Hella’s and Borea’s as well.
