She hated that she wanted to cling to that thought. How could she when she’d seen for herself the devastation he’d caused? The man was right – it didn’t erase what he’d done.
He continued, full of venom. “I should’ve gone after him. Killed him with my bare hands,” he growled.
The woman, Lily, was visibly shaken, and held her daughter tighter. “Thalen, I don’t understand – why would he warn us?”
That’s a good question.
“How do I know how a traitor’s mind works?” Thalen responded angrily.
Kara stepped away with Henry and murmured, “He shouldn’t have been able to get to it, Henry. My father swore they’d redoubled its protection.”
A sudden shout cut through the noise. Kara turned towards the Temple steps as a single Thorne guard staggered into view. His cloak was ripped, his lip bloodied, and crimson magic sparked jerkily around him. He slipped down the loose cliffside rocks as he half-ran, half-stumbled towards them.
“Anyone here got a messenger hawk?” he bellowed, scanning the crowd.
“Aye!” came a voice from Kara’s left.
“Send one to the Council. Now. Don’t delay.” His breath hitched as he straightened. “Sebastian Thorne has taken the Water Shard.”
Gasps broke through the crowd. They had feared it, known it even... but hearing it aloud was something else entirely.
Thalen, still bristling with anger, advanced on him. “What happened up there?”
The guard’s jaw tightened. “We were holding the Temple. He came alone. Got past the gates before we knew it, and then–” He swallowed hard. “–it was over. I swear, one moment we were bracing for him, the next we were all on the ground.”
“Is everyone okay?” Kara asked.
Please don’t have killed anyone.
The guard nodded, and Kara let out a sigh of relief. “No deaths. When we woke, the Fatàn shield was still burning strong, but the plinth was empty.”
She looked to Henry, who stood perfectly still. “We were too late,” she whispered.
Henry’s gaze flicked to the distant rise where the Temple loomed. “Yes... and now we know exactly how dangerous Sebastian Thorne is. One man brought an entire village to its knees.”
A raw, grief-stricken wail rose from the crowd. Kara followed the sound to a woman kneeling in the wet mud, her hands twisting uselessly in her lap. Her red-rimmed eyes were locked on the now-calm water.
“Are you hurt?” Kara asked gently, kneeling beside her.
“My husband–” the woman cried, but the rest of her words dissolved into sobs that shook her whole body.
Another villager answered for her. “He was aboard the Navyrian ship. They wouldn’t come in. They laughed at the warning – said no wave could touch a Navyr crew.” He looked out to the water. “The sea took them. All of them.”
Kara’s stomach turned. All those people. Drowned because Sebastian wanted the Shard. Her hand flew to her mouth, and she willed herself not to be sick.
Henry’s gaze stayed on the remnants of the village below. “All those lives... a cost he was willing to pay.” His voice was cold, edged with something that made Kara uneasy. “I doubt he gave them a second thought.”
She kept her gaze down. She didn’t agree – not entirely. Sebastian had come here to take the Shard, that was undeniable, but if he’d meant to kill them, he wouldn’t have warned anyone – gotten them to higher ground. He’d shown mercy. Henry didn’t see that. He clearly thought Sebastian was a monster.
Kara had to find him. Get to the truth.
The guard and several villagers were now barking commands at each other, their voices edged with scarcely concealed panic. They clung to order, desperate to carve a semblance of control from the chaos. Not far from her, a child sat whimpering, hands pressed to a badly cut leg. Kara crouched and laid her palm gently against the skin, letting a pulse of her emerald magic knit the wound closed. It was all she could do.
Her gaze found the grieving widow again.
Not nearly enough.
Next to her, Henry burst into action. “Kara, we need to leave.”
