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“Her kind,” a voice hisses. “Her kind drowned the world. Mages did this to us. Mages are the reason we’re on this gods-forsaken rock.”
My stomach turns.
“If the other kings find out there’s a mage here,” another voice says, and this one is higher, threaded with panic, “they’ll come with ships and soldiers and slaughter every last one of us to get to her. Is that what you want?”
“Haven’t we lost enough?” another voice asks.
Hate and fear spew from their lips as the crowd gathers, swarming Eagan from every direction, and Eagan moves swiftly, my vision blurring as we go. I hear guards trying to force the panicked humans back who are shouting their hate, their fear, shoving their blame for the past at me, throwing things as we pass.
But then. A different voice. Quieter. Coming from somewhere near the back of the crowd from a woman I can’t see.
“What if she can help us?” the woman asks. “What if she can make things grow?”
The anger doesn’t disappear, but it makes room for something else. Desperation or maybe shame.
Eagan growls loudly. “Get them back!” he demands.
“Don’t hurt them,” I say, but my voice is barely louder than a whisper. “Eagan. Don’t let anyone hurt them. They’re scared. That’s all.”
He doesn’t respond, but his grip shifts and tightens.
“I knew better,” I murmur. “This is exactly why I should have kept it hidden,” I say just as another voice cuts through the chaos.
Kylian’s.
CHAPTER 39
• King Kylian •
THE FIRST THING I notice is not the shouting; the island is always noisy to me. It is the fear inside the shouting.
Fear always has a different shape from anger, and by the time the noise reaches the upper road outside the castle, I am already moving, searching through the bond for her.
The bond is not screaming she is in danger, not yet, but it is thin and strained, pulled tight in a way that makes every other sound in the world sharpen.
The word mage is shouted.
It rolls through the lower quarter once, then again, carried by too many mouths, and something inside me goes cold.
I reach the wall to the lower quarter as the crowd closes around Eagan.
He is coming up the road with Alessia in his arms, her head limp against his shoulder, one arm hanging down with blood dripping from her fingers. For one terrifying moment, the only thing I see is the red streak across her mouth and the way her eyes keep rolling beneath half-closed lids.
The crowd presses closer, and a stone strikes the wall near Eagan’s shoulder, breaking against the brick.
“Get them back,” Eagan snarls, his voice carrying above the crush of bodies. Two guards shove at the front line and try to keep the road clear without killing anyone.
“They’ll bring war here,” someone screams. “If the kings know there’s a mage on this island, they’ll burn every house to get her.”
“She should be chained,” another shouts. “She should be given to the Crown before they come for all of us.”
“She destroyed a boat,” a man yells from somewhere near the back, his voice high with panic. “Threw it into the wall with magic.”
“What if she can make things grow,” a woman answers, softer.
That changes the sound of the crowd. Not enough to calm it, but there is a brief pause.
Fear turns toward need, need turns toward hunger. Their faces shift as they look at Alessia in Eagan’s arms and try to decide whether she is a curse or a tool to be used.
