They were patrolling, I realized, my heart tensing with understanding of what Edmund had done. What he had really done.
He had created a police state. More than just using the Vil?s to create an army, he had created guards to keep everything in line. As perfectly planned as his attack had been, he had done it all knowing he would draw us here, knowing he would trap us inside.
Where are the boundaries of the city? My voice was panicked as it plunged into Ilyan’s mind, the conversation in quick Czech that he had been having stopping abruptly.
Follow the river in either direction; his voice was a rumble as he followed alongside me on my path. His magic grew within me as he watched my progress, as his mind moved through the city right alongside mine. There is a freeway that circles the city…
He saw it as I did, the rubble of what once had been a roadway and was now a ruin. Cement, trees, portions of buildings—they were piled high in a barricade that towered far into the sky, blocking everything on the other side from the destruction that Edmund had wrought through the center of the city. It was more than a barricade. It was a fall, and from the top, a wide shield of glittering red spread over us, dimming the sky beyond and casting the blood red sheen over the city.
Everything was covered in the blood of what Edmund had done, trapped behind walls and a shield that I knew at once I would never be able to penetrate, not on my own.
I felt Ilyan’s anger grow within me, his emotions strong as mine raged right beside them. It was more than dread. It was a panic that took over every part of my body, every part of my mind, and tensed through me in a painful rage that ignited my magic further. I wanted to reach toward Ilyan, to grab his hand and comfort him, to bring him close to me. However, all I saw was the wall, all I heard were the screams of those who had tried to flee the city, only to be blocked by not only the wall, but the army Edmund had placed beside it.
It was more than the camps he had surrounded the abbey with. It was a line of angry Trpaslík. It was the short men and woman of a race who, as Wyn had said so poignantly stated almost a year before, specialized in destruction.
I guess we now knew where the rumble of the first explosion had come from.
Edmund had closed off the city, trapping us all inside.
People had tried. They had run in their panic as everything had started. They had raced from the Vil?s. Some had even been able to drive their cars away in an attempt to escape. But it had all been pointless.
Bodies were piled before the barricades, the cars crashed and crumpled against each other. It was the same scene of war that I had been shown in history classes for years. Pictures of a past I had never really understood to be real until that very moment.
I had never truly comprehended that one man could cause so much destruction. So much death.
That one man could hate so much he would destroy so many.
I understood now.
I watched the bodies, watched the blood flow, and all the while, the magical army Edmund already had at his disposal rejoiced at the destruction.
At the carnage that they had created.
“How far does it go?” Ilyan asked from beside me, his voice distanced as he spoke.
I felt the pressure of his hand against mine as his magic surged with me, the connection not necessary yet so very welcome. I rejoiced at the warmth of his touch, at the strength of that security, and followed my magic as it sped away around the wall, moving through the endless destruction, the endless line of Edmund’s men, the constantly flowing rivers growing, the color only enhanced by the shield Edmund had surrounded us by. It never ended.
It was a solid mass of men, of wall, of death.
My head spun at the understanding, the finality making me sick.
Ilyan. The world was a plea for understanding that I knew I would never get. Not with the way I could feel the thunderous pulse of his heart within mine.
He only clung to my hand tightly, his free hand pulling me against him as my magic pulled back into me, my head spinning wildly at the recoil.
My eyes opened to the dark room, to the kind face of the woman who sat across from me. I didn’t see that, though. All I could see was the destruction I had come from, my head spinning with recollection, my body weak from exertion.
“They are lining the wall,” Ilyan’s voice rumbled in English as he held me against him, his voice filled with the same anger I felt rule him.
“The wall?” The heavy accent in Risha’s voice made it to where I could barely understand her. No wonder they had been speaking in Czech.
It was obviously more than a familiarity issue.
“My father has turned the freeway into a barricade. Nothing is getting out of the city.”
“You mean we are trapped here.” Risha slipped into Czech at her alarm, but Ilyan’s mind translated it for me instantly. Not that I needed the help—her tone was enough, the fear behind it almost crippling.
“Ano.”
Yes.