My heartbeat roars loud enough to drown out the crowd. But not the thunder.
The sound rattles in my chest, so close and so explosive it shakes the air. I taste it on my tongue.
I don’t get to see the next thunderbolt before Kitten and Clover throw me to the ground, our dresses be damned. They pin my shoulders, digging into aching muscles with their hands and their ability. Silence floods my body, fast and strong enough to push the air from my lungs. I gasp, struggling to breathe. My fingers scrabble over the tiled ground, feeling for something to grab. If I could breathe, I would laugh. This is not the first time someone has held me down in Caesar’s Square.
Another clap of thunder, another flash of blue light. The resulting push of Arven silence almost makes me vomit up my guts.
“Don’t kill her, Janny. Don’t!” Clover growls. Janny. Kitten’s real name. “It’ll be our heads if she dies.”
“It’s not me,” I try to choke out. “It’s not me.”
If Kitten and Clover can hear, they don’t show it. Their pressure never lessens, a new constant of pain.
Unable to scream, I force my head up, looking for someone to help me. Looking for Maven. He’ll stop this. I hate myself for thinking it.
Legs cross my vision, black uniforms, civilian colors, and distant, fleeing red-orange robes. The Sentinels keep moving, tight in their formation. Like at the banquet that ended in a near assassination, they spring into well-practiced action, focused on their one and only purpose: defend the king. They change direction quickly, herding Maven not toward the palace, but to the Treasury. To his train. To his escape.
Escape from what?
The freak storm isn’t mine. The lightning isn’t mine.
“Follow the king,” Kitten—Janny—snarls. She hoists me onto wobbly legs, and I almost fall again. The Arvens don’t let me. Neither does the sudden wall of uniformed officers. They surround me in diamond formation, perfect for cutting through the surging crowd. The Arvens lessen their pulsing ability, if only to allow me to walk.
We push on as one while the lightning overhead intensifies. No rain yet. And it’s not nearly hot enough or arid enough for dry lightning. Strange. If only I could feel it. Use it. Draw the jagged lines out of the sky and obliterate every single person around me.
The crowd is perplexed. Most look up; a few point. Some try to back away but find themselves hemmed in by one another. I glance between the faces, looking for an explanation. I see only confusion and fear. If the crowd panics, I wonder if even the Security officers can stop them from trampling us.
Up ahead, Maven’s Sentinels widen the gap between us. A few have taken to tossing people. A strongarm bodily shoves a man back several yards, while a telky sweeps away three or four with a wave of her hand. The crowd gives them a wide berth after that, clearing the space around the fleeing king and new queen. Through the tumult, I catch his eyes as he looks back to search for me. They are wide and wild now, vividly blue even from so far away. His lips move, shouting something I can’t hear over the thunder and the rising panic.
“Hurry!” Clover barks, pushing me onward toward the gap.
Our guards become aggressive, their abilities presenting. A swift lunges back and forth, pressing people back from our path. He blurs between bodies, a whirlwind. And then he stops cold.
The gunshot catches the swift between the eyes. Too close to dodge, too fast to escape. His head snaps back in an arc of blood and brain.
I don’t know the woman holding the gun. She has blue hair, jagged blue tattoos—and a bloody crimson scarf wrapped around her wrist. The crowd shudders around her, shocked for an instant, before springing into full-blown chaos.
With one hand still aiming her pistol, the blue-haired woman raises the other.
Lightning rips out of the sky.
It crashes toward the circle of Sentinels. She has deadly aim.
I tense, expecting an explosion. Instead, the blue-tinged lightning hits a sudden arc of shimmering water, running across the liquid but not through. It veins and flashes, almost blinding, but disappears in an instant, leaving only the watery shield. Beneath it, Maven, Evangeline, and even the Sentinels crouch, hands over their heads. Only Iris is left standing.
The water pools around her, curling and twisting like one of Larentia’s snakes. It grows with every second, leaching so quickly I taste the air drying on my tongue. Iris wastes no time, tearing off her veil. Dimly, I hope it doesn’t rain. I don’t want to know what Iris can do with rain.
Lakelander guards fight through the crowd, their dark blue forms trying to break through the fleeing crowd. Security officers meet the same obstacle and get caught up, tangled in the mess. Silvers dart in every direction. Some toward the commotion, others away from danger. I’m torn between wanting to run with them and wanting to run toward the blue-haired woman. My brain buzzes as adrenaline courses through me, fighting tooth and nail against the silence smothering my being. Lightning. She wields lightning. She’s a newblood. Like me. The thought almost makes me cry with happiness. If she doesn’t get out of here fast, she’ll end up a corpse.
“Run!” I try to scream. It comes out a whisper.
“Get the king to safety!” Evangeline’s voice carries as she jumps to her feet. Her gown quickly shifts into armor, scaling across her skin in pearly plates. “Evacuate!”
A few of the Sentinels comply, pulling Maven into their protective formation. His hand sparks with weak flame. It sputters, matching his fear. The rest of his detail draw guns of their own or explode into their abilities. A banshee Sentinel opens his mouth to scream but drops to a knee, gasping. He tears at his throat. He can’t breathe. But why, who? His comrades drag him back as he continues to choke.