The air moved around me, slowly at first, and it gave the impression that time stood still. It grew, my gaze finding Logan, still fighting as several men tore him down, and Aern, both of them so close to our target, so close to Morgan. The debris of fighting, bullet casings and broken glass, scraps of nothing and everything, floated around me and the torrent rose, widening to brush against everything in its path.
Emily was the first to see, her form still, motionless in the stream that surrounded me, and then the others, Brendan’s soldiers, Morgan’s, every single man that stood before us. It was like a wave of consciousness, spreading through the crowd, and the men on the opposite side did not only freeze. They stepped back.
Chapter Twenty-two
Fire
It happened quickly, in the scheme of things, but time seemed to crawl as I stepped forward among the current of power enfolding me. I’d not made all my connections, not completed the network, but I’d made enough, the ones that counted. It had caused a hesitation, given us the seconds we needed. I could feel the tide turn, crashing against itself before shifting back in our direction. It was now. We were going to win.
Morgan was the first to come to his senses, the moment of stunned silence all he needed to realize what it meant. He’d known I was a shade, a shadow, but he hadn’t seen me use the power, hadn’t thought I could do more than free him. My gaze caught Emily’s, standing solidly beside me, and in the storm, my voice sounded deadly. Lethal. “Break him.”
The room erupted into chaos as Logan ordered, “Move!” the same instant Morgan opened his mouth to call out the command, “Shoot her!” I thrust the air circling me toward Morgan, his order meeting with a gale of power that threw him backwards, knocked him off his feet, and seventy men converged upon the group, bullets and fighting filling the spaces on either side. Wesley was the first to go, his body in front of me before Logan’s words were even out, and his shoulder swung back as he took a bullet intended for either me or Emily.
But she was gone. She was running, her feet moving swiftly through the few feet of space that was left from Morgan’s position, dodging resolutely past the soldiers to her target. She wasn’t just a girl. She was a warrior; she had been trained for this.
She knew what she had to do, and she’d do it at all cost. She leaned forward, ramming one attacker with her shoulder, and spun, twisting away from another to move through the crowd. Westley had fallen, but he was up again, and he ran with me, both of us following in her wake, close behind as she reached her target.
Morgan had scrambled back, was getting to his feet, and Aern sprang at him, bashing his knee into the other man’s face. But Morgan was strong, too. Of all of us, he’d had the most training, and he rolled, tossing Aern as he worked to get a grip on his brother’s skin ... to turn him. Shots rang out again, and Emily swayed, but her steps didn’t falter. She was on him, feet and elbows flying as the two of them struggled to pin Morgan down. His crisp white shirt was suddenly open, the skin of his chest bare, and Emily’s palms pressed flat against him with a force that pushed him back, seemed to sear through him.
There was a scream. An utter roar.
And it was Morgan.
The room stilled again, the fighting staggering and breaking as his shriek splintered the air, and his men stopped to stare at the body below my sister’s palms. Aern sat back, panting, as Wesley’s boots came to rest beside him. I stood, staring down at Morgan’s face, all of us knowing that Emily had done it, she’d taken his fate, torn his power away.
The anger hadn’t left him, but Morgan was irrelevant now. Empty. Everything that had made him important, powerful, frightening, was gone, drained from him, and I realized that he had never been vital to the prophecy at all. He didn’t mean anything. We’d simply needed him to get here, to break ourselves free.
This had all been to force our hand. Because the prophecy was bigger, far more significant than any of this.
Morgan’s chest heaved as he stared at me, his eyes suddenly dull, void of anything other. He wanted me to die, and yet, it made no difference anymore. He was immaterial.
“Leave him,” I told Emily. “He’s nothing more than a commonblood now.” She let out a breath, satisfied by my words, and stood as Wesley and two others gathered him into their custody.
I scanned the room, hundreds of men who were loyal to Morgan because of his sway watching us from the wreckage, waiting for it to make sense. To decide.
We couldn’t make them “unthink” their thoughts, couldn’t reverse what had been shoved into their minds by Morgan, but as my eyes connected with Aern’s, I knew there was something we could do, a way to give them new thoughts. To convince them Morgan was no longer their leader.
I wet my lips, kneeling down before Aern to take his hand. He was a dragon. He had the most powerful sway of anyone, aside from Morgan, and I could give him the gift he needed, the power to turn his own kind. Because I trusted him. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, fully aware of what it would cost him, of what I was setting into motion.