My eyes followed him down the hill. What’s he up to?
I found Bastien on the field. His eyes closed and palms turned up, he looked like he was mumbling something. The people with their heads covered seemed familiar to me, but I couldn’t figure out why.
Buach ran along the outside of the Mystik rebels, then he slowed down when he reached the end. He approached Conemar, and I couldn’t hear what Buach was saying. Conemar nodded as he listened, then put his lips to the magical bullhorn.
“This lad has an excellent question.”
“Move,” Arik said, taking advantage of Buach’s distraction. We shuffled after him.
Conemar continued. “He wants to know if being part of this uprising would hurt his chances of being a guard for the council. If you put down your arms and walk away, your actions here will be forgiven.”
The hill steepened, and we slid down it on our butts. The werehounds trotted beside us. At the bottom, I pushed myself up. Arik shot to his feet. Royston grasped Deidre’s arm and helped her up. Cadby’s wings stretched out before flattening on his back.
Lei came close to my side. “We need a fight to break out. Not this question and answer stuff. We can get lost better in a fight.”
“I agree,” Jaran said.
Buach said something that made Conemar throw his head back and laugh. “The boy wonders if he’d get paid. Certainly, you will receive a hundred crown coins a week.”
We made it to the field and mixed in with the Mystiks. I could hear what was being said better from where we stood.
Murmurs broke out among the Mystiks again.
“Lies!” Edgar shouted. “He lies to you. I have spies close to the council. They will only give you enough so that you don’t starve. They want to enslave you. They will make you equal, all right. He says if one gets bread, all get bread. Well, you’ll be lucky to get that. His promises are lies.”
Conemar’s face twisted in anger. “Will you believe a turncoat over a high wizard? I did not come to fight you. I am here for one reason.”
Buach’s stare went up to the hill. Conemar glanced to where Buach was looking.
“Get back with the others,” Conemar ordered, watching Buach suspiciously.
Get out of there, Buach.
It was as if Buach heard me. He crossed over to the Mystiks and found a spot in the line.
Conemar brought the magical bullhorn back to his mouth. “People of Barmhilde, there is a fugitive in your midst. Turn over Gianna Bianchi. Those harboring her will receive a death sentence. Whoever brings her to me now will receive a thousand crowns.”
I had no idea what a thousand of those golden coins with a crown on them meant in dollars, but the gasps coming from The Red’s army made me think it was a lot.
Conemar scanned the crowd. “No takers? Reveal our guests,” he said to the guards standing behind the prisoners.
The guards removed the sacks from their heads. I gasped, my eyes going from face to face—Sabine, Pop, Nana, Afton, Kayla, Briony, Galach, and Father Peter.
Buach made a run for his brother.
With a flick of his wrist, Conemar created an electric ball and threw it at Buach. It hit the boy in the chest, and he flew back, landing hard on the ground.
“No!” I shouted at the same time Galach had.
Galach broke from the others, but he only got a few steps before one of the guards grabbed his arms and pulled him back.
Conemar watched Galach curiously. “Was he a loved one of yours?” He nodded to the guard behind Briony. The guard put a knife to her throat. “Move again and my guard will kill your queen,” he said.
With the bodies in front of me shifting, I couldn’t get a good view of Buach. Was he breathing? Still alive? I didn’t know. Please be okay, I prayed.
“Gianna, only you can save them,” Conemar continued. “Come to me now.”
I tried to move past Lei, but she stopped me. “No. He’ll kill you.”
“He has my family…Afton. He’ll kill them all.” I retrieved the canister from my boot and placed it in her hands. “I got Royston here. I gathered the blood for the potion. I’ve done my part. Because of my mistakes, we’re here. I should have been more careful. I left a drawbridge down—”
“What are you saying?” Her eyes danced over my face.
“I am what the presage saw. The Doomsday Child.” I glanced back at the field. “I can change it. I must go.”
Jaran huddled with us. “What are you doing?”
“You guys need to get Royston close enough to the Tetrad,” I said. “Have him drink this, and he knows what to do. I will be the distraction you need. Please trust me on this.”
Lei’s eyebrows pushed together as she watched me, my words processing in her mind. “I trust you.”
“I do, as well,” Jaran said.
“Arik and Demos may try to stop me,” I said. “Don’t let them.”
The werehounds followed me.
I eased into an opening in between a Laniar and a man resembling a bull, and disappeared into the crowd. It was as if the sea parted when Mystiks realized it was Gianna Bianchi pushing to get by them.
“Gia!” Arik’s voice came from where I’d just left.
Gasps and murmurs moved like waves over the Mystiks when I stepped from the crowd into the front.
“Stay here,” I told the werehounds. They whimpered but obeyed me.
Conemar was about half a football field away from me. I squared my shoulders and crossed halfway to him.
His eyes landed on me. “Good girl. I knew you would do the sensible thing. And I’m certain your loved ones appreciate your sacrifice.”
“No, Gia, get back,” Pop pleaded.
“What do you want me to do?” I slid a glance to Nick. His eyes were almost marble-like.
The Tetrad stood slack, heads down, like puppets waiting for their master to bring them to life.
Conemar turned his head from side to side while he studied me. “Don’t you wonder why I have your Bastien?”
Bastien’s tortured eyes lifted and found mine.
I didn’t answer Conemar. My heart was slowly tearing from my chest.
A sinister smile tightened his lips. He hopped off the boulder and paced in front of Nick. “Too afraid to know, huh? I needed wizards to compel my son. Children these days don’t obey their parents as they did in my day. I’ve been running through wizards like cheap batteries, their lives snuffed out too fast.”
I didn’t speak, just stood there, listening and searching for weaknesses in his plan.
“Compelling runs out a wizard’s life. We live almost three hundred years. But I had to be careful not to let any of them die while compelling my son. I’m not that evil. I don’t want a vegetable for an heir. You’d be surprised what someone will sacrifice for loved ones. They’d let me run out their lives to save them.”
I had no options. He could kill any one of his hostages. He could kill Bastien.
“Bastien is controlling my son as we speak,” Conemar was saying. “While you’re standing there watching him, your beloved Bastien’s life is slowly diminishing.”