Now several voices joined in. “You have no power, you have no might, and you have no dominion over the Resistance!”
My eyes roved over the crowd, trying to find who was doing this. Everyone was moving, turning, talking, searching, but there was one face staring straight at me.
Unmoving.
Smiling.
Rian winked, and I couldn’t tell if he truly saw him or not, but I watched Calix stretch out his hand toward my brother.
Instantly, my control on my power snapped and I felt it rush out, a wave of crushing, numbing relief sweeping through me.
It was as if someone took a hammer to the side of the cliff the castles were built on, and one hard jolt threw my husband to the side, swaying the platform.
The ice around me cracked, and a moment later it shattered, a barrage of sharp crystals that melted as they moved.
I screamed as I fell, dropping toward the ground in the shower of ice shards.
Arms caught me, but the force was too much and we crashed to the ground in a heap. The fall slammed the breath out of my chest, and Galen was under me, gripping me tight, every inch of his body against mine.
I couldn’t open my eyes for long moments. I could smell him, like sweat and salt and something I wasn’t used to, that I vaguely knew from the ride here as the scent of forest. Green. Free. I was surrounded by his body, safe and sheltered, and I dug my fingers into his chest, trying to claw out a breath.
He touched my face, and I heard him calling my name, his chest heaving so hard that it pushed me up and down. “Shalia!” he said.
I opened my eyes. My hands on him curled tight, and I drew in a hard breath.
Galen held me as he sat up, then managed to get his legs beneath him to bring us to our feet without letting go of me. I stood and my knees sank as if I was standing in sand. He held me close.
I was vaguely aware of him checking me over in his soldier’s way, the touches quick and light and impersonal, but my head was buzzing and I was still struggling for deep, even breaths.
“Shalia?” he asked, holding my arms now. “Shalia?”
I nodded belatedly.
It was like all the noise around us rushed back in at once; Calix was yelling and pointing, and people were screaming, trying to rush out of the courtyard, but the gates were closed.
There was a keening sound, and then a terrible crack as the platform buckled.
“Clear the platform!” Galen shouted, and he pulled my hand, rushing to the stairs and tugging me behind him. “Jump!” he shouted at me, and I obeyed him, leaping from the stairs as the platform collapsed in a cloud of dust. His hand in mine anchored me, guiding me close to him.
“Kairos!” I called, seeing him in the rising dust.
Galen let go of my hand. “Get her out of here!” he told Kai.
Kai pushed me in front of him as we ran up the walkway. I felt weak and disoriented, but I kept putting one foot in front of the other, glancing back to see his scimitar drawn and gleaming in the sun.
When we were in the archway, I looked back and saw the madness. The gates were shut, and the guards were trying to control the terrified people. I watched them use their shields like weapons, battering people and pushing them back.
Hurting people.
At the center of it all, my husband was barking orders for the guards to search the crowd by any means necessary, very nearly condoning their brutality, but somewhere in the melee, Rian was there too. Which one of them was more to blame for the people’s suffering?
“Shy, come on,” Kairos growled.
“Rian will be trapped,” I told him, my voice hushed.
“Rian wouldn’t come into the courtyard without more than one way out,” he told me, his eyes flinty. He wasn’t surprised. He’d seen Rian too—maybe he’d even known Rian would be there.
I moved forward, and we rushed through the halls. We made it to my bedroom, and Kairos ordered the guard not to let anyone in without his explicit approval. He brought me to the bed, and I sat with a sigh.
“Are you all right?” he asked. His head swept around the room carefully, and he asked, “The shaking—was that you?”
I swallowed and nodded slowly. “But not the rest.”
He shook his head. “No. That was the Resistance. From what I can gather, that is the bulk of their forces—recruiting people with elements that need protection. That and some farmers and dissenters.”
“But they seemed so organized,” I said, drawing my knees up.
“They are,” he said. “More than I can give Rian credit for too. Whoever Rian’s working with has a strong eye for that sort of thing.”
“Why would Rian do this?” I asked, shivering. “He’s attacking me.”
Kai sat beside me on the bed, his shoulder pressed to mine. “No,” he said gently. “I think our brother is a damn fool, but I can see, at least, that he was making an effort to do it in a way where you wouldn’t get hurt. Except for being dropped from the sky, but at least Galen saw to that. And as far as I can tell, he’s doing this to protect people from Calix’s injustice. Especially the Elementae.”
“Does Rian have an ability?” I asked.
He sighed. “Not that I know of. But Rian was in the islands during the massacre—do you remember that? Whatever he saw while he was there, it changed him.”
I drew a deep breath, uncomfortable with the idea that there were sides of my brothers I didn’t know at all. “I think Calix saw Rian.”
Kai’s expression turned stormy and dark. “That Rian cannot risk. If your husband believes you have anything to do with this—even through Rian—” He stopped abruptly. “Skies,” he muttered.
“But I don’t,” I insisted. “We don’t. Right?”
His eyes flicked to me and away. “I don’t know if things like ‘reason’ and ‘responsibility’ really matter to your husband. If he wants to see a connection, he will.”
I shook my head, standing from the bed. It was growing foggy and dark outside, and it felt like this was finding its way inside my mind and smudging what I was certain of. “He wouldn’t. He’s my husband.” I stepped closer to the glass, but looked back at Kai. “What about Kata?” I asked.
He lifted his shoulders. “I haven’t heard more.” Standing from the bed, he sighed. “I’m going to find Galen. You need your own guard, and I’m assuming he’ll agree to it after today.”
“Will a guard help if it’s my own brother endangering me?” I asked. “If it’s my very hands?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Yes,” he said, coming and kissing my temple before he left me alone again.
The Night the Three-Faced God Walked
I wasn’t shaking anymore, but there was an uneasy tremor deep inside me. I lay on the bed, but I couldn’t sleep, staring at the ceiling as my heart thudded in my chest.
I stood, pacing about the chamber, walking out onto the balcony in the thickening fog, but there wasn’t enough space to walk, and somehow the fog carried the green scent of Galen on it.
How could I be thinking of him now?
“Shy,” I heard, and I turned back toward the palace, but no one was there.
“Shy,” I heard again, and I turned into the heart of the fog.