“What… what do you want?” she asked, near to tears now.
“Unfortunately, we can’t suffer a leatha to live.”
Kerrigan lashed out with her magic. Flames erupted, blasting the man backward and destroying his face. He screamed, and others hastened forward to put out the flames. Kerrigan ignored them all and tried to run, run far away from them. Darby and Hadrian had been right. This was a mistake, a terrible mistake.
One of the women latched on to her wrist and yanked. A sharp pop sounded in the alleyway as her wrist dislocated. Then the woman threw her down into the dirty street. Dirt and grime and sewage covered the front of her white dress and dirtied the pretty silk cloak. Her hands were scraped raw from catching herself, and the pain from her wrist was agonizing.
“You leatha bitch!”
A boot connected with her jaw. She was flung backward, stars exploding in her vision. She reached for her powers, but suddenly, as if a whirlpool had drained inside her, her magic was sucked up and emptied. There was nothing there. Nothing at all to save her. She reached and reached, but she was being pulled under and away.
Images flashed before her eyes. The parade at the Square on fire. People wearing red masks, flooding the streets. Death. So much death. Then, a portal door within the mountain. A castle in a distant mountain range. Not of this world. A magical battle and dragons, hundreds of dragons flying to aid.
A voice spoke to her. A voice she recognized. Tears sprang to her eyes at the sound of Cyrene speaking to her.
“I have little time, Kerrigan. We are in desperate need of your help. Open the portal this one last time. We beg of you. The fate of our world may rest in your hands.”
“Cyrene, I don’t know if I’m strong enough.”
Cyrene’s voice was a caress. “I know that you are or else I would not be able to speak to you now.”
“I’m afraid.”
“Do you want to know a secret?”
“Yes,” Kerrigan whispered.
“We’re all afraid. Every minute of every day. But those who master their fear, they’re the ones who go on to do great things.”
And then her voice was gone. The images were gone.
All she felt was the pain. For however many seconds she had had those images and Cyrene in her head, the Fae had converged on her. They were beating her. They were going to kill her. She was broken. Her limbs couldn’t move. She had no magic anymore. Not even a drop.
She was going to die here. Die before she could ever tell a single soul that Cyrene had spoken to her. That Cyrene’s world needed saving.
She opened her eyes, and a scream of protest escaped her. The Fae had donned masks. Red masks. They were part of the images in her head… had they been true? All she saw was the red masks beating her, kicking her, killing her. Red blood coated her white dress.
Pain overtook her body. Unconsciousness beckoned. Failure. If she left now, she would fail Cyrene, fail everyone. Still, there wasn’t anything she could do. She retreated deep, deep, deep into herself. To the dark, empty place where there was no pain, no fear, no torture. Just eternity.
And then something rocked through her…
* * *
And then something rocked through her. A wave of energy exploded from the core of her body and released outward, like a bomb detonating.
30
The Second
Kerrigan opened her eyes. Her bonds were severed. Bodies littered the ground before her. Her limbs were heavy, and her pain rushed back to her tenfold. She groaned and turned her attention to Fordham.
He was still conscious though barely. One eye was swollen shut. His shirt was torn, and there was a long cut from his left shoulder across to his right abdomen. It wasn’t deep, but it was still freshly leaking blood.
“What did you do?” he muttered. His one eye wide in shock.
She stood despite her many injuries and began to unknot his bonds. “We have to get out of here.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted.
It was the truth… and not the truth. She had clearly caused some kind of magical explosion despite the fact that her magic had been dampened by whatever drug Clare had given them. And… it wasn’t the first time she had done it. She had done it five years ago as well. She tamped down that thought until she had time to process it later.
She finished with the bonds on his feet. “You need to get up. We have to flee.”
“But—”
“Now,” she commanded, hard and unyielding. “Now.”
He nodded, bottling up all his questions and turning back into the military commander he so obviously had been in his previous life. “Let’s move out.”
Kerrigan toed the man who had beaten her. He didn’t move. She swallowed, uncertain if she had killed them or knocked them out, but she didn’t stop to check. Already, Fordham was to the door, holding his ribs.