43. Lyle
Chapter 43
Lyle
W e stand at the ruins of The Lily Institute around Scythe, who crouches down, crushing a piece of rubble with his fingers. Darkness coils around his entire being. Violence curls around all three of us.
The entire complex has been destroyed. The casualties are in the hundreds, the injured being carted out on stretchers by more ambulances and healing eagles than I can count. It wasn’t fire that destroyed Scythe’s pride and joy, nor water.
The humans put it down to an earthquake. But we know better.
It was telekinesis.
They had ripped the place apart with sheer force alone.
It’s Beak who brings us the picture, tentative, unsure as he steps through the rubble. He’s covered in blood that’s not his, healing as many patients as he can in rapid succession. Saving the innocent lives affected by this horror.
“What is it?” Savage growls.
Beak holds it out to me as I stand closest to him. I take it, turning it over because he’s been trying to hide it from passersby.
When I lay eyes on the photos, on my regina, naked in that medieval cage, gagged and enraged , my entire universe crumbles around me, just like The Lily Institute.
This had been a distraction. They had used the innocents inside The Lily Institute to keep us from interrupting the auction of my regina.
The roar in my head rattles the bones of my skull.