Chapter 24
Rosabel La Rouge
Guns fired first. My instincts were already taking over and I turned, ready to jump off the roof of that bus and into the fight, but Taland was still holding my hand. He refused to let me go.
And my mind ran away from me when I began to see the fight going on around us, when I felt the colorful magic in the air—and not just from the soldiers, no. Taland was chanting, too, and the magic wrapped around us before it disappeared, locking us in a ward while the people fought.
The IDD soldiers, the Laetus—and the people.
Screams filled my ears, but I was too shocked still to join in. Too consumed by the sight of all that magic, all the guns that were firing, but not for long. Bullets were only effective when there were no wards to keep them back, and by the time everyone lost control of their wards, they would all be too immersed in fighting with magic to think of weapons.
The civilians, that is.
The IDD soldiers? They were trained to use both, just like I had been. Which was why I knew that it wasn’t going to be a fair fight from the very beginning, but…
Colors.
So many colors were in the air, and they were coming from the hands of Taland’s soldiers. They were not engaging in the fight but all thirty of them had their hands to the sky. None were chanting, yet colors were bursting out of their palms and the magic was falling like sparkly fairy dust onto the crowd.
“Protection,” Taland whispered, before I realized that his hands were raised, and he was so focused on what was happening around us that his eyes looked different. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but it was like he was trying to see everything at the same time—and he was succeeding.
“They don’t need to fight,” he continued, and I watched in awe as the IDD soldiers dropped their weapons and turned to their magic.
With their wands and bones and staffs they chanted furiously, but their spells couldn’t get through to the civilians at all. All those people around us screaming and shouting spells at the IDD soldiers, and they were perfectly fine. None of them were being hit because twenty-one of Taland’s soldiers had spread their own colorful magic around them—or was it his ?—and they weren’t fighting, either. Most of them had gathered to create a line between the IDD soldiers and the civilians screaming their guts out at them. They’d created a line of bodies, and the strangest thing—the IDD soldiers were not attacking them.
Not a single gun was aimed at Taland’s soldiers. Not a single spell fell on them, either, and right now I had no idea whether that was intentional or not, but the Council members were still there, still in front of those doors, watching. The people screamed like mad, and they tried to get Taland’s soldiers to let them through to the IDD because they’d gathered courage now. They’d gathered courage because they still hadn’t been truly threatened.
“Taland,” I whispered, and I wasn’t calm yet, not even close. “Taland, I’m going in.”
“No,” he said.
“Yes, Taland. I need to find Cassie. She?—”
Suddenly he was in front of me, his eyes on my face. “It’s not safe,” he told me, and had it been anybody else, I’d have probably been terrified.
But this was Taland, no matter how his eyes looked right now, and so I took his face in my hands, too. I rose on my tiptoes and whispered against his lips, “ She could die. ”
“She won’t,” he said, his voice thick.
“You don’t know that. I know you’re scared, but I’ll be fine. I’ll—” Be back in a minute, I wanted to say, but he didn’t let me.
“If you die, all will be lost.”
The words died on my tongue.
“I can’t…I can’t just stand here and watch, damn it!” I understood what he was saying because I felt the exact same way, but I had to do something.
He said, “Trust me, sweetness,” and all my complaints faded away. “ Trust me .”
“I do.” I trusted him more than I trusted myself. More than I trusted anyone in the world.
Taland nodded, didn’t smile. He didn’t kiss me, either, but turned to face the crowd again, the soldiers…
Meanwhile Radock and the others were still behind the line of Laetus soldiers who were facing the Council, and he was most definitely smiling as he looked up at us. We were maybe twenty feet away atop the bus, and the sea of bodies between us would make it impossible for him to get to us quickly, so he stayed put, but I saw his smile. I saw how he was proud of Taland, how he was greedy. It was so clearly obvious it made my stomach twist and turn. Made my instinct scream against him.
Then Taland spoke.
“We will only fight against the Council.”
Every single person out there held their breath, myself included. Not because I heard the soft voice of Taland standing beside me, but because I also heard those same words leaving the mouths of the soldiers who stood before the Council, and their voices were anything but soft. Anything but normal. They were…robotic at best. Monstrous.
Fucking hell, they spoke.
Again, I found myself gripping his arm, not afraid of the Council or the battle or anything, no—just terrified of the fact that the soldiers were right there, standing tall, not hiding, and the IDD was not attacking them yet.
“Taland, what are you doing?” I whispered, and every person around looked up at us, at him .
“Ending this once and for all,” Taland told me. “They’re here. They came here personally, and nobody should have to die for them. But if they’re cowards and won’t face my soldiers…” His voice trailed off and he took a deep breath, and said, “We will only fight against the Council. ”
Again, the words amplified when leaving the lips of the Laetus soldiers, in that strange voice, so powerful.
But now, the crowd went crazy.
Suddenly, they started to cheer. Suddenly, they started to call Taland’s name and raise their fists in the air, and Radock and Zachary were laughing where they stood, and Aurelia was looking at me. Just as terrified as I was.
Every instinct in my body came alive. To push them down again was torture.
“We will only fight the Council!” said the soldiers together with Taland one more time, and then the crowd continued— fight, fight, fight, fight! —in unison, like they were all being controlled by the same mind, too.
I held my breath, fisted my hands, looked at Helen Paine as she stood in the shadows of the building, watching…
Goddess, the whole thing was surreal, a scene from a movie or a book—not real life. All those people—and more were coming. So many cars behind us—like riots. Like a true fucking battle. Eleven Laetus soldiers were around our bus, and the rest were there, waiting…
Helen stepped forward and waved her hand around, and a sword appeared between her fingers.
The crowd stopped screaming all at once.
“Very well,” her magically enhanced voice echoed. “We shall fight.”
We were all waiting for it, yet it still took us by surprise when she moved. When all of them moved. Everything went to shit so quickly, yet it would take us all a while to actually believe in what our eyes were telling us.
I let go of Taland and went to the edge of the bus’s rooftop and watched, with my heart in my throat and my breath held, as Helen and Flora and George ran forward with swords in their hands and met three Laetus soldiers halfway. They’d drawn their own swords, too, and they were indeed bigger than those of the Council.
The sound of metal hitting metal took over the air. The first raindrop fell on my cheek as if the sky had begun to cry.
People moved away from the front of that house—including the IDD soldiers. They made room for the Council members and the three soldiers—no, two. The one in the middle was on his knees while Helen touched the top of his helmet with her hand covered in white flames and ran her sword across his neck.
Taland sucked in a deep breath. I turned to him, terrified, to find his eyes were rimmed red and he was holding onto his own neck, lips parted while he drew in air in short gasps. By the time I was beside him, and I looked out at the fight again, the body of the soldier had turned to a skeleton right there on the concrete in front of Helen’s feet, while she, gripping her sword with both hands now, waited for the other two who were aiming for her.
“Goddess, help them,” I whispered, my hands over my chest to keep my heart from exploding out of me, and I watched how the other Council members joined the fight, and how the IDD soldiers kept moving farther and farther back to give them more space.
Nobody wanted to die here today. Not the IDD and not the people who’d had enough of the Council’s twisted ways. Nobody wanted to die, and so it was no surprise to me that they were all standing back, moving, hoping that they didn’t have to engage.
Who could really blame them? After all, what we were witnessing here today was something beyond our wildest imaginations. The way the Council members fought, and the way the soldiers who’d been dead for seven centuries fought—none of us could compare.
They moved like they had lightning in their veins. They called for magic like they were the gods of it. They endured so much more than they should, and whether it was wards or their own persons, I had no idea, but they weren’t immune to one another forever.
Though details were lost to me, probably blocked by my own brain to protect my sanity, I still saw how they hit the ground when they did—Ferid first, holding his neck with both hands, before a soldier grabbed him and tore him apart by the shoulders like he was made out of paper.
Three more soldiers turned to skeletons, their flesh and skin and blood becoming dust on the concrete while the others fought around them, and another three from the ones who’d been standing guard around the bus joined them as well.
Then Natasha with her fiery red hair hit the ground on her knees, and a soldier tried to kick her on the side of her face, which would have undoubtedly decapitated her, but at the last moment Flora with a golden sword in her hand cut off the soldier’s leg completely. He fell, and she failed to see the other behind him, who had already raised his hand toward Natasha’s face. His magic, bright and colorful, consumed her, made her skull explode in the next minute. Her blood and brains decorated the ground while Flora screamed, and swung her sword harder, and chanted even more furiously as her Redfire charged at the soldiers again and again.
Then she killed the one whose leg she’d cut off, driving her sword right through his mouth, if I could see correctly, while at the same time both George and Nicholas attacked a soldier who was on his knees, one with his magic, the other with his katana.
The soldier fell to the ground—and Taland’s leg gave up. He hit the rooftop of the bus on one knee, as if he was calling for my attention.
Goddess, he looked awful. His every muscle was strained, eyes wide open like they were about to pop out of his skull, skin slick with sweat and so pale, every vein in his forehead and his neck protruding while his hands shook and he tried to straighten his fingers but couldn’t. They seemed to be stuck like that, curved like hooks, paralyzed.
I grabbed him and pulled him to his feet, carried half his weight as well as I could. I called out his name, and I tried to get him to look at me, to focus on me, but he didn’t.
Because if he did, if he lost track of his soldiers, they were all going to die at the hands of the Council.
The crowd screamed. I turned just in time to see Flora hit the ground on her side, while two soldiers pulled her apart—one had her by a leg, the other by her head. They tore her apart and Helen screamed as she cut off the head of yet another soldier, and every muscle in Taland’s body clenched.
He could feel it.
Every time his soldiers’ physical bodies were destroyed, he felt it.
“We’re close,” I told him, though I didn’t know if he could hear me over the screams of the people. They were trying to break through now, to get in the fight.
And they were right. Now was the time.
“Taland, I’m going to join the fight. Keep going—it’s almost over, okay?”
His hand wrapped around my arm, and I thought he was going to tell me to stay put again, that he had it. And I knew he did, I knew that, but…
“You don’t have to do all of it on your own. It’s almost over,” I whispered, and he was still looking ahead at the fight, keeping control of the soldiers. But Taland wasn’t planning to stop me again.
“Take the bracelet,” he said through gritted teeth, and he pulled my arm up again, but only to bring my hand over his wrist. Over the bracelet.
I didn’t argue—he knew exactly what he was doing. I just took the bracelet and put it on.
It had never occurred to me that anything in the world could replace my father’s ring as my anchor, but this did. This bracelet had become mine—maybe because it was his as well, so completely.
I kissed Taland’s cheek. “I’ll be right back.” And that was a promise I intended to keep.
I didn’t reach for guns or knives. I just jumped off the edge of the bus, finally feeling a little bit of relief. My heartbeat had gone steady and my head clear. And when I ran forward, three of the soldiers who had been standing guard around the bus were already clearing the way through the crowd for me. All I had to do was run.
Of course, they stayed right behind me as I did, and we weren’t far from where the Council was fighting—and losing —but it still took me a good few minutes to get there because of the crowd.
Radock’s face was in front of me.
“What are?—”
“ Move! ” I shouted a couple of feet before I got to him and began to chant my spell at the same second.
Radock heard. Looking like he’d swallowed something wrong, he moved, and the two remaining soldiers from that line they’d created to separate the crowd from the fight stepped to the sides, too, to let me through.
One.
One last soldier stood in front of the remaining Council members, and they all attacked him at the same time. I knew he wouldn’t make it—he was wounded, and even if they didn’t feel pain, they could still be worn down by cuts and blood loss just the same. So, he tried to raise his hands and release his magic, but he couldn’t do it before Helen’s sword went through his chest and the left side of his torso as if it were butter.
The soldier fell— that’s okay. My spell was already at its end and my hand raised, the skin of my palm heated in such a familiar, yet strange way.
The look on the faces of George, Helen and Nicholas when they saw me standing there was priceless—you could tell they hadn’t seen me coming. I was tempted to smile as the last word of my spell left my lips.
Helen raised her sword at me as she screamed, “Attack! ”
Too late.
Colorful magic burst out of my hand so fast, so powerful, it threw my arm back and nearly tore it off my shoulder. An energy blast almost the same size and intensity as the one I’d used to break the screen of the Regah chamber hit the Council members hard. Their wards had weakened from all that fighting, and they were tired, too. Wounded. Bleeding.
There was no way they could stop the impact.
The ground shook and groaned—not just from my magic or the angry clouds pouring rain on us, but from the shouts and screams of the people behind me, as well as the IDD soldiers who were trying to attack, I thought.
Their spells fell on the surface of the ward Taland’s soldiers had wrapped around the people, and they tried to push through, too. They couldn’t, not yet—but it was over. All the remaining Council members were on the ground.
Iridian words came out of my lips like daggers. I didn’t need to think or look at my surroundings or wonder if I had enough juice in me for one more fourth-degree spell while they were down to seal their fates for good—I did. Three soldiers walked with me, and as I chanted, Helen raised her head, her nose bleeding—and her hand.
Her Whitefire magic shot for me lightning fast, and I’ll admit I didn’t see it coming. For a second there, I thought I wasn’t going to be able to move away in time—and I was right.
Except the soldier who’d been beside me did, and his back was suddenly right in front of my face. His body absorbed Helen’s magic and he didn’t make a single sound.
Then he fell to his knees and the flesh on his bones began to melt away into nothing—and Helen screamed once more. No words this time—just a scream because she knew.
I looked back—at Taland standing alone on top of that bus, hands fisted at his sides, shoulder rigid.
I love you, I thought, then turned to Helen who was trying to reach her sword where it had fallen, while Nicholas’s eyes were closed—though he breathed—and George was staring at the sky but couldn’t move.
The Council. This was what was left of the Council.
“You…you…” Helen was trying to speak, and I slammed my boot onto her wrist hard just as she touched the edge of her sword with her fingertips. Again, she screamed in frustration.
“Do me a favor, baby,” I said, racing to catch my breath because that spell really did take a toll on me. “Drain them for me, will you? I really want to keep them alive.”
I didn’t need an answer, of course. Taland could hear me just fine through his soldiers that were by my sides, and even though I didn’t know enough to separate the colors of my magic yet, his soldiers did.
The look of pure terror in Helen’s face when my words made sense to her was something I’d take to the grave. George closed his eyes in surrender. She opened her mouth to scream again, but the Whitefire magic that poured onto her body from the soldiers’ hands didn’t give her the chance.
Drained. She would be drained, unable to access her magic at all. She would be chained, too—in the Tomb, together with other criminals like herself. And we would be there to make sure she remembered how she screwed the whole world over, and how powerless she’d become because of it.
The deafening screams of the crowd behind me filled my ears. Helen was no longer conscious, but she was breathing. Her chest rose and fell steadily, and I turned around to see what was happening.
Nothing.
The crowd was jumping up and down with their fists raised in the air. The IDD soldiers remained right there where they were, guns and anchors in hand, looking like they had no clue what the hell to do.
And I wondered for a brief moment why they hadn’t even tried to stop the soldiers. Why they hadn’t protected the Council or why they hadn’t attacked when Helen ordered them to.
I wondered, but the thought escaped me instantly when I saw Taland, on one knee on top of that bus, and Radock and Zachary and Aurelia looking at him. Talking.
There was no way I could hear them over the screams, and I was surrounded by body pieces and skeletons wearing armor, so I couldn’t get to them as fast as I’d have liked but…
I read two words on Radock’s lips.
Stop him.
Zach and Aurelia and Kaid who’d been somewhere in the crowd were already moving, pushing the people aside—toward Taland.
My heart fell all the way to my heels. Radock turned, and when he saw me standing there with my eyes on him, he flinched.
Fucking prick, I thought. “Get me to Taland, now!” I said.
I didn’t know if Taland would hear me and order his soldiers to take me to him, or if the soldiers by my sides could understand and obey me themselves, but they moved. When I started running, thinking they’d just clear the way for me again, one of them grabbed me by the arm, and threw me.
He threw me right on the back of the first.
The scream was stuck in my throat. I moved on pure instinct when I wrapped my arms around his neck and my legs around his hips, hanging onto him like a fucking monkey as the soldier ran.
So much magic.
My eyes were watering and my nose was almost completely blocked and my body screamed in protest—Goddess, these bodies contained so much magic. Taland hadn’t been kidding when he said they ran on it—they really did.
Gritting my teeth, I held onto the soldier with all my strength anyway, and?—
Radock was in front of us, hands forward, screaming, “ Stop! ”
The soldier did. He stopped so fast, so suddenly, I swear it felt like I slammed onto a brick wall with my chest, even though I was literally hanging on his back.
“Get out of my way,” I said through gritted teeth.
“It’s over,” the asshole said. “It’s over, okay? The soldiers will not attack. The Council is gone—it’s over.”
“ Move, Radock!” I shouted at the top of my voice because the crowd was now moving farther away on their own, and I could see how his brothers and the Mergenbachs were trying to fight the soldiers standing around the bus to get to Taland.
I could see Taland, who couldn’t even stand on his own feet anymore.
“It’s insane to give them up!” Radock screamed. “It’s insane! We will only knock him out, talk to him when he wakes up. He’ll be safe! He’ll be?—”
I raised my hand at him and began to whisper a spell—fuck if I cared who he was right now. I wasn’t going to let any of them near Taland.
Fuck them. Fuck him —he didn’t get to decide what Taland did with his soldiers.
Colorful flames came alive in the palm of my hand.
Radock cursed out loud in frustration and finally moved out of my way.
I stopped chanting at the same second, pulling my magic back to save energy. “Run!” I shouted at the soldier, and he did.
My eyes were locked on Taland’s.
I’m coming.