Chapter 69
SIXTY-NINE
EMMA
After I broke the bubble, everything accelerated.
It took us maybe three minutes to find Stephen, Cara, and James—who’d broken out as soon as they’d felt the bubble lift—and another three to realize the United Chiefs had left the building.
Which, naturally, left us no time to process anything like normal, emotionally stable people. Only a quick mental note of who we’d lost and a firm reminder we still had several Chief-shaped problems that needed violently solving.
James’s nex to Matthew confirmed Nino was still in the Healers’ wing, while the United Chiefs had apparently decided subtlety was overrated and had dramatically revealed themselves in the Town Square.
We’d outnumbered them the last time we’d faced off, but none of us were delusional enough to think they hadn’t reinforced since. The fact they’d stayed in Cyclos at all—cocky enough to linger after the High Chief must’ve felt his precious little bubble pop—only confirmed what we already suspected.
They thought they were untouchable.
Which is usually the last thought people have before everything goes catastrophically wrong.
So we planned. Quickly.
I found myself portaling in a few blocks from the Town Square, less than an hour after we’d broken out of our magical cage (since clearly the appropriate response to nearly dying is immediately running toward the next life-threatening situation).
The street was veiled in shadows stretching long between buildings, but I knew the way by heart, all those late nights wandering around alone like an unhinged insomniac finally paying off.
Now, all I had to do was make it to the square unnoticed. Blend in. Disappear in plain sight.
Thanks to Maurice kindly demonstrating how healing magic could alter someone’s appearance—bone, skin, pigment, even eye color—I stood there now as someone else entirely.
A cute blond with brown eyes and a heart-shaped face. Smaller frame. Thinner nose.
Basically the magical equivalent of witness protection, except with significantly worse odds of survival.
As I approached the square, I scanned every corner while I read body language and tracked motion. Anyone who twitched, shifted, or looked even mildly suspicious got mentally cataloged.
I nexed everything I saw to James, feeding him intel so he could piece together the full layout.
The tension in the square was heavy. Not loud, not panicked—but waiting. As if the entire place had collectively decided to hold its breath before the inevitable explosion.
Which, statistically speaking, meant we were about thirty seconds away from everything going to absolute hell.
Which also meant, I shouldn’t have been thinking about him.
But I was.
Because while I was busy studying the crowd for potential enemies, my brain had apparently decided the real emergency worth revisiting, was that last kiss.
It kept replaying in my head like a glitchy recording I couldn’t delete.
Which was extremely inconvenient when I was trying to prevent a small-scale magical war.
But I couldn’t help it. My mind wandered.
When I’d watched Caden dying in that cell after he’d obliterated those Chiefs…
Every defense, every piece of armor I’d ever built shattered in a blink. All of it was replaced by something far worse: the raw panic of losing him.
Which was the only thing I could never survive.
But if I let myself have him… Would that really mean his death?
Gods’sake, Emma. Now is not the time to figure this out! Will you fucking focus?
Right.
War.
Again.
I drew in a sharp breath as I took in the scene before me.
The Townsquare was full.
It was packed: bodies shoulder to shoulder, the whole place humming with a tense, confused energy of people who’d shown up because someone told them to, not because they had any idea what was happening. Floating lights flickered overhead beneath a sky that had rage-quit daylight.
I slipped through the edge of the crowd as soon as I spotted the United Chiefs.
On the platform at the far end of the square, the High Chief stood tall in Offensive attire, flanked by the other Chiefs while James was nowhere to be seen. Which didn’t exactly scream “everything’s fine.”
His words carried over the forum, amplified by magic. “Today,” the High Chief spoke, “we face a turning point in the long and noble history of Cyclos.”
“Last night, four individuals—Stephen Stone, James Walker, Caden Colt, and Emma Thompson—along with known Radical Cara Sinclair, attempted a coup to overthrow the United Chiefs. They have since been apprehended and remain in our custody.”
I stiffened.
“They’ve betrayed your trust,” he continued, his tone calm and carefully measured. “They sought to destabilize a system that has protected us for cycles.”
Lies. Polished, weaponized lies.
“Until a new Leader can rise to guide your people forward, the United Chiefs will assume temporary authority. There will be no disorder. No chaos. And nothing to worry about.”
That’s when the murmurs started. Nothing like a dramatic speech to spark basic suspicion.
A man a few paces to my left called out, “Where’s James Walker? If he’s a prisoner, why isn’t he standing trial?”
Another voice rose near the front. “This doesn’t make sense. Emma Thompson led the defense during the attack on the Spring Palace. She sacrificed herself for our Leader, saved us from the Radicals. Why would she now be working with them?”
The High Chief didn’t respond. Instead, one of the guards on the platform raised a hand.
Next, two invisible hazes of magic lanced out.
Then, the voices stopped. Literally.
The crowd gasped as the two magi who had spoken up, dropped like standing had been a no more than a temporary privilege, crumpling to the stone in eerie unison.
No screams. No warning. Only sudden and brutal death.
I felt the shock ripple through the people around me. But underneath it, anger began to smolder.
Tactically, the Chiefs had just made a catastrophic mistake.
Cyclos magi weren’t known for their blind loyalty. They didn’t kneel because they were told to or scared into it. They followed logic. They followed truth. And more than anything, they were fighters, even the ones who had never held a blade or trained with Offensives.
Defiance was written into their bones.
And in killing two of their own without cause, the High Chief hadn’t forced them into compliance, like he’d hoped.
Instead, he’d given them a reason to fight.
Idiot.
On the platform, the High Chief calmly adjusted his stance, not a flicker of emotion on his face.
“Let this serve as a reminder,” the High Chief said, “betrayal will not be tolerated. Not from outsiders. And not from within.”
The people of Cyclos did not bow their heads.
They did not avert their eyes.
They met his words with iron in their spines; their jaws set like locked gates.
A taut, electric charge threaded through the crowd. All we needed…was a spark.
I nexed James a single word: Now.
A split second later, the air broke apart.
Like lightning tearing down from the gods, hundreds of green portals erupted across the square. Kanata C—Rachel’s—Offensives, Cyclos Offensives, Crown Offensives, and Slava Offensives, all portaling in together, side by side.
Energy roared through the ground, thrumming beneath our feet like a war drum.
The whole crowd gasped as five more portals tore open on the platform itself, with five familiar figures stepping through: Caden, James, Stephen, Rachel, and Sean.
The High Chief’s posture stiffened, clearly not too thrilled to see his party crashers arriving in matching formation.
“Took you long enough,” he sneered, scanning each of us with thinly veiled contempt before his gaze landed on Stephen. “You lifted the bubble almost half an hour ago. Care to explain how?”
No one answered.
Still cloaked in the face I’d built myself, I could feel my heartbeat in my throat. In my teeth. In the soles of my fucking feet.
Then I let go. The illusion melted off me like smoke caught in wind, and in its place: me.
The girl who broke the bubble.
Recognition moved through the crowd like a current, my name passing from mouth to mouth—until the High Chief finally looked at me.
His face barely moved, but the tension in his jaw gave him away.
A subtle twitch. The faintest widening of his eyes. Enough to register annoyance, followed by a flicker of something colder.
Scorn.
“Miss Thompson,” he called out as smooth as polished stone. “Did your deviant translation break a fellow magus’s bubble?”
A ripple of confusion swept through the square, magi shifting their weight, voices dipping into uncertain murmurs behind my back.
Shit.
“I did break your bubble,” I replied calmly. Then I let a slow grin spread across my face, opening my hands to him like I was offering a gift. “Ta-daa.”
He stared at me, expression unreadable.
“How?” he asked, softly.
But it wasn’t softness, it was precision. A dagger slowly slipped between ribs.
I simply gave a lazy shrug. “None of your business,” I drawled, the boredom in my tone deliberate.
Bonus points for nailing my inner Caden.
James moved in behind Rachel, his back pressing to hers as he turned to face his people instead. His presence was all steel and flame, his words threaded through with command.
“Civilians of Cyclos,” he shouted, “get out of here. Now.”
His people didn’t question, didn’t second-guess their Leader.
Green portals split open in rapid succession, their sound cracking through the air. Elders and children disappeared. Families clutched each other as they vanished. In seconds, the square emptied of everyone who wasn’t ready to fight.
Only the battle-willing remained.
The High Chief tilted his head slightly. And then, he laughed.
It was quiet. And somehow more terrifying than a scream.
“So dramatic,” he said. “You think removing the sheep changes the outcome?”
He raised one hand, palm glowing with a pulsing sphere of dark magic. The air around it twisted, warped, as if the magic itself wanted out of him.