Chapter 7 #2
Red swallowed my vision. I slammed my shoulder into his chest. He went flying back into the wall.
His head cracked against the curved ceiling first, though his runes minimized his impact.
I didn’t give him a chance to recover. The rage I hadn’t let myself experience vibrated in my fists.
No woman, no person, should go through what I did.
I started punching. While the only thing I had left was whatever strength my human arms contained, it didn’t matter that his network of runes protected him.
His face was my face. My Prophet's face. The face of our horrible cult that destroyed everything it touched.
My third punch cracked against his shield—bone breaking in my hand. The pain didn’t stop me. It fed me. How much hurt had I caused? The fourth sent a jarring ache down to my elbow. How many lives had I destroyed? I punched and kneed the copy of myself until I couldn’t feel my hands.
At some point, the runes on his skin dulled as they ran out of juice.
I was too numb to feel the difference. Instead of impacting the magic protecting his body, my fists split flesh.
Bones broke, and skin parted under my assault.
I missed a half-drawn rune he’d somehow managed with his right hand.
He smacked it against the side of my face.
Agony blinded me, and my ears rang, but I didn’t move off the bloody copy of me.
My vision returned to find Emil trembling with pain and struggling for every breath.
I put my hand on his chest and drew. He didn’t even struggle.
“It’s my time,” Emil rasped, blood bubbling between his teeth. “The Prophet has seen fit, Sun God’s will…” scripture carved into my very soul hissed through his broken jaw until I connected the final line of my rune.
At my will, his heart stopped.
Someone touched my shoulder, and I spun around, only to find Xan with his hands up. Ashkar slumped lifelessly against the wall. His vacant, dead eyes looked at nothing, while his body didn’t have a mark on it.
A shiver ran down my back.
Xan lowered his hands. One of his eyes puffed angrily. “Their minds were too deeply poisoned. There was nothing else we could do.”
“Did you look?” I barely recognized my rough, battered voice.
Xan inclined his head.
My gaze dropped to Emil’s bloody corpse. My raw insides clawed at me. On some level, I wanted it to be me on that floor. “Will you look inside mine?”
Xan reached out and put a hand on my shoulder. His baby-blue gaze met mine. “I don’t need to, and you don’t need me to. Quinn needs you. This world needs you.” His fingers pressed into my shoulder. “Feel what you need to feel and lean on your friends. You will get through this, Cayden. You will.”
Tears welled in my eyes.
“Unhand me, you brute.” Erick’s voice vibrated above us. “I was the Lawsons’ captive! I had nothing to do with any of this.”
Xan squeezed my shoulder again and boosted himself out of the Alun, leaving me alone with my dead brother.
I looked down at Emil, whom I’d just beaten to death, and scrubbed my face.
Pain radiated from my bloody, broken hands.
I pressed my ruined palms flat, drinking the pain.
No guilt. No more rage. Just relief—raw and shocking.
I wasn’t him.
And I never would be.
I dragged a ragged breath in and out. A very similar sentiment, uttered by Xan in this very space, echoed. Maybe I wasn’t as alone as I felt. I took two shaky breaths, the taste of blood still in my mouth, then forced myself up through the hatch.
What should have been fresh air grew heavy, while the sickly smell of roses mixed with the hint of gore clinging to my clothing. I swallowed down bile. The magic that usually ebbed and flowed through the world swirled in the same direction.
Rowan had Erick physically pinned to the wall just before The Great Hall and had encased his hands in stone.
Enforcers guarded the exit. I wanted to say our scuffle in the Alun had disrupted whatever shield Erick created, but I knew that was wrong.
Whatever was pulling magic in one direction had done that.
I had a vague memory of Xan saying the shield was down.
My heart raced as a feeling of wrongness sank into my bones.
“I can prove it, Architect,” Erick added. “I don’t have the power or skill to make a portal. Emil created the initial one in Cayden’s dorm.” Erick turned to me, only to find me standing shoulder to shoulder with the Architect, covered in blood. He blanched. “But I’m sure that’s not Cayden’s fault.”
Erick’s expression flipped so fast it was whiplash—guilt to innocence in a blink.
“Cayden’s been busy with you, I presume,” he continued. “And I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Cayden and I have been working together on projects, you see.”
My jaw dropped. Erick had so clearly been a part of this, we’d even called the invaders Erick’s forces. The ground shook, and a boom rattled my eardrums.
Xan sliced his hand through the air. “Erick, right now, I don’t have time for this.
But you are right. I would never want to upset the families of London.
” He gritted his teeth, and Erick grinned triumphantly.
“Until we know all of Emil’s men are gone, we will keep you close, and we will protect you as befits your family. ”
Erick’s smile fell while Xan kept his poker face even. I narrowed my eyes. Xan was very, very good.
Heat detonated in my chest. Quinn’s emotions slammed into me so hard my knees buckled. Her heart beat with adrenaline, which turned to liquid love. Only to transition into fear, which immediately bled into determination. It left me dizzy, and I wasn’t the one experiencing the emotions.
I pressed my hand to my heart. Suddenly, she wasn’t in The Rooster anymore but standing in the courtyard. Fear and need pulled at her equally. One step at a time, she walked closer to us.
The ground shook.
Xan, Rowan, and I all looked at each other at the same time. Professor Holiday, or at least his monster, was still trampling the castle. We didn’t speak; the three of us bolted, Rowan pulling Erick along.
My only reason to live had stepped out of safety and into the heart of something I couldn’t control.