Chapter 19
“This is the last one,” Iannis said as he gently laid the shifter child down on a makeshift blanket on the ground.
The little girl, with her blonde hair, long lashes, and tanned skin, could have been from my own clan.
Laid out next to her in the camp were nine other children—two of them mages, the rest shifters like her.
“You should rest a little.” I placed a hand on Iannis’s shoulder as he crouched next to the child.
“You just spent all this time and energy healing these children.” They’d all been infected with various diseases, though apparently in muted form, so as not to kill them off too quickly.
Even so, they still could have spread epidemics without Iannis’s intervention.
He and Fenris had joined us down in the corridor where the test subjects had been kept.
One by one, Iannis had broken into each occupied cell and healed the terrified children.
It had been excruciating to wait out in the hall while he attended them, but he wouldn’t let any of us near, fearing we might contract the diseases.
“I would like to rest, but I cannot.” Iannis briefly squeezed my hand, then stood and turned to face me.
His alabaster skin was paler than usual in the moonlight, and faint lines of strain were beginning to show on his face.
It seemed that Dr. Mitas’s claim about these diseases being resistant to magical healing was true. “There is still so much to do.”
“It’s nearly midnight, Iannis,” Fenris said.
He sat near the mage children, his back up against a tree.
“Lord Logar and his men aren’t going to get here until morning.
The ward you put around the garage will keep the prisoners safely confined there, even if you sleep for a few hours.
I will stay up, to make sure of that.” Unlike our raiding party, Iannis and Fenris had taken prisoners, mostly by using short-term immobilization spells.
The majority of the scientists were currently huddled in terror in the garage, some of them still frozen as they waited for the spell to wear off.
“It’s cruel, keeping them there,” Noria said in a brittle voice.
We turned toward her as one, apprehension sparking in my gut.
She sat on one of the logs by the fire pit, staring into the crackling flame—now that we were no longer hiding, there was no reason not to have the fire for warmth.
Fenris had found a blanket for her to wrap around her shoulders.
Her magically shackled hands rested on her legs, glowing faintly in the darkness.
Fenris had brought the shackles with him on the airship, and they would immobilize her if she moved too far away from him.
I felt a little bad that she’d been forced to wear them so soon after tasting freedom, but the truth was, she wasn’t free. She’d just exchanged one prison for another.
“You said you were going to destroy the compound.” She lifted her gaze to meet Iannis’s.
The amount of loathing in those dark brown eyes made me clench my teeth—was she still going to treat Iannis like the enemy, after all this?
“By imprisoning those men and women in there, you’re condemning them all to death.
Don’t they deserve a hearing, at the very least? ”
“Of course they do,” Iannis said, a hint of irritation in his voice. “I do not intend to leave them in the compound—it is simply the safest place to hold them until Lord Logar arrives with transport. They will be given a hearing, as will you,” he added sternly.
Noria jerked her gaze away, staring back into the fire. Annia, who sat on the log next to her, looked stricken, and Rylan, who sat across from Noria, wore an uncomfortable expression on his face. But Iannis had only spoken the truth.
“Please remember, Lord Iannis, my sister is still not yet eighteen,” Annia said quietly, clenching her hands into her lap. She looked up at Iannis, a quiet desperation in her dark eyes. “She might be a genius, but she’s still a child.”
“Don’t, Annia,” Noria protested, looking both angry and guilty all at once.
“I know you mean well, but don’t belittle my actions by calling me a child.
I’m not one. Aside from what happened here at the bunker, if I had to do this all over again, I’d still join the Resistance.
” Her eyes flashed as she met Iannis’s gaze, tilting her stubborn chin at him.
“I’m fighting for equal rights for all, and I am willing to pay any price for that. ”
“If I could try her as a child, I would,” Iannis said calmly.
Sympathy flickered in his gaze for a moment as he looked at Annia and Noria.
“But since Noria is enrolled in college, however early, she is legally considered an adult.” A weariness settled across his expression, and he looked down into the fire.
All that healing had probably worn him out.
“At least we managed to get these children to safety,” Elnos said awkwardly, getting to his feet.
He’d been putting a sleep spell on the children, to ensure they did not wake during the night—we didn’t need them running off after we’d just rescued them.
“You found the two mage children in one of the vehicles, Lord Iannis?”
“Yes.” Iannis’s violet eyes flashed as he looked down at their sleeping faces.
Like all the other children, and Annia, they were dressed in simple white cotton pants and shirts.
Seeing the mage children sleeping side by side with the shifter children, their eyes closed, made me realize just how similar we all were in the end. They all looked… human.
“A spell to puncture the tires and freeze the soldiers was enough to bring them all to a stop,” Iannis continued.
“We found the children in the back of one of the vehicles, bound and gagged, and completely isolated from the escapees.” His eyes flickered toward the hill. “I must check on those wards—”
“I’ll go,” Elnos said, stepping forward. “I’ll take Rylan with me as backup.”
Rylan arched a brow. “I’ll be useless if it has anything to do with the wards.”
“Yes, but you’re handy with a blade,” Elnos said, glancing to the short sword Rylan had strapped to his hips.
“True.” Rylan got to his feet, then stretched his arms overhead. “Try not to miss me when I’m gone,” he said to us, winking at Annia with a roguish grin. Noria gave him a murderous glare as he turned away, and I held in a sigh.
Fenris got up too. “I’ll patrol the area around our camp to make sure there are no surprises.” He slipped away, no doubt to change into wolf form in the forest.
“I’m going to bed,” Noria said, standing up. She stalked away toward the sleeping area, though the effect was somewhat diminished by the fact that her hands were restrained, and disappeared inside Annia’s tent.
“I suppose I will go and rest as well,” Iannis said, though it was clear he still didn’t feel comfortable taking any downtime right now. “But someone needs to watch the children.”
“I will,” Annia said quietly. The firelight flickered in her sad eyes, and my heart clenched in sympathy. This was supposed to be a happy reunion, a triumphant moment, but it was anything but.
“I’ll join you in a few,” I told Iannis, laying a hand on his forearm.
Understanding lit behind his violet eyes, and he nodded quietly before striding off to his own tent.
Iannis and Fenris had brought several more, so there were enough for everyone even if the clearing was rather cramped now.
Rylan and Elnos were headed to the compound, so there was no one but Annia and me as I sat down next to her by the fire.
“I’m sorry things have turned out this way.” I put an arm around her shoulder and hugged her, careful not to hurt her injured arm.
“It’s not your fault.” Annia let out a heavy sigh as she leaned into me. “I always knew Noria might spurn me when Elnos and I arrived to rescue her. She came here willingly, even if she didn’t know exactly what she was getting into.”
“And she left willingly too.” I glanced over at Annia’s tent, where Noria slept now. I doubt she could hear us from so far away, over the crackle of the fire, but I lowered my voice anyway. “Though I imagine she’s wondering how she can escape her restraints and run off.”
“I won’t let that happen,” Annia said, her eyes narrowing on the tent as well.
“I’ll be by her side the entire time. There’s no way I’m going to let her run off again, not when it resulted in this fiasco.
” She swept her hand out, indicating the sleeping children.
Her expression softened as she gazed at their peaceful little faces, and the anger sparking in her eyes gave way to sadness again.
“I can’t imagine the fear and pain they’ve been through these past weeks.
Or has it been months? Do you have any idea how long these children have been down here? ”
“I don’t know.” My eyes were drawn to the blonde girl who looked like she could belong to the Baine Clan. I didn’t think we had any small cubs missing, but I would have to ask when we got back. “Their parents must sick to death with worry.”
“I know I would be.” Annia shook her head, returning her gaze to mine. “What kind of monsters could do such a thing, Sunaya? Steal innocent children from their beds and inject them with fatal diseases?”
“The kind that believes in the ‘greater good’,” I sneered, remembering Dr. Mitas’s hateful, impassioned words back in Dara.
He was supposed to be a doctor, a healer, yet he had no qualms about participating in such horrific activities.
I didn’t believe in any greater good myself, mostly because that phrase was so open to interpretation.
The rulers’ ideas of what the greater good meant rarely matched the ideas of the common man, after all. The Mages Guild was proof of that.
“I shouldn’t really be surprised,” Annia admitted. “As enforcers, you and I know better than most the lengths criminals will go to justify their actions.”
“I think that the day we stop being shocked by this kind of thing is the day we should be afraid,” I told her.
“We should hold society to a higher standard, or the world will never become a better place.” An ember popped, sending sparks shooting through the sky.
I held out my palm and caught one of them as they floated back down to earth, watching as it briefly stung my palm before its orange glow faded to black.
Transient, just like everything else in life.
Annia’s lips curved at that, her dark eyes sparkling. “Why Sunaya Baine, you almost sound like a sage. Is that the sort of thing that happens when one joins the Mages Guild?”
“I suppose I’ve gotten a little more philosophical these days,” I allowed, smiling a little.
I imagined my deeper thoughts were inspired by the brief, but meaningful conversations I’d had with Resinah’s spirit—the first mage, entrusted with wisdom by the Creator.
I glanced down at Annia’s bandaged arm and changed the subject. “How did you get that?”
A shadow crossed Annia’s face. “One of the soldiers broke my arm as punishment for trying to resist capture.” A faraway look entered her eyes.
“I killed three of them, but I was outnumbered. Even so, I don’t suppose he would have broken my arm if I hadn’t spat in his face.
” A smirk curved her lips. “The big brute didn’t like that much. ”
“Ouch.” I winced, glancing at the sling again.
I couldn’t imagine what that must be like for humans such as Annia, having to wait six to eight weeks for her limb to heal.
Mine would have been better in the morning, so long as it was properly set and I’d had enough to eat.
The bullet graze on my shoulder from earlier had already healed, nothing more than a memory now.
Perhaps Iannis could mend Annia’s arm once he had dealt with the current mission.
I was surprised he hadn’t offered already, but, then again, he was exhausted.
“You do look remarkably un-beaten up aside from your arm,” I said as I looked her up and down again. Her face was clear of any bruising, and although there could be bandages beneath her clothing, the way she moved did not hint at any hidden injuries.
“Since they’re a science lab using live test subjects, they happened to have a damn good doctor on staff, and some crazy medical procedures I’ve never seen before.
” Annia briefly touched her cheekbone. “The doctor who treated me was surprisingly compassionate, considering I was a prisoner. She put some kind of tingling, foul-smelling cream on my face that handled all the bruising, and she set my arm and bound it up.”
“Maybe it’s because you’re human,” I said, unable to think of any other explanation. “Or because you’re Noria’s sister.”
Annia snorted. “Either way, I’m hardly softening up to them. Just because they treated the injuries they inflicted on me doesn’t change the fact that they were planning to commit mass murder.”
“No, I guess it doesn’t,” I said softly, looking back at Noria’s tent again. And that Noria had helped us in the end didn’t change the fact that she had joined the Resistance and aided them in attempted genocide, willing or not.