Chapter 34 Rhiannon #2
I crouched down and took a long, deep breath. Perhaps the feeling of real magic coursing through my veins made me arrogant, but I wasn’t cowing to her ever again, even if she was dying. I pressed my hand to the wall beside her head, staring into her sapphire blue eyes.
There were many secrets of Otreran queens. One was that in the first few hours of official queendom, when the ring was passed from one sovereign to another, the new ruler was imbued with a surplus of power. The rules that normally governed magic did not apply.
Otrera hadn’t had a new queen in tens of thousands of years.
If the outer world had ever known this secret of ours, it had most certainly forgotten now.
I stared into my mother’s eyes, smiling defiantly.
If she wanted me to have her power so badly, I would take it, and I would do the last thing she ever would.
I felt for the innards of the building. Felt the modern wires and tech that operated the locks, the security systems, that connected them to the Authority’s servers and stores of data.
I kept my eyes on my mother’s as I sent a surge of precise magic through every wire that connected the Authority and the Corps to their precious data.
Every record, every prison, every aspect of the infernal stock market, every bank account for every oligarch, the list went on. I was connected to it all. Blaire had trapped us, but whatever it was he’d gained, I would take back tenfold.
I was not a blunt instrument the way my mother had always been, governing by broad measures that took no nuance into account. I had always parsed things out too far for her. Been too precise for what made a good ruler. She’d always accused me of missing the bigger picture for the details.
But the details were what mattered. The small things were what counted. And as my mind sifted the bank accounts of common folks from those of the multi-billionaires, I knew this was only a temporary fix. It would do no more than cause chaos.
But the chaos it caused would be a wedge. A lever. If we used it correctly, it might provide a way back from the misery parapsychs suffered under the Authority’s boot. And not just parapsychs, but poor humans as well, for there were more of them than there were rich.
I let my eyes fall closed so I could concentrate.
It didn’t take much, as I was already so dialed into the complex web of information.
Briony could have done a better job of it, but we didn’t have time for that.
What I needed to do had to be done now, before Blaire had time to wield what he had on us.
It only took a little push now that I was connected.
I was fairly certain I’d done it—erased all traces of us having been here.
I’d erased the things Blaire had done here as well, and that would have consequences of its own, but desperate times and all that.
Still, I could do just a little more, so I pushed harder with the magic, sending the surplus far and wide over the continent, throughout the Three Cities, and then back into the many mechanisms that governed this very building.
The surplus of power was gone. All used up, but the doors in all the hallways, throughout the building, opened at once. And then the lights went out. The HVAC went quiet. Throughout the building, there was exactly three seconds of perfect quiet. We wouldn’t get more.
In silence, I scooped my mother out of the plastic chair, and without hesitation, Max moved.
Behind us, pandemonium broke out as the Asylum’s prisoners realized they were free.
Our boots fell heavy on the worn linoleum tile as we ran.
Some that were released were a true danger to the world, but most were just people the Authority had been determined to hurt.
No move that destroyed this corrupt system would ever be perfect or clean.
All we could do now was try our best. Backup power came on, illuminating the way.
Max seemed to have memorized the schematics of the building, because she took turn after confident turn.
We were out of the wings where they housed “patients” now, passing through a pair of heavy doors that were likely always locked. A glass atrium was ahead of us.
Bodies littered the floor, pools of blood everywhere. Kara Asterion stood at the center of the massive entrance to the building, covered in blood, her sword still drawn. When she saw us, she smiled, but the expression dropped off her face when she saw the state my mother was in.
Her dark brown eyes met mine. I shook my head. Ever observant, the leader of the Aradios Maere’s eyes went straight to my finger, where the signet ring now rested. “We have to go,” I said. “Time is important now.”
My mother murmured something, her head muffled against my back, as we raced through the atrium.
I couldn’t hear her, and couldn’t pause to ask her to repeat herself.
Outside, an armored SUV waited on the sidewalk.
The doors opened and three familiar faces waited inside.
Titania Kabeiri, Ishtar Aina, and Ama Inari—the rest of the Aradios Maere.
“She is dying,” I explained as I let my mother’s body fall forward, catching her into my arms as I passed her into the car. “Be careful with her.”
Ama nodded. She’d always been the best with healing amongst the fifteen of us. She’d helped Sera make great strides after the fire. It might have been decades more of recovery if it hadn’t been for her. Her hands glowed crimson as she pressed her hands to my mother’s chest.
Silea took the Maere’s hands in her own when some vitality returned to her face. “Save your strength, child. Don’t waste it on me.”
Ama sat back, her gray eyes wide with worry. She glanced up at me as I climbed into the SUV and shut the doors. Kara got into the driver’s seat, while Max rode shotgun.
“What have we got?” Kara asked. “Where do we go next?”
My mother held up a hand. “Where is Myrine?”
I smiled. “Don’t worry. She’s safe with Sera, at Hemlock House.”
Silea’s eyes darkened. “You left her alone with Serafine?”
I nodded. “And Briony. They’ll take care of her.”
My mother’s fingers closed around my forearm, panic in her eyes. “Rhiannon. Myrine is working with Blaire.”
Every atom of my being screamed in terror. I’d left Sera and Briony with a traitor. With the most dangerous traitor possible, in fact. I’d left the most vulnerable of us with the strongest soldier in the Authority’s army.
Kara’s eyes met mine in the rearview mirror. “Hemlock House it is.”