32. Keira #3
The people at the base of the city are as small and angry as a nest of ants that has been kicked.
The fighting between our army and the Truth Templars continues right beneath me, but many pause in their battle to glance up at my struggle.
Streams of magic shoot up at me from my own people, attempting to pry me from her grasp, but the bargain has them fizzling out.
My head spins when my gaze lands on the crumpled form of Senator Ash. His legs, arms and neck are twisted at unnatural angles, body broken and encircled with bright red blood on a balcony impossibly far below.
Keira, dear heart, please hear me, Aldrin’s desperate voice echoes within my head. The bargain will not let me help you. Draw on my magic. Save yourself. Do not stop fighting. Never stop.
It is like a bubble pops and the rest of the world suddenly rushes back in.
The flap of dragon wings as they launch into the air, preparing to catch me.
Torin gripping his mother’s shoulders to make sure she does not slip and the many ropes of air her soldiers wrap around them both to ensure their safety.
The bond rippling in and out between Aldrin and me, and the trickle of magic I can pull from it.
I am far too injured and depleted to access much.
Time slows to a crawl.
I drag in a half-choked breath as Titania’s grip on me loosens.
“You were always far more trouble than you were worth,” she snarls in my ear. “Perhaps it would suit me better if you died. I can always get another hostage.” Those fingers slip further apart across my waist.
“Mother!” Torin warns. “You have made your point that you can kill her. You don’t need to actually do it. She is the only one who can hold Aldrin back right now. We have half the city fighting for us—do not rouse the other half to fight for him .”
I weave my air wields ever so slowly. The magic comes to me as though it is traveling through honey.
It forms a belt around my waist and ropes that cling to the broken railing, a safeguard to keep me from falling far, but one that her guards could easily break.
I weave more and more strands into it, then keep my consciousness primed across it for the first hint of attack.
“I will make a bargain with you, Aldrin,” Titania calls out, unaware of my protections. “Call off your little coup, disband the army you have gathered, leave the city, and I will not kill your queen today.”
Aldrin’s body is finally released by the bargain as he changes his target, fully aware of the calculations running through my mind and my next plan of attack.
He swings his sword and stalks closer with menace.
“And why would I make such a bargain with you, when you will try to kill her tomorrow instead?”
“Then it is death today.” Titania laughs as she removes her arms from me and pushes me over the precipice.
I drop from the edge of the balcony and freefall through the void beyond.
My arms and legs flail. My heart stops.
The dragons are still too far away, angling around to be able to catch me.
I have to save myself.
I force my body to turn as I arc into the drop, using what air magic I have left to guide my motions. I catch a glimpse of the wide-eyed, open-mouthed expression on Torin’s face as I disappear from their view.
My ropes of air snap taut, halting my downward trajectory for a single heartbeat, then flinging me back upward in a somersault.
Right toward the platform I was just tossed from.
I leverage Aldrin’s magic heavily to push me in my desired direction, right back at mother and son, still clutching each other.
I use my momentum to slam both of my legs into Torin’s shoulders, sending both him and Titania flying backward. My air wields break in the same moment, and I tumble along the balcony with them. I cannot harm or fight Titania, but her son has no such protections.
As our bodies roll across marble, I am vaguely aware of the battle that erupts around us. Aldrin leads our party in their attack on the High Chancellor’s guards, the very reason I was able to snap the web of air around her. Every time my mate tries to come for me, golden swirls stop him.
Metal grinds against metal all around us, screeching alongside the soldiers’ battle cries and screams of pain.
A stream of fire shoots over my head. We keep rolling and all I can see is the blur of stomping boots, thrashing bodies with swords swinging, and the blue of the sky.
Thick, inky shadows billow around us, casting the fight into semidarkness, and monstrosities form within its depths.
This is Valentine’s doing, crafting circumstances to transport in Nightmares and allow their presence.
Our tumbling momentum slows and I expend just enough air magic to ensure I land on top, straddling both of my enemies, with Torin pinned beneath his mother.
From his banged-up state, it is clear he has tried to shield her from the jarring impact with his body.
She is not concerned for his welfare in the slightest.
They had the fucking audacity to toss me off the top of a building.
To make my mate watch.
They unleashed violence upon the city with no care at all for the innocent people enjoying the festivities on the streets. For how they were crushed between armies of savage fanatics and crazed rioters with kitchen knives.
I see red.
This fucking family is making the Spring Court tear itself apart from the inside.
I would turn both to ash without a moment’s hesitation, but the bargain protects one and my depleted magic the other.
I drag my arm backward and slam my fist right in Torin’s face.
Blood sprays out as his nose crunches. Pain explodes across my knuckles, but it is the most satisfying feeling.
I pull my arm back to strike him a second time, but his training kicks in and his more powerful body rolls us until I am deposited on the floor like a ragdoll.
I hit my head hard enough to see stars. I have exceeded my limits if I cannot even catch myself.
Somewhere in the distance, Aldrin roars.
Our bond flickers in and out as the poison works on depleting the last of my magic.
I get the vaguest sensation of him slicing his sword through the belly of one guard, while calling on the branches of the Wisteria of Mythanar to crush another in woody ropes draped with purple flowers.
Each time he even considers coming for me and dragging me out of this tangle with our enemy, his body starts to lock up.
The best he can do is ensure those guards do not attack me.
His heart—gods, his heart —it tightens with agony at the fact. A desperate need to protect me burns through every inch of him, but he can’t do a damned thing about it.
I blink to find Torin’s boot on my chest, pinning me down while he holds the tip of a sword to my throat. With his other hand, he pulls his mother from the ground. She scrambles up his body, making him focus more on her than me. There would be an opportunity in this, if I could move.
“Torin! Get. Me. Out. Of. Here,” Titania screeches. My people could easily kill her in this moment, if I were safely out of the way and they were intent on only her death and not my rescue. The bargain is fickle like that.
Torin grabs my chest plate and drags me to my feet, then presses me into Titania’s arms. “Use her as a body shield, and by the darkness, do not actually kill her.” He hands his mother a dagger that she places at my throat. “Not yet. I know it is fucking tempting.”
My half-limp feet stumble as Titania drags me backward through the churning mass and Torin fights anyone who gets in our way.
It isn’t until we come out the other side that I realize Aldrin and our people have slaughtered almost all of Titania’s guard.
When my mate turns to us, when those amber eyes fall upon the doorway that she forces me toward, his body stiffens.
Murderous intent swirls within his gaze and he looks truly terrifying, blood dripping from his sword and armor, a crown of horns on his head and black smears across his features.
I see the face of salvation in all those hard, grim lines.
“He cannot follow you in here.” Titania laughs in my ear, stopping in the doorway to taunt us both.
“Take one last good look at your mate, because you will never see him again. I discovered your secret passageways out of the palace, had Torin torture it out of a fae, and they have been blocked off. Not that you will be sneaking anywhere from your prison cell in the dungeons. I hope you like the cold, damp and dark.”
Aldrin takes a slow step toward us. His grip on his blade is so tight his knuckles turn white. It is all he can manage.
A palace guard sees the opportunity and runs for him, axe swinging, preparing to lodge in his back.I scream as my blood turns to ice. Oh gods, I cannot watch him die. I cannot lose him. Not again. I would give up this fight, right here and now, if he no longer existed.
The moment Aldrin registers the attack and his mind becomes focused upon it, his entire body loosens and flows into the fight with ease. The soldier’s head rolls from his body a heartbeat later.
As I am pulled into the palace by Torin and Titania, guards rush at the doors, not to join the fight but to barricade them, leaving the last of their peers to their deaths.
Titania drops me and makes a show of brushing off her hands like my very touch is disgusting.
My body folds and makes a slow descent, but before I strike the ground, a guard catches me.
I glance up, right into Jasper’s blue eyes. His black hair is in disarray, strands falling from his topknot, and the intense frown on his face is speckled with blood. He has been fighting within the palace. I only hope he and his loyalists were discreet enough that their cover wasn’t blown.
“Take the Queen of Nothing to the dungeons,” Torin snarls, holding a cloth to his still-bleeding nose while two healers work on him. “And Jasper, make sure she is healed. I want to question her as soon as possible.”
I shiver as a chill runs down my spine.
Jasper carries me in his arms as his Royal Guards flock around him and make their way to the dungeons.
My consciousness blacks in and out. Sometimes, I am in my own body, passing through corridors and down staircases.
At others, I am seeing a world tinted in red through Aldrin’s eyes.
An overwhelming, impotent rage consumes him as he and the other dragon riders land on the ground at the base of the palace, behind the line of Truth Templars that fight our army, slaughtering them from another angle.
While my king fights, he speaks to the entire city through the plinths.
His voice rings in my head. “This is how your High Chancellor reacts when questioned. With violence and brutality. She immediately turns her people against each other and creates a bloodbath in the city to avoid those questions. Only a guilty person would do this. One who has so much to hide, she refuses a trial. See how she throws a man to his death for no good reason, and tries to kill your queen. The lives of other fae mean very little to her. And where is she now, while her people bleed and die for her? Hiding.”
I follow him for as long as I can in those small, intense snippets, until I am lowered into my cage and the bars are closed around me.
For every enemy Aldrin dispatches, two more arrive.
Panic fills me at the gruesome scenes around him: the blood-soaked boardwalks, the frenzied civilians hacking at soldiers like mad beasts, the thick press of bodies.
I stay with him as he takes out his fury, his absolute devastation at losing me, on Truth Templars and Wildrose Guards, until the last of my magic fizzles out and the poison takes over completely.
I am left with nothing but the bitter taste of Aldrin’s emotions. He blames himself for my capture, but we could not have anticipated this. That Titania could use the bargain to call me back to her at will.
I black out and fall into oblivion, waiting for Torin to arrive to torture me.