“You!” Kamari ignores the blade and looks directly at me, the hood resting on my shoulders after running up the steps. I can’t help but offer her a gleeful smile.
Orion takes the distraction and bursts forward, his strength winning through to overpower his captors and disarm them. He goes to Celestine and Rigel’s side, but his face twists into the angry, ruddy colour I drew from him when I shoved him back in the hall, as he sees me.
The Warriors, still under his command, follow his lead and move to defend. Yells, shouts, and movement in the crowd spread like a ripple in a pond, until the people gathered aren’t sure who is friend or foe.
“Surprised to see me? Were you expecting mybrother?” I taunt Kamari.
She moves to step closer, but Ten finally breaks his hold of me, and takes the sword in both hands and presses forward, pushing the blade closer to her neck. “No. You stay there.”
“Aten. A real family reunion. I was under the impression you’d beenbanished.”
“I banished you,” his father echoes. “To protect you from her. From the Fifth. She is a risk to us. What happened last time can’t be allowed to happen again,” he starts to ramble, and I can see the desperation in him—his need to protect what he has loved and sacrificed for.
“It won’t. It can’t,” I say.
Questions and cries rise from the crowd, with more and more joining in.
“Who were the Fifths?”
“What happened before?”
“What cost?”
“We will tell you. We will answer your questions,” I say, keeping half an eye on Orion and one on Ten.
“We can’t believe anything you say, Fifth.” Aten’s father shows no new love for me.
“I am not a Fifth,” I shout above the crowd. “Not anymore.”
My confession stifles everyone, including Kamari. The whispers that I heard after my Transference start up again, still riddled with fear and confusion. As they grow in strength, the grip Kamari had over the Guards falters, and I know many are trying to sense my power and coming up empty.
She stares at me, a slight tilt to her head tells me what she’s doing. “Impossible,” Kamari says, the first crack in her façade. “It’s a trick.”
“I assure you, it is not.”
Celestine edges her way toward me and holds out her hand. I take it, happily, and I cradle hers in mine, taking her weight, too.
She gasps, just a little, at the realisation that I am now powerless.
forty-seven
. . .
Aten
Ican’t see what Ever and my mother are doing, but I can sense Ever’s eyes on me. There’s no way in Zuns that I’m taking mine off Kamari.
“You conspired with Fenix Hart. You conspired with the Usher to overthrow the Orders, and seek to what? Rule over Kirrians? The details are a little vague, but I know you were the one to betray Aslendrix and the Maker and allow the plundering of our library. You lied, coerced, and you pinned it on my father to garner more support. All the while knowing why he’s been so preoccupied with protecting Kirrasia: because of your complicit dealings, your scheming.” I lay the accusations at her feet, stacking one after the other. “I just can’t work out the why. What you thought you’d get in return. You wouldn’t be in a position of power at the end, not siding with them, so what was in it for you?”
The crowd that has gathered slowly turns a darker shade as more and more Warriors flood in from outside the gate.
I relax, the weight of the sword suddenly becoming too much for me, and as I lower it, the iron grip of fear that had hung around me lifts, but… I don’t trust it. Almost as if?—
“Stop it. Kamari. Do not touch my son.” My mother’s voice rings out, cutting through the air as if wielding her own weapon. I take a step back and strengthen my hold on my sword, the need to cling to it—to defend—raging back through my bloodstream. I turn to look at my mother and see Ever helping her to stand strong.
She’s fighting. Even now, she’s fighting for me.
“Are you that desperate, Kamari? That in front of all of these witnesses, you’d try to manipulate me?” The urge to run her through with this blade gnaws away at me, but there’s been too much bloodshed already. We need a confession for the truth to come out.
