I’d known I couldn’t see them all while standing on the road, but I had a good view of them now and suspected Ivan had plotted to bringeverywoman in Tempest to this place. I didn’t know how this nitwit managed to pull it off, but more of those emerging from portals were led forth by the guards holding their chains.
Everyone of them had their wrists shackled with chains, most likely made by the metalsmiths he’d gathered at the palace. And I suspected they were all enchanted to prevent amsirah from using their abilities.
Ellery was as trapped down there as I was up here. The only difference was that one of us could still use our abilities, and I would do whatever it took to free her, even if it meant sacrificing myself.
CHAPTER NINETY-ONE
Ryker
Ivan had plotted,planned, and used a lot of power and money to pull all this off, and the men gathered in this room had helped him do it. I noticed none of their wives and daughters were here, and while I doubted they were below, they weren’t roaming free either, of that I was certain.
Fuck!
I’d underestimated the idiotic shithead sitting beside me. I’d been certain he could barely wipe his ass on his own, let alone pull off anything of this magnitude, but he’d proven me wrong… with my father’s help, of course.
My gaze flicked to the duke standing beside Ivan, staring down at the land with pride and determination. My father wanted the female lightning bearer as much as Ivan; he’d lose his mind when he learned he’d once had her in his carriage and let her go… after threatening everyone she loved and everything she held dear.
The numerous guards on the fields herded the women toward the gallows near the lakeshore. Next to the rising gallows, builders had also erected a stage that rose twenty feet in the air.
Those builders were putting the final touches on that stage… dozens and dozens of lightning rods. I studied those rods as I contemplated how I could free Ellery.
Ivan and the nobles didn’t know my power had grown enough that I didn’t require the earth or sky to wield it anymore. That was a secret I would have preferred to keep for a while, but I had a feeling many secrets would come out today.
I flexed my hands as I studied the crowd. Had they harmed Ellery to get her here? She had to be terrified, and she had to know why they were all here.
And I had to get to her before she handed herself over to save the others, and she would do it. The possibility of that happening before I could do anything to save her made my blood run cold.
I didn’t have much time to find her, and once I did, I had to get her into the Revenant Woods. I’d never tried to open a portal down there, but the field was close enough to the palace that I doubted I’d be able to create one while on it.
The forest was on the other side of the lake, about half a mile from the field. We’d have to get past the guards, through the crowd, and to the shelter of those trees to escape.
Fuuuuuuck.
“Did you know?” Ivan asked again.
His harsh, dry tone ripped my attention away from the chaos below. “About a female lightning bearer?”
Ivan sneered as his head turned toward me. Lesser men might shrink from the madness churning within his eyes; I didn’t.
It was clear Ivan had been pushed to the brink of insanity and was teetering on the edge. I wanted to watch him fall but couldn’t shove him over yet.
“Yes,” he snarled.
“No, I didn’t know.”
“How could younotknow?”
I schooled myself to remain calm and not poke the bear. I couldn’t do anything for Ellery if I was chained or in a cell.
“The same way you don’t know every amsirah who possesses your abilities.” How many times would I have to explain this to these idiots?
“Manyother amsirah have my abilities too. Onlyoneother has yours.”
“As far as we know,” my father murmured.
Ivan’s head swiveled toward him. “There aren’t any more of them!”
His tone told me they’d had this discussion before, and Ivan wouldn’t rehash it. To Ivan, the idea of one lightning bearer slipping past him, especially a woman, was enough of an insult without adding more to it.
