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Chapter Twenty-two
Fire
It happened quickly, in the scheme of things, but time seemed to crawl as I stepped forward among the current of power enfolding me. I’d not made all my connections, not completed the network, but I’d made enough, the ones that counted. It had caused a hesitation, given us the seconds we needed. I could feel the tide turn, crashing against itself before shifting back in our direction. It was now. We were going to win.
Morgan was the first to come to his senses, the moment of stunned silence all he needed to realize what it meant. He’d known I was a shade, a shadow, but he hadn’t seen me use the power, hadn’t thought I could do more than free him. My gaze caught Emily’s, standing solidly beside me, and in the storm, my voice sounded deadly. Lethal. “Break him.”
The room erupted into chaos as Logan ordered, “Move!” the same instant Morgan opened his mouth to call out the command, “Shoot her!” I thrust the air circling me toward Morgan, his order meeting with a gale of power that threw him backwards, knocked him off his feet, and seventy men converged upon the group, bullets and fighting filling the spaces on either side. Wesley was the first to go, his body in front of me before Logan’s words were even out, and his shoulder swung back as he took a bullet intended for either me or Emily.
But she was gone. She was running, her feet moving swiftly through the few feet of space that was left from Morgan’s position, dodging resolutely past the soldiers to her target. She wasn’t just a girl. She was a warrior; she had been trained for this.
She knew what she had to do, and she’d do it at all cost. She leaned forward, ramming one attacker with her shoulder, and spun, twisting away from another to move through the crowd. Westley had fallen, but he was up again, and he ran with me, both of us following in her wake, close behind as she reached her target.
Morgan had scrambled back, was getting to his feet, and Aern sprang at him, bashing his knee into the other man’s face. But Morgan was strong, too. Of all of us, he’d had the most training, and he rolled, tossing Aern as he worked to get a grip on his brother’s skin ... to turn him. Shots rang out again, and Emily swayed, but her steps didn’t falter. She was on him, feet and elbows flying as the two of them struggled to pin Morgan down. His crisp white shirt was suddenly open, the skin of his chest bare, and Emily’s palms pressed flat against him with a force that pushed him back, seemed to sear through him.
There was a scream. An utter roar.
And it was Morgan.
The room stilled again, the fighting staggering and breaking as his shriek splintered the air, and his men stopped to stare at the body below my sister’s palms. Aern sat back, panting, as Wesley’s boots came to rest beside him. I stood, staring down at Morgan’s face, all of us knowing that Emily had done it, she’d taken his fate, torn his power away.
The anger hadn’t left him, but Morgan was irrelevant now. Empty. Everything that had made him important, powerful, frightening, was gone, drained from him, and I realized that he had never been vital to the prophecy at all. He didn’tmeananything. We’d simply needed him to get here, to break ourselves free.
This had all been to force our hand. Because the prophecy was bigger, far more significant than any of this.
Morgan’s chest heaved as he stared at me, his eyes suddenly dull, void of anythingother. He wanted me to die, and yet, it made no difference anymore. He was immaterial.
“Leave him,” I told Emily. “He’s nothing more than a commonblood now.” She let out a breath, satisfied by my words, and stood as Wesley and two others gathered him into their custody.
I scanned the room, hundreds of men who were loyal to Morgan because of his sway watching us from the wreckage, waiting for it to make sense. To decide.
We couldn’t make them “unthink” their thoughts, couldn’t reverse what had been shoved into their minds by Morgan, but as my eyes connected with Aern’s, I knew there was something we could do, a way to give themnewthoughts. To convince them Morgan was no longer their leader.
I wet my lips, kneeling down before Aern to take his hand. He was a dragon. He had the most powerful sway of anyone, aside from Morgan, and I could give him the gift he needed, the power to turn his own kind. Because I trusted him. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, fully aware of what it would cost him, of what I was setting into motion.
Aern sighed. “Let me guess,” he said, not certain what I planned to do, but understanding by my expression that he wasn’t going to like it, “It’s the only way.”
I laughed despite myself, and my fingers trembled as the power moved through my palms. It took the last of my strength, but I could see that it would be enough. That he could turn them.
“Tell them,” I whispered, “show them it doesn’t matter.”
Emily caught me, her arms wrapping around me as I gave everything that was left, and I focused on the scent of her strawberry shampoo, not the blood that caked her shirt, not the wound from a bullet that had grazed my shoulder. The fire was gone. We had done it. Strong arms came around me, and I was lifted, carried away beneath the flickering light of half-seen visions and surgical lights.
When it was finally over, I woke, arm tender beneath a patch of tape and gauze, swathed in a clean white blanket in my bed.
Logan’s arms were around me. “Hi,” I croaked, shifting to see him better, and he inched away, careful of my injury.
His hand moved gingerly to my waist, rested there as the corner of his mouth came up in greeting. “Hi.”
“Are you all right?” I asked, seeing that he was fully dressed, new jeans over the thigh that had taken a hit, and he nodded, moving closer to prop his head on an elbow. The room was dim, soft light from the washroom throwing shadows across the canopy overhead. The halls were silent, empty. It felt slightly hollow, as if something were missing, but that something should never have been there.
That something had accompanied me my whole life. It was the sense of impending disaster, the looming feeling of dread.
Logan leaned forward, nose brushing my cheek as he whispered, “You did it.”
He drew back to look at me, and I exhaled, knowing it was finally over; Morgan was no longer a threat. Emily was not going to be taken, the urgency of saving her gone. I’d found the key, released our powers.
And then I smiled, remembering. The cold fire hissing through my palms, the feel of the power, the air as it moved around me. The satisfaction of seeing Morgan’s face. “It was pretty impressive, wasn’t it?”
