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Is she okay? Drew’s voice broke through his musings again, as Ryn’s face pulled into a frown. She dropped her fork with a loud clatter against her plate before it bounced to the floor scattering crumbs of chocolate and splatters of cream across the marble. Excited murmurs arose, and curious eyes scanned her from every direction.
The human who had accompanied her, Valerius if memory served (which it almost always did), placed a familiar hand to her shoulder, attempting to pull her from wherever she had gone within her mind. The burning in Felix’s finger intensified and he moved quickly to intercede before Marik could do anything stupid like fry the human alive in front of any entire hall of casters resistant to mind manipulations.
“Fancy a dance, Miss Ryans?” Felix said, as he placed a hand onto her other shoulder. She was miles away despite sitting right before him, her eyes glued to the burgundy placemat before her, the tones matching flawlessly with her dress.
“I can take her,” Valerius suggested, and reached for her elbow.
“Apologies mate, but I think it’s time you let someone else have a turn.” Felix softened the rebuke with an over exaggerated wink and tugged gently on Aeryn’s arm. She came up willingly, but her movements seemed vacant, even as he swung her into his arms. She was cool to the touch and followed each of his movements mechanically, as if she were a puppet on his strings. Nothing felt natural, and if it weren’t for the soft sway of her body, he would swear he was holding a mannequin.
As they moved, she relaxed, warmth returning to the fingers he clutched in his own. Her head began to move back and forth in violent shakes to the rhythm of the music, and he was forced to pull back as the tips of her hair escaped updo and whipped into his face. The music broke into a crescendo of staccato drumming just as her whole body spun away from him in a cascade of burgundy skirts.
What the hell is she doing?Drew asked again just as Marik’s tempers flared.
Get a hold of her. Marik’s mental voice brooked no argument.
Felix reached for the spinning woman, a look of euphoria crossing her lightly freckled face. She looked simply reverent, her arms outstretched as she spun in a dizzying display of silver curls. If that hadn’t been enough, essences began to pour from her hands, a kaleidoscope of metallic hues bouncing off the walls to the beat of the music.
This wasn’t right. Something had gone terribly wrong here. The girl who had spent years burying her mastery of the cardinal tiers suddenly losing all inhibitions and displaying them all to a myriad of confused onlookers. She was ousting herself without a care in the world, painting energy trails in the air like a child’s finger paintings. Even her laughs were misplaced, the giddy joy sending warning tingles up and down Felix’s spine like crawling spiders.
Grab her!Marik boomed. Felix reached for her, but before he could a hulking Boralis enforcer in a black suit with red collar and trim stepped into his pathway blocking his movements. Felix moved to skirt around the man, but the enforcer stepped in his way again, folding his arms across his massive chest. Felix was tall, but this man held a couple of inches over him, and at least fifty pounds. Not like that would have made a difference to the situation had Felix had a mind for it, but discretion was what they were here for.
A piercing screech from Ryn echoed across the hall. She writhed and yanked against Ambassador Kingston’s hold, her arm hanging loosely between her and her assailant. With a pained gasped Kingston released her, stepping back as if he had been burned. Ryn pulled into herself, falling to her knees as she cradled her injured arm to her chest.
“Kingston what is the meaning of this?” Valerius called over the crowd, his commanding footsteps breaking through the throngs of people that had gathered.
“She is a murderer!” Kingston seethed, putting down his aged reddened hand.
“And whom did she kill exactly?” Valerius’ eyes narrowed as his arms folded over his chest. Ryn began to whimper, pulling even more tightly into herself as murmurs turned to cries of shock and dismay.
“My scout!” Kingston stamped his foot against the floor much like Felix’s young sister did when she was denied a Reese’s cup. “Our investigators have found proof that she ended the life of my scout in cold blood.”
“And what proof is that?” Incredulity carried through each of Valerius’ words to match the nonplussed expression on his face.
Kingston dug into his pocket and pulled out a few strands of long silver blond hair. More shocked gasps and cries were heard from every corner. The word murder floated across the room like a heavy shroud, some in disbelief and others in contempt. “This was found on his body. It matches her perfectly!”
“Have you brought in a heredemore?” Valerius asked, referencing a specific class of caster from either the chastity or gluttony lines could identify DNA from touch. From Kingston’s defiant posture it was clear the answer was no.
Moron. The man was an absolute moron, committing to a witch hunt without the facts. Even Felix himself had been unable to trace the scent of the hairs he had collected back Aeryn. Whatever Kingston’s reasons, it was more than apparent even to the lowliest of intelligence that the Ambassador had a perpetual hardon for one Miss Aeryn Elpis Ryans and sought to secure her through whatever means he deemed acceptable.
Ryn whimpered and mulled, drawing the onlookers' attention, offering Felix the distraction he needed to sidestep the hulking waste of essences before him. He approached the distraught woman with tentative steps as arguments raged over his head about the necessity of employing a rather costly heredemore when Ryn’s hair was “just so distinctive”.
The pain beneath Felix’s ring became almost unmanageable, and he fought back a curse, causing him to nearly miss the almost imperceptible flinch that crossed Aeryn’s features simultaneously. It was as if…but it couldn’t be.
The woven bracelets on Aeryn’s wrist rolled up her arm as she hugged it to her, exposing what should have been a bare forearm. And that’s when he saw it: glowing copper wrapped tightly around her wrist, its pulsating patterns mimicking the flame for which wrath was best known. The same pattern that Felix knew would match the burnished glow of his pinky.
That could mean only one thing. The how and why didn’t matter. All that mattered was getting her the hell out of here and away from the humans who would try to destroy her if they knew what she was. Who she was.
Emissary.
Marik’s cry of triumph reverberated through the psychic bonds like a gong crash of a gong. Even the other emissaries would have felt it, wherever they were on the globe.
The idiot humans fighting over her had no idea what danger they were now in. Marik would stop at nothing to have her, even if it meant wiping out every single life in this keep.
Ryn continued to whimper and pull in on herself as enforcers in black and red surrounded her. Chaos reigned in the hall coming to a head as one of them grabbed for her.
That was a terrible mistake as he was thrown across the room in a concussive blast of power that reminded Felix of the grenades from the last great World War. The room flashed in silver, every surface sparkling like pure starlight in the heavens. Bodies flew past Felix, but he couldn’t stop staring at the mesmerizing site before him.
Before he could blink, the light was gone, darkness crushing down on the hall; every candle doused with the concussive wave. That was no easy feat, considering every candle was warded to protect from extinguishment.
