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The guards shouted, some abandoning their weapons to shield their heads, while others went down, hit by one of the chairs. The two who had come in with Grey kept their focus, however. Ducking and weaving through the chaos, they closed in on Nik as he retreated toward the throne—the only chair not to have moved.
I looked around, wondering how I could help, and my eyes latched onto Miro. His earlier assurance had vanished completely, beads of sweat appearing along his brow. Inching along the wall, he was attempting to reach the door and escape the fighting.
Narrowing my eyes, I crawled across the floor, keeping below the smashed pieces of wood shooting across the room. Grey had already escaped, but I wasn’t letting Miro get away as well.
He let out a sigh as he reached the door, pausing briefly to glance back over his shoulder at the chaos he was escaping. The brief pause gave me just long enough to reach him.
Stretching out my arm, my fingers latched around his ankle, burrowing until they found skin. He shrieked and tried to pull his leg free, but the effort only sent him toppling sideways.
I clung on as he fell hard, most of his body outside in the corridor. Dragged forward by my arm, my muscles strained to maintain contact as I sent my power spearing into him.
He stopped fighting instantly, his body relaxing into the ground as sleep took him. I took a deep breath and crawled forward to sit on his chest. The pounding of feet preceded the arrival of another column of running guards.
I grabbed Miro’s floppy arm and held it aloft, my fingers curled obviously around his skin.
“I’m a healer!” I shouted in my loudest voice, and they all froze.
The men inside were Grey’s people, and they wouldn’t stop to protect Miro, but these were ordinary law keepers trained to respect their head of hall.
“Who are you?” called the captain at the front of the line.
“I’m an agent of the crown,” I said, thinking on my feet. “And I’m arresting Miro on charges of treason against Tartora.”
“And if we don’t recognize your authority?” the captain asked in a hard voice.
“Are you a healer?” I asked, taking a gamble based on his rank.
He hesitated before nodding curtly.
“Then you can see the truth of my words. Any of the rest of you who are healers should listen closely too. You’ve been lied to, manipulated, and tricked by Miro and the man you call Slate.”
The law keepers in the corridor shifted, looking at each other warily.
“You can’t trust the thoughts in your head or even your own memories,” I said.
“What are you saying?” the captain asked, but the tone of his voice had changed, a look of horror creeping into his eyes.
I focused on him. “From the look on your face, you’ve heard the official warnings from Tarona about the healer Grey.”
The captain slowly nodded.
“Slate is Grey,” I said. “And Miro knows it.”
“Impossible.” The man’s voice sounded dry. “Slate is an elements mage.”
“Tell me,” I said. “Did you see evidence of that before you touched him for the first time? If your only memories are from after that time, they may be false ones, created by your mind to support his mesmerized lies.”
“Captain,” said one of the men tentatively. “What’s she talking about? Everything she’s saying has the ring of truth, but it doesn’t make any sense. What’s this about mesmerizing?”
As I had suspected, only those of sufficient rank had been included in the official warning from the capital. The king must be worried about creating mass panic if the story of Grey’s powers spread freely across the kingdom.
“I can see you believe your own words,” the captain said. “But that doesn’t make them true.”
A jagged spear of wood that had once been the leg of a chair flew through the open door behind me. Several of the law keepers dodged, only just avoiding it before it hit the wall of the corridor with enough force to damage the stone.
The men craned to see over each other’s shoulders, all attempting to peer at the heated battle happening inside the room. I desperately wanted to look back myself, but I knew I couldn’t afford the distraction. If Grey’s guards were still locked in battle with Nik, they must have strong abilities of their own, and my best chance of helping him lay with the men in front of me.
A loud crash sounded behind me, and the knuckles on the hand holding Miro’s arm went white as I fought to keep my focus.
