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The mutter of male voices was distant in my confused state, but I could vaguely feel hands lifting my legs and pulling my limp body across the ground.
And then the earth shook, and gasps erupted from my captors as a loud roar echoed across the island.
Was that a dragon?
CHAPTER28
BAELEN
After I’d been left alone in the cabin, I fell asleep again, safe in the knowledge that Kaatu wouldn’t attempt to overtake me again until I was set free from the cage.
Yet, when I woke up suddenly, there was a tension in the air that made me alert. Sitting up, I listened for something but heard nothing but the odd movement of creatures in the woods outside. Then tremors rocked the cabin, screams echoed loudly from nearby, and magic felt as though it had been sapped from the earth.
“What’s happening?”Kaatu asked, his voice quiet as he also listened for the cause of the screams.
“I don’t know.”I braced myself, my nails scoring the floorboards as the room continued to shake and a glass fell from the counter.“We are both in this cage.”
I hoped the others were safe from whatever caused this shaking, but Kaatu was more concerned about us.“How do we get out of here?”
“I don’t know. The spells of human witches weren’t something I was taught. Were you?”
“Obviously not.”
“Then we have to wait.”
The screams from outside subsided as the tremors stopped. Yet the magical cage around me began to vibrate and flicker.
“What does that mean?”Kaatu asked again, his impatience becoming more grating.
“I don’t know.”The cage flickered again, and I put my hand out to touch it. It zapped me when it materialized, but it wasn’t nearly as painfully as it had been in the past.“Maybe Charlie’s spell is failing.”
“Freedom at last.”I heard the smile in his thoughts.“Nothing is going to stop me from saving my realm and my people.”
I’d admire him if I wasn’t the collateral damage in his campaign.“You know, even if Charlie and Zaide did find a way to eject you from me, I wouldn’t forget your plight. I would ask them to help. They are good people and wouldn’t leave you and your people to die any more than I would.”
After spending days in my body, observing them as I did, I was sure he already knew that. But there was no harm in telling him the truth.“But when you have defeated a dragon, which, by the way everyone has spoken, is not going to be soon. They may be good people, but they are going to choose themselves. As they should. But I am choosing my people. My realm. Myself. And I have the power to make the decision for you all.”
“I understand.”My lips twisted, and I sighed as I leaned my head on the flickering cage again.“I hate that it’s come to this, but I do understand.”
“Don’t lie, youngling. It’s me you hate.”He chuckled.
I could only shake my head.“I can hate you and also understand you. I hate that you made me speak so terribly to my soul mate and spoke about forcing our soul bond with the other like it wouldn’t be a complete betrayal for us both.”
“I’m sorry.”
His apology was so jarring and uncharacteristic that it put me on guard.“For what?”I asked slowly.
“This.”
The next thing I knew, I was thrown back into the corner of my mind and locked away in my own shadowy version of the cage Charlie locked us in. I was dizzy with the suddenness of it and tried to fight back, to push against the shadow bars, but they were like stone and seemed to close in the more I struggled. I forced myself to still, and the bar retracted slightly. Enough for me to concentrate and see what Kaatu was now doing since he’d commandeered my body.
The cage around us was gone, and Kaatu moved my legs to stand. The flickering cage must have vanished entirely, and Kaatu took advantage at the just the correct moment for him to force us into action.
Then he was running, throwing the door open, and storming from the cabin.
“Where are you going?”I asked, but I sounded quiet even to my spirit ears. Kaatu ignored me as he ran around to the back of the cabin and into the forest behind. From the safety of the trees, he turned us to face the harbor, where a large boat was docking and two other identical boats waited further out on the water.“What is going on? Who is that?”
It was my understanding that the island had wards.Did they fail? Or are these people friendly?
