“What do you want, Loukas?”
He came up beside me and reached for my arm, tugging me to a stop. “This won’t help,” was all he said.
I pulled free of his grip, though it took considerably less effort than breaking free of my mother’s. “I have to do something.”
“And if something has happened, what will you do? Raidyn made a reckless decision that is putting all of us in danger, and your father went to try to stop him. How do you think Adelric will react if he gets back and you’re missing too?”
“He’s trying to stop Raidyn? I thought he was going to help him find Zuhra.”
Loukas ran a hand over his face. He had faint bruises beneath his brilliant green eyes and heavy stubble already darkened his entire jawline. Though he was a bit unkempt, he was still stunningly beautiful. Even more beautiful than the statues at home with their jeweled eyes and painted perfection.
And ten times more frightening.
“Have you ever loved anyone?” I asked.
He blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Because if you had, you would know that I can’t keep being that person who sits back and waits while the people she loves are in danger—possibly hurt … or worse. I have to do something.Please.”
A muscle in Loukas’s jaw worked beneath his stubble. He glanced back to where we’d left poor Sharmaine alone with my mother and both gryphons. The trees pressed in so close, they nearly grew on top of one another, their branches tangling above us. We couldn’t even see the small clearing anymore, and I knew I hadn’t made it far before he’d caught up to me.
“Yes,” he said at last, “I have loved someone. I love Raidyn like a brother, and I—” Loukas’s mouth clamped shut and he turned back to me. “But even though I care about him, I will not go after him, because that would be foolish and only put more of us in danger. Your father went, and that is enough. The rest of us must wait—as hard as it is.”
I was still new to deciphering facial expressions, the nuances to conversations, the hidden meanings of gestures and words said and unsaid. But there was something about the expression on his face when he’d turned away—when he’d looked back. A painful kind of longing, which had darkened his vibrant green-fire eyes. He was talking about Raidyn, but he was thinking of someone else. I was almost certain. And then it hit me.
“It’s Sharmaine, isn’t it?”
Loukas’s eyebrows shot up and he took a step toward me. Though the shadow that crossed his face was as dark as his stubble, I held my ground.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t I? Have you ever told her?”
Loukas lips thinned. “How long have you been lucid now? Has it even been a week? And suddenly you think yourself an expert on interpreting relationships between people you’ve known for even less time than that?”
My infantile courage wavered and, though I hated myself for it, I flinched.
“I have trained for longer than you’ve been alive to know how to handle situations like this. But because you love someone, that means you must know what’s right, not me.” He flung a hand toward the forest. “Still determined to go after them? Then you know what? Be my guest. You’ll probably just get lost and we’ll have to come rescue you too. But by all means, go save your sister.”
He spun on his heel and stormed back the way we’d come.
I stood there for several long moments, the sun-warmed air scraping through my lungs. You’ll probably just get lost and we’ll have to come rescue you too. The tangled, massive trees pressed in on me. It was an ancient forest, no place for us mere mortals to be trespassing; these trees weren’t sentient in the way the custovitan hedge the Paladin had planted was … but there was a certain sense of awareness around them. An acrid tang to the air—like the aftermath of magic. Was it the cotantem they’d talked about, that I’d believed myself unable to sense any longer? My skin crawled, itchy with the feeling I was being watched. With a shiver, I turned in a slow circle. Did that feeling mean Barloc was nearby? Or something else?
Defeated by the fear that strangled any courage I might have possessed, I rushed back to the clearing to tell the others what I’d felt. To let them decide what to do while I waited and waited and waited some more.
Like I always did.
TWENTY-ONE
ZUHRA
I ran down the hill. “Raidyn! I’m right here—Raidyn!”
At last, he jerked, and I knew he’d heard me—but he didn’t turn. It took me a moment to realize he couldn’t—if he did, the men with spears and swords and bows and arrows would attack. The only advantage he had right now was their fear of the power he wielded. They were waiting for more reinforcements to arrive, to defeat him through sheer numbers. But how many of them would die to kill Raidyn? How many had wives, children, families they would be leaving forever, sacrificing themselves on the altar of fear and mistrust? It was all such a colossal waste.
“Stop! He won’t hurt you if you just stop!” I turned my focus to the guards as I continued to sprint to where Naiki still lay, though she kept trying to lift her head to look at Raidyn, with a low keen deep in her throat. A few of them glanced at the girl in men’s pants with her hair halfway falling out of a braid, running toward them, waving her arms and shouting to get their attention, but most stayed intent on the Paladin and his glowing hands.
“Stop! He doesn’t want to hurt you! No one has to die today! Please, stop!” I shouted and shouted until I tasted blood at the back of my throat, until a few more men looked at me. Fire ripped through my lungs when I finally reached Raidyn’s side, gasping and trembling. I didn’t dare touch him, knowing if I did, my power would surge up to meet his, and I would be lost in the grip of it all. I had some of the guards’ attention—but more continued to join the ever-growing group facing us, and there was no mercy on their faces, only cold, deadly intent.
“He doesn’t want to hurt you,” I insisted. “Please—everyone just stop.”
“He is a Paladin!” one man yelled back.
“They killed my uncle!”
“They murdered an entire village!”
I wasn’t even sure where the shouts were coming from anymore; once they started, it turned into a cacophony of accusations and terror given voice. “It wasn’t him!” I tried to be heard over them but it was futile.
“Zuhra, go. Now, before they attack.” Raidyn’s voice was low, mournful. His hopelessness was an empty pit of despair cracking open my chest, so that my heart caved in with the weight of his resignation.
My eyes burned. “I’m not leaving you.”
“Yes. You are. Now.”
“Killer!”
“Murderer!”
I’d never realized before how closely related fear was to fury, both spreading like poison through the mob, erasing all capacity for rational thought. Any hope I’d had of calming them and stopping the slaughter dimmed by the moment.
“Please—he won’t hurt you!” I tried once more, but my voice cracked, utterly spent.
I sensed someone coming up behind us and spun, expecting a guard trying to attack from behind. Instead, I exhaled in relief to see Halvor.
“She’s right. If you back down, he won’t hurt you!” His voice was loud enough to carry, so loud, in fact, I couldn’t believe it had come from the quiet-spoken scholar I’d always known. Loud enough to stun the bloodthirsty horde into momentary silence.
“This is not the Paladin who killed the villagers,” Halvor continued, taking advantage of the pause in their shouts. “He is trying to find and stop him—them. If you attack him—if you kill this man—you will be letting the true murderers go.”
The townspeople of Dimalle exchanged looks, a murmur going through them.
“I sold you food this morning! You were the one asking questions about the attacks!” One man pointed at Halvor.
“Because we’re trying to find and stop the true murderer,” Halvor repeated. “Please—let him go. He means you no harm.”
“Then why did he destroy our wall?” one guard called out, his fingers white-knuckled on his still-raised sword.
“If he means us no harm, why is he ready to attack us?” another shouted.
Raidyn exhaled slowly and released his power; his veins returning to normal, the glow of his power pulling back into his body, visible once more only through his blue-fire eyes, which he turned to me, remorse etched into the deep grooves around his mouth. “I’m sorry. I thought something had happened to her. I thought she was hurt. I came for her.” He spoke to them, but his gaze never left mine.
“Why would we hurt a human girl?” The older one, standing near the front of the guards, who had spoken the most and seemed to be in charge, now sounded affronted.
Confusion churned within me. Why had he thought me in trouble? Why had he—
Then it hit me. The panic. My blind charge into the forest. Had my emotions been so strong that he’d felt them from such a distance? That was the only answer for his behavior. He’d assumed it meant I was in trouble. He’d come—risking his life—because of me. And he wasn’t out of danger yet. Though they were listening, the armed men hadn’t lowered their weapons yet.
“He’s a healer,” I said when Raidyn didn’t answer, probably not knowing how to explain why he’d known something was wrong—though he’d guessed incorrectly the reason for the turmoil he’d felt. He shook his head slightly, his eyes widening, but I continued, not knowing how else to get them to believe he wasn’t intent on hurting them. “He saved my life by healing me once, and now he can sense my emotions. After we heard the details of the attack on the town by the other Paladin, I was so upset, he could feel it and wrongly assumed something had happened to me here.”
Many of the guards stared outright at my explanation. One asked, “Paladin have the power to heal?”
“You’re friends with this Paladin?” the leader accused before I could answer.
“Yes,” I said.
“I am too,” Halvor said. “He is trying to help Vamala. And so is the other Paladin flying up there. Please—let them go, so they can stop the dangerous ones.”
“Don’t listen to them!” someone cried from farther back in the crowd. “There is no such thing as a good Paladin—they’ll kill us in our sleep!”
The crowd broke into a frenzy of yells and shouts again—some arguing for listening to us and some for attacking Raidyn, and us, if we didn’t move.
“If he wanted to kill you, don’t you think he would have by now?” Halvor roared with that same shockingly loud voice he’d used before.
The leader lifted his fist in the air and grudgingly the crowd eventually quieted. Naiki made a soft noise of pain behind us, but I didn’t dare look at her, didn’t dare turn my back on the volatile mob that was one wrong move from hurtling those spears and arrows at us.
Something had to be done to end this—now.
“If you choose to attack, you will eventually kill him,” I admitted, the truth of my words like hot coals in my belly, scalding terror that turned my insides to ash. “But if you force him to defend himself, you know he can and will kill many more of you before you succeed. Do you truly want that?” I paused and pointed to a young man, standing in the front line of guards. “Do you want to die today?” He blanched and his sword lowered infinitesimally. “How about you?” I moved my finger to the man beside him who looked to be my father’s age. “Do you have a wife? Children? Do you wish to never see them again because you’ve been told all Paladin are evil and must be killed?” I let my words sink in for just a moment before continuing, forcing myself to ignore the morass of emotions pulsing from Raidyn, who stood stiffly beside me. “My friend is right—if Raidyn had wanted to kill you, as you’ve been taught to believe, don’t you think he would have by now?”
The leader appraised me with narrowed—but considering—eyes. “And what assurance of our safety do we have if we do let you go?”
It was a temptation to exhale, to believe the battle was ending before it truly began … but I didn’t dare relax. Not yet.
“I give you my word, on the Great God, who rules over all—we mean you no harm,” Raidyn swore. “We are trying to stop the one who is hurting your people.”
“I don’t trust the word of a Paladin.” The man next to the leader spat on the dirt, sealing our fate with that small wet speck of hatred in the dust. Before any of us could blink, let alone speak, he jerked his arm back and with the speed and malice of a viper, hurtled his spear directly at Raidyn’s heart—Raidyn, who had released his power in a show of good faith.
Time reduced to a crawl and still it wasn’t slow enough for me to stop the sharpened point flying through the air directly at Raidyn’s heart. His power exploded out from his eyes, down his veins, but it wasn’t fast enough—he would never be able to defend himself in time—
I could only watch, paralyzed by inevitability—by powerlessness; my entire being carved out with the visceral knowledge that we had come so close to escaping, only to die now, like this, without taking a single one of them with him—
And then, inches from impaling Raidyn, the spear ricocheted off of seemingly nothing but air and bounced harmlessly at our feet.
Raidyn immediately dropped to his knees, spinning to face his gryphon and placing his glowing hands on her wounded wing.
It took my mind an extra few moments to catch up—and only after more spears and arrows were loosed at us, only to also ricochet off the same empty air inches from where Halvor and I still stood. But this time, I noticed the slight ripple of iridescent blue when the sharpened points hit it.
I whirled to the hill behind us to see Sharmaine seated on her gryphon, her entire body lit with her power, her hands extended toward us, Loukas on his gryphon beside her, Inara clinging to him from behind. He, too, glowed, but his veins pulsed bright green, not blue.
“Let them go. Retreat, immediately!” the leader suddenly barked from behind me.
I spun back as shock flared over the mutinous faces of his guards.
“I said retreat—now!” he snarled this time and began physically shoving his men backward, toward the ruined gateway. Finally, they relented, doing as commanded, more and more of their expressions changing from angry to complacently obedient.
Loukas.
Here, at last, was what his power could do.
It could buy Raidyn time to heal Naiki.
It could save us from a horde of frightened, angry townspeople.
And for the first time, I felt a surge of hope. If he could control that many men at once, perhaps he truly could give us a chance against Barloc after all.
TWENTY-TWO
INARA
I still wasn’t sure what changed Loukas’s mind, though I had a suspicion it was Sharmaine that had convinced him to suddenly agree we needed to go after the others. I only knew that when I’d reentered the clearing, before I could warn them I hadn’t felt alone in the forest, they’d both been climbing on their gryphons, Mother hovering near a tree, her face chalky. Well, do you want to go after them or not? Loukas had asked, holding out a hand to me. I didn’t question his change of heart, merely ran to his side, grabbed his hand, and let him yank me onto the back of Maddok. I’d expected Mother to get on behind Sharmaine, but when we took off and I glanced back to see her still huddled against the tree, it was too late to make them turn around for her.
When we’d crested that hill and come upon the standoff below, my stomach had plummeted, all thoughts of my mother fleeing. We made it with seconds to spare, Sharmaine had barely succeeded in getting the shield of her power up in time to block the spear aimed for Raidyn’s heart. I muffled a cry of relief to see Halvor and Zuhra standing beside him—well and whole. At least from what I could tell.
Father, high up in the sky, wheeled Taavi around and dove toward us, behind the protection of Sharmaine’s shield.
“What happened?” Sharmaine had to shout to be heard over the beating of the gryphons’ wings, her voice
strained with the effort of holding her shield up.
“I’m still not sure—but Zuhra wasn’t there,” Father called back. “She showed up after Raidyn.”
I looked to my sister, who hovered protectively over Raidyn as he healed Naiki. It appeared that his gryphon had been shot down by the guard’s archers; she lay in a pool of blood, Raidyn’s hands pressed to her wing, up high, near the joint where it met her body. The giant, beautiful beast shuddered beneath his touch.
Every minute that passed increased the tightness at the base of my throat. Loukas began to tremble from the effort of using his power to buy them time. How long could he hold an entire town’s consciousness in his control? It was sprawled far beyond the crumbled wall at the base of the hill. Would Sharmaine’s shield withstand another assault if they came back, confused or perhaps even angrier, to realize their minds had been altered? Would they realize that was what had happened?
Finally, Raidyn sat back on his heels, the glow in his veins dissipating and then disappearing altogether. Naiki tested out her wing, lifting it from the ground and flapping it once. Then she quickly clambered to her giant back paws. Raidyn helped Zuhra get on first then launched himself onto the saddle behind her. Halvor turned and rushed back to where the rest of us waited. Sharmaine let her shield go, her veins returning to normal as she guided her gryphon to land and helped pull Halvor on behind her. Within seconds, we were all airborne and winging away from the town and the near tragedy.
Loukas finally released his power with a loud exhale. I held on to him tightly, afraid of falling off, so it was impossible to miss the way his shoulders slumped forward and his unsteady grip on the reins.
Warriors of Wing and Flame Page 16