by Jessica Gunn
“And that is?”
“To protect you,” he said, his eyes shining with genuine concern. It caught me off guard.
“Protect me?”
Giyano nodded, then leaned against a nearby wall. “The Ether Head Circle has plans beyond Alzan. I fear for your power. Your future.”
Kinder had said almost the same exact thing. “So what? I figured that from the start, just from Jaffrin and the Fire Circle instead.”
“Your power, as you might have guessed by now, is tied to cianzas by very peculiar magik,” Giyano said. “I don’t know for certain, but I’m worried the Powers might try to weaponize that for their fight against Darkness. For whatever the final conflict between our peoples might be.”
“So you stole me from the leaders of the Hunter Circles to… play house with you?”
Because that made sense. I mean, yeah, the entire time I’d been imprisoned I’d wanted Giyano to save me. I was fairly sure it was going to happen, given the way my hand was glowing around his mark, and the fact that my magik, for some reason, mirrored his. But he’d only come when my team had, and now I no longer knew where anything stood.
I swallowed the heavy feeling in the back of my throat and made eye contact with my father’s murderer. “Why do you keep saving me?”
Giyano pushed off of the wall. “Because your role in this war will save the world. You’re more powerful than they know, which means you need more training and balancing than anyone I’ve ever known.”
Silence hung at the end of his words, as if he’d left something else unsaid. As the quiet, easy moments marched on, I realized what that something was.
“Except for Ashbel,” I said. “Because he had the Power.”
Giyano looked away. “He didn’t accept his magik, but he did fear what he was as an Ember witch. Of what it meant when good and evil came together. The volatile nature of our magiks intertwining, connecting, warping. Ashbel knew that was why cianzas were bad places to settle on, why he hated both sides of this war. But he made me promise…”
Giyano shook his head. “Before he passed, Ashbel had a vision of Alzan. Of the final conflict. And what he saw in combination with what I knew from what my father and I had found as archaeologists, it was enough to make me stay at Lady Azar’s side. To pretend to be her lapdog. To pretend to follow orders.”
“Except for kidnapping Riley,” I said, eyes narrowing. How possible was it that this sob story was true? Ashbel was real, that I knew thanks to visions I’d had about Giyano’s former life. But the rest? “You stole Ben’s son and then helped them keep Riley hostage for two and a half years.”
Giyano’s stare settled on mine, his eyes like the last smoldering coals of a fire. “Where I could watch him. Protect him, like I had Ashbel.”
“Until he died.” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them.
“Yes, as you love pointing out. Although that was neither of our faults. Lady Azar hated that I took even the smallest chance of reaching Alzan away from her.”
According to Giyano, Ashbel had almost been to the age where the Power settled and disappeared in a human body when he’d found him. And by the time Lady Azar had found out too, she hadn’t had enough time to collect magik and wait until All Hallows’ Eve like she had with Riley.
“Sorry,” I said softly. And I was, for him having lost his love. But my fists soon curled again. He’d taken away people I’d cared about too. “So you saved me to keep me out of the Ether Head Circle’s clutches and pumped dark magik into me to stabilize my own magik? But then you isolated me from other members of the Powers when I need to be near them to complete the prophecy—something you yourself also want?”
Giyano blinked. “Yes.”
My eyes narrowed and I took a step toward him. “Then why did you kill my father?” Rage bubbled beneath the surface. Giyano had saved me but killed him—when arguably I wouldn’t have ever needed saving if Giyano had never murdered my father in the first place.
Giyano’s mouth thinned and for the briefest, most fleeting of moments, I saw something akin to regret touch his eyes. It was replaced by a hard stare in the next moment. “I knew about your destiny because of Ashbel. The Power hasn’t been seen in thousands of years, and because of him, we, Darkness, knew it was returning. And then I heard of the Daughter being born—one half of the pair who’d save Alzan from certain destruction.” He laughed. “It’s funny because I’d dreamed of foiling Lady Azar’s plans for hundreds of years. Only then did I see how I needed to be here to help you. So I rejoined Shadow Crest.”
“And killed my father.”
Giyano nodded. “I need to get you away from Cianza Boston. Your parents were living downtown and didn’t yet know what you were or what you’d one day be. So I killed him.”
The admission, said so nonchalantly and without remorse, chilled me to the bone. “Just like that?” I blinked back tears I hadn’t noticed were building. “You killed him to get me to move?”
“And to claim a space near Lady Azar once again when I told her I’d taken you away from the cianza, away from the Fire Circle.”
Tears fell, but I ignored them, pressing on. “Yeah, well, that didn’t end up working out in your favor, did it?” I shook my head. “Is that all I am to you people? A fucking chess piece to push around at your leisure?”
“I assure you that’s not the case, not for me.”
I threw out my hand, swiping it across the air in front of me, belatedly forgetting telekinesis wasn’t a power I wielded anymore. Instead, a large wave of fire followed my movement, gaining in size with every inch. Giyano reached up and snatched the fire from me, circling it in front of him as more poured out from my magik.
Then he tossed it back at me.
Eyes narrowed, I caught it, spinning it in the air. “What the hell?”
His lips twisted into an almost-smirk. “Aside from the fact that I refuse to let you burn my house down, I wanted to see if you could take what you gave out.”
“Screw you,” I snapped, throwing the fire back at him with all I had. The rage inside me, the burning inferno, billowed higher. My father had died for this demon’s ego and nothing more.
My magik thrummed this close to Giyano’s, even more now that we shared the same type of magik. But rather than continue this game of back and forth, Giyano ripped the fire from the air, swung it around him, and kept moving it until the flames had burned out completely.
“Enough,” he said. “You need to return to your team and tell them what you’ve learned.”
“Are you kidding me? Why the hell did you take me from them, then?”
“Need I remind you the Ether Circle caught them in the act?” Giyano asked. “They would have locked them up alongside you for interfering in your trial.”
“No trial,” I snapped. “I was there for life.”
Giyano nodded. “And now you’re free, with the knowledge that they want to weaponize your magik.”
“Using cianzas. What else aren’t you telling me?”
“Nothing you’re ready for yet,” Giyano said. “I need to collect more information as well as… settle a disagreement.”
I arched an eyebrow. “Sounds legit.”
Giyano pointed to the new wound along the side of his face. “Lazy Azar might still be without magik, but that doesn’t stop her from using blades. And she’s… angry with me right now at best.”
“And at worst?”
“She was nonplussed about me arriving by her mother’s hand.”
I swallowed hard. We didn’t know how long it’d take for Nate’s asanak ether-shaper move to wear off. He’d hit Kinder with the soul-cleaving magik, too, at the Hydron operation. That Lady Azar was still recovering after four months gave me hope we wouldn’t see Kinder again anytime soon. That meant Riley was safe. For now.
“Go,” Giyano said. “Your team needs to know of the dangers within the Circles.”
I rolled my eyes. “Assuming the team will take me back.”
>
“They will. The dangers are everywhere. Farther spread than you know.”
“And yet you won’t tell me.”
His gaze caught mine, holding me there for a long moment. For what he’d done, I hated him. It’d be impossible not to. But Giyano had gotten me out of Ether Circle Prison, so that had to count for something. Puppet or not.
I was tired of being everyone’s puppet.
Chapter 5
BEN
We watched from the back of the grand hall as Jaffrin, front and center beside others, got completely verbally dressed down by the Chairmen and Command of the Ether Head Circle. Two of their Hunters stood beside Shawn, Rachel, and me, watching our every breath. I’d known this was a bad idea. To sneak into their prison and rescue someone they’d accused of and arrested for treason was dumb as shit. But Krystin was innocent, and she didn’t deserve any of this.
Except Krystin was the one missing now, and we hadn’t seen who’d taken her. If anyone. It was altogether possible that, once free of those manacles and the chair they’d been attached to, that Krystin had hightailed it out of there to freedom. Far from the prison and far from the Circles as a whole.
Far from me and the team. Her team.
I gripped the edge of the marble bench beneath me, squeezing so hard I was sure I’d snap off a huge chunk. Screw these guys. Fuck them all to hell and back. “Krystin wouldn’t be in this scenario if they hadn’t taken her.”
“Or if we’d paid closer attention,” Rachel said, inching her fingers toward mine. “Chill out before they take you, too.”
I whipped my hand away and rubbed the back of my neck. “They’re going to fire all of us.”
“We broke into Ether Circle Prison, man,” Nate said. “We’ll be lucky if they let us go with our lives.”
Shawn grinned from ear to ear. “It was pretty epic, though.”
Rachel nudged him in the side with her elbow. “So not the time.”
Shawn wasn’t wrong. The break-in had probably been one of the best-coordinated strikes we’d ever made. But given who it’d been against and the flak Jaffrin was now taking, maybe it hadn’t been the best choice. Especially since Jaffrin was the reason we’d gotten past much of the security magiks.
“Come,” someone bellowed from the bottom of the grand hall. One of the Ether Circle’s Command. Each of the Circle Leaders had one, a group of five individuals they chose to help advise and guide them during their tenure. Except in the case of the Ether Head Circle, where their Command helped arrest wayward Hunters and demons. And innocent people like Krystin.
“Show time,” I muttered as I stood and started a quick descent to the bottom of the stairs. My team followed at a slower clip. I didn’t blame them. But I’d rather take any of the heat we were about to get than let them suffer, so I hurried on ahead.
As soon as we were on the stage of the underground amphitheater, Chairman Otto turned to me. “Because of you, a treasonous Hunter walks free.”
“She’s not a traitor,” I said through gritted teeth. “Kinder did something to her, turned her against her will.”
Jaffrin nodded. “We know, Ben.”
“Then why is this ass—”
Rachel pressed a hand against my chest. “What my cousin means to ask is: if that’s the case, why are we standing around talking about it instead of looking for her?”
Chairman Otto lifted an eyebrow but continued, unfazed by my almost-outburst. “Because Jaffrin believes that with careful supervision, Ms. Blackwood’s penchant for demons and their methods can be checked.”
“What they mean to say,” Jaffrin started, “is that because she’s the Daughter named in the Alzan prophecy, there’s not much they can do to reprimand her if they want to survive the final conflict.”
Oh, shit. I locked eyes with Jaffrin. “Okay. So?”
“We’ll find her using a locator magik and bring her back, supervised, to your team,” Jaffrin said. “Or if not to your team, to the Fire Circle.”
Shawn stepped forward. “Assuming she didn’t run on purpose.”
“She didn’t.”
I spun, looking up at the direction from which the voice had come from. Krystin stood at the top of the stairs, in the last row of benches in the grand hall, right by the door. She had both hands on her hips and her chin held high.
She still wore a prison jumpsuit burned at the edges of her pants and the arms of her shirt. Aside from her dirty hair, smudged skin, and the bags under her eyes, Krystin looked okay.
I released a breath as her gaze drifted to mine for the briefest of moments and she nodded once. Then she turned on Jaffrin and the representatives from the Ether Head Circle. “I didn’t run. I ended up somewhere else via teleport. My magik is… wonky, shall we say. Ever since being locked up in that cell.” She trod down the row, then took each step toward the bottom platform with utter confidence.
Chairman Otto and the other Command didn’t make a move. They stared after her with silent mouths.
“You were right there,” Shawn said, his eyes wide.
Krystin nodded. “Until another explosion hit.”
Nate cringed beside me. “I may have set one too many. Sorry.”
Krystin shrugged. “No biggie.” When she got to the bottom of the grand hall, she walked straight up to Chairman Otto. “As I was saying earlier, I’m perfectly innocent. Yes, I talked to Giyano. But that was to get answers about Kinder, answers no one at the Fire Circle had. And if you all stopped being so damn intimidating, maybe the rest of the Circles and their Hunters would be more inclined to approach you first before a demon.”
Jaffrin moved between Krystin and the Ether Head Circle representatives. “Work out how you want to supervise her amongst yourselves. I’d like to see to it that my Hunter gets immediate medical care.”
“I’m fine, Jaffrin,” she said.
He shook his head. “No, you’re not. You’ve been locked in a cell for the past three months in an unknown condition.”
“Since when do you care?” she spat. “Last I heard, you let them take me.”
Jaffrin’s eyes hardened, but I spoke before he did. “Jaffrin didn’t have a choice, Krystin. None of us did.”
“We nearly got blown apart trying to get to you,” Shawn said. “For what it’s worth.”
Jaffrin stared down Chairman Otto. Finally, the Chairman relented and said, “Fine. See to it that she’s taken care of. We’ll speak in the meantime and determine her fate from here on out.”
Jaffrin nodded. “Thank you.” Then, to us, “Infirmary. Now. All of you.”
No one spoke as we walked up to the Infirmary, although I positioned myself next to Krystin for the duration. Half of it was to protect Jaffrin from her, given her outburst. From her perspective, it did appear as though we’d let the Ether Head Circle imprison her for three months. But what she hadn’t seen were all the talks Nate and Shawn had had with Jaffrin about getting her released, or the times even I’d gone to him about it, despite not really knowing what to do.
I still didn’t know. I wasn’t sure I’d ever get over the fact that she’d gone to Giyano of all demons for help. But she wasn’t responsible for what Kinder had done to her. Especially not when she’d been the main person who’d gone toe-to-toe with her at that warehouse.
Krystin didn’t make eye contact with me as we walked, although I tried to reach out and brush her fingers with mine. She allowed the contact, which sent hope spiraling through me that our Krystin was still there, but only briefly. Then, too soon, we walked through the Infirmary doors.
“Everyone out,” Jaffrin ordered. “Except Dr. Shan.” The nurses and other doctors briefly gave each other glances, then followed Jaffrin’s order anyway. When only Dr. Shan stood before us, Jaffrin said, “We need a private room.”
Dr. Shan nodded. “Absolutely.”
He ushered us into an examination room meant for three people max and sat Krystin on the table. The rest of us piled in around her, standing awkwardly close to o
ne another. The room warmed almost instantly.
Jaffrin tugged a crystal out of his pocket, closed his eyes, and said a few words. A green light emanated from the crystal, a glow that remained even when Jaffrin opened his eyes and set the crystal on the nearby counter.
“What’s said in this room cannot be heard by the Chairman and his party,” Jaffrin said. “Krystin, you may speak freely.”
“Like that’s ever been a problem,” she spat.
I smirked, unable to contain my reaction. “She’s fine.”
“Not really,” Krystin said as she turned her attention on her hands. “You kept me locked up for three months in a prison filled with demons and other Hunters who knew who I was. What I’ve done. What I’m supposed to do.”
Jaffrin’s eyes hardened. “Did they hurt you?”
Krystin shook her head. “I’ve had worse.”
I wanted to reach for her, to shake her out of whatever mental state she was in, but I didn’t move. “The Ether Head Circle wouldn’t let us free you. We all tried. And when they wouldn’t, Jaffrin green-lit a break-in. That’s what we were trying to do when you disappeared.”
Her eyes narrowed. “About that…”
“Where did you go?” Jaffrin asked.
“I don’t know.”
I looked across the way to Shawn and Nate. They’d been a lot better at reading Krystin than I ever had. Besides, I sort of wanted Nate to check her magik like he’d done before. To see if it was still tainted.
Nate’s eyes met mine and narrowed. Almost imperceptibly, he nodded as if he’d heard the unspoken question.
Shit.
Jaffrin rubbed his chin, then gestured at Dr. Shan. “Check her over, please. I want to make sure they didn’t mistreat her.”
“Like lock me in a cell they only let me out of to interrogate me?” Krystin asked, a bitterness in her voice. “I’m fine. I want to go home. I want to take a long, hot shower and sleep in peace and quiet. Then I’ll be one hundred percent and you guys can stop worrying about me.”