“Councilmen, please come with me.” He held his hand out in a pleading gesture, but no one budged or spoke. “Come with me now.”
Mason’s commands fell upon deaf ears. It appeared the old men in the corner had their eyes drilled on the Guard rather than on Mason. Avery wanted to speak, to tell them that the loyalists held the outside, and they’d be safe from the rebels. But something about the tension in the air kept her quiet. She couldn’t lay her finger on it, but her gut twisted into knots and she knew something else was going on here.
“Please,” Mason pleaded one last time before his hand dropped out of the air. Avery resisted the urge to grab his hand and instead stayed put like a proper soldier. The loyalists who had tagged along stood behind her, but they were few in numbers. It’d have been inappropriate to have the entire cavalry when the rebels needed to be held outside, but Avery suddenly wished that they had brought along more recruits. The seven loyalist men would do little to barricade intruders coming from behind. Avery scanned the darkness behind them, but found nothing about the rubble and ash clearer now than she had before.
“I know what’s going on.” Mason abruptly hissed and stole her attention back to the room. Except he wasn’t looking at the council anymore. His eyes trained on the Guard. “I didn’t understand it at first, not until Patrick attacked me. But I know you were in on it. Traitors of the highest degree.”
“Mason?” Avery cued. The air in the room had thickened considerably and left them with a thin layer of sweat. Heart beginning to pound, she looked towards him for some explanation.
“Don’t you think it was odd that the most skilled fighters in the world would fail against a rebel army? A weak one at that? And to Patrick, a man they’ve known and studied for so long?”
“Mason, what’s going on?” Avery parroted louder. They stood in the middle of the Guard, the council, and the loyalists behind them. But that didn’t make them safe.
“The Guard. Traitors. They let Patrick in,” Mason said again.
This time, the poker face of a Guard member broke. The one in the front, responsible for beating Leon to a bloody pulp, smirked.
“Your Majesty,” the Guard member said, as if it would answer the world.
Avery caught on then. It made too much sense. Leon, the only loyalist among them, had been thrown to the curb. And beaten down when he attempted to check the Guard’s set up during commencement day. Leon might have known, possibly even told Mason at Turnasile. But the realization hit her like a ton of bricks. The entire Guard was their enemy. The most deadly harpies on Earth were their enemies. Mason must have known this too. She could feel the stiff anxiety roll off of him in waves. But not knowing how to fight this one, she waited for his direction. Mason kept talking, as if the words would buy him precious time to think of a plan. The Guard hadn’t moved yet, still statues from before.
“I don’t know how much of this you’re a part of. But I suspect now that you’re in on all of it. There was no lock on the outside of these doors. It wasn’t the rebels keeping the council in, it was you all forbidding to let them out. You wouldn’t let them shun the rebels from the island or rally our forces to come help me. You left the harpies leaderless. And then I suppose, when I was dead, you would control the council and force them to elect any one of you as monarch. On the threat of death.”
The Guard’s faces remained stone. Avery let out a quiet squeak. She would have begged for a single reaction. A twitch. A facial acknowledgment. The waiting actually physically hurt. Her adrenaline couldn’t pound through her exhausted veins much longer. The standoff couldn’t go on forever.
“They worked with that traitor Patrick! Ai! Should never have let him go!”
Avery flinched violently when one of the loyalists behind her screamed out. He pumped a fist in the air and the others mimicked him. Mason shifted, taking more solace in this apparently, and then he took a few daring steps into the room. He now stood directly between the Guard and the council. She followed in suit, her head spinning to take in the massive chambers. The place had held up perfectly upon closer inspection. No dirt even marred the floor, except where Avery and Mason now stood. She swept over the old men behind her. Stern stood out from them, nearly on the other side of the room. She glanced back towards the Guard. One of them had to be the ringleader. But neither of them truly stepped forward to take command.
“Mason,” she whispered but her voice threatened to break. “Mason, stop.”
“Shush, Avery,” he hissed back at her. “You’re not going to survive this. There are a hundred loyalists outside and word will travel before you can stop it. You can’t be ousted from your own kind. So I’m asking you now to give up peacefully. We don’t need any more lives lost.”
The Guard’s eyes flickered from Mason, to Avery, and to the council behind them. But no one voiced an answer or a decision. That was because nobody could.
“Mason, we need to get out of this room. Go outside. Do this outside, please.”
He swung his hand back and sealed her mouth. Avery tore free roughly enough so that his hand dropped.
“I’m not stupid!” She yelled out. Her voice returned to her even in the giant grandeur of the room. “I saw it all along. I see it now!”
Mason actually whirled to face her. The loyalists in the doorway hovered there. But certain it was too late, certain she couldn’t get them to move subtly now, she let her mouth do the running.
“Patrick didn’t want to do this. He was happy in his life. But he was an expert, a killer, a scapegoat. You needed someone to blame this all on, didn’t you?” Avery didn’t ask this of the Guard. “You needed Mason dead and his throne clear. But no Guard member was going to take it. That’d be too impossible to flip the monarch on its head, wouldn’t it?”
“Avery, what are you saying?”
This time it was Avery’s chance to silence Mason.
“I’m sorry but I didn’t realize this until you pointed out the Guard. But now I get it. They were taking orders from the harpie who was going to take your place. The man they socialized well with even when the Guard is supposed to be impersonal. The harpie who knew where Patrick was all along but did nothing to seize him. The one that’s been sizing us up since your official heritage was announced.”
She felt possessed when saying the words, but knowing they were absolutely correct, she didn’t stop them. Though Avery had left out details—so many coincidences she had noticed that took her to this same position—what she had said was more than enough. Mason whirled, this time on Stern. If the man was shocked with the quickness or slowness of their revelation, he didn’t let on.
“Your Majesty.” He mocked a bow. Suddenly the old harpie’s posture and slowness dissipated. Stern now stood his full, intimidating height and glowered down upon them.
“Why?” Mason’s one coherent question slipped out. He didn’t hold the readiness or posture he had with the Guard. His face brutally white, he just repeated the question. “Why?”
“I really wish you to know that it wasn’t personal. This goes back before your time. Back before your bloodline came into power.” Stern began to pace, but his stroll was casual and brisk. The council members remaining in the corner shifted away slightly, but no fear showed in their gestures. It was bigger than Avery thought. They all knew. Even if they didn’t act, they all knew.
“Our society has been going to dark places. When we have left the traditional, we have left the safe. We’ve survived thousands of years in this world because we are safe. And now the new monarch purports to change that. Understand that you didn’t start this change. We understand that. But then Jericho was so immensely popular, so immensely untouchable, that we couldn’t do anything at the time. But when he died—a miracle onto its own—and both his children had been banished we realized we could do something about it. We could take back our world....
“Or at least we thought. Head councilman Samuel held you as the legitimate heir. And he was right. We couldn’t deny it, an
d we had to announce you eventually. But to kill you in the beginning of your monarch would have been easy.”
Stern’s words left Avery cold. Even above the agony the decaying Willow magic wrecked on her body or the exhaustion pulling on every cell in her being, she felt the cold. Because she knew now just how long this plan had been going on. She had stumbled upon Samuel, months ago now, when he had been speaking with the council and revealing Mason as the next Prince. Everything made sense now. And it hurt.
“You can’t kill royalty.” Mason’s voice had been raw with pain. Avery knew then these were the friends that Mason had clung to, his only real family-like figures since his father had passed. Stern clearly didn’t feel the same though as his grin actually grew.
“You can’t. We can’t. It’s a treason worse than no other. But how could we help it if Patrick snuck in and murdered you in front of all your loyalists? We could only react and throw the rebels out. Then, after mourning you, I would have to take charge of the kingdom. And I would.”
“Except it didn’t work. I didn’t die!” Mason snapped.
“You didn’t. And we couldn’t act until you were. That was unfortunate.” Stern clicked his tongue. The Guard took a tiny step forward. Heart nearly thundering out of her chest, Avery turned to face them. Back to back with Mason now, she held her hands up as if the Willow magic would do anything. It only made her world fuzzy around the edges. How long until her knees gave out from under her? It couldn’t be much longer now. The elephant that sat on her chest hadn’t lightened. The adrenaline that kept her heart pumping ran out by the second.
“And this is exactly why I told Patrick to get rid of that bloody girl.” Avery went cold, knowing that Stern referred to her, but she didn’t turn to face him. He wasn’t speaking to her anyways. Stern kept on. “I knew she would be there to get in our way. A Prince can’t watch his own back all the time. And Mason, so trusting where she is not. Perhaps she is the better harpie. Or the better half. She killed Mikhail. And yet she herself is almost impossible to kill. Patrick failed so many times, but I won’t. You see, I’m not afraid of you, or of your magic anymore.”
“Mason!” Avery yelped for him, back slamming harder into his. The Guard had stirred from their concrete postings to a lineup that could have come from a football play. The loyalists in the corner began yipping loudly, waiting for the first move. Their weapons were shaken in the air, but it wouldn’t be enough. The Guard didn’t even spare a glance that way. They were no theat.
“Though I hold the human in no high regard, she was correct about one thing,” Stern said above the escalation of noise in the background. “You shouldn’t have come here. And you should have run when you had the chance.”
Twenty Six
Stern didn’t even have to say a word. The Guard followed some unspoken command and dove forward. Everything happened in a flash. The rowdy group of loyalists reacted in the next split second and intercepted the Guard’s intended target. The harpies clashed in the middle. During the explosion of feathers and screeching, Avery hit the ground. The commotion insane, she couldn’t tell friend from foe. Actually, the figures overhead looked more like flashes of light than people anymore. The more she blinked her eyes, the less she saw. Avery rolled onto her knees and looked for Mason. She found him when she felt a wave of the Willow magic nauseate her to the core. He threw a blast at the Guard, but like her, it only worked at a fraction of its old power.
Driven by the need to help him, she struggled back to her feet. Mason stumbled back and the two collided, arms grasping and holding each other up right. The battle ended quickly. The loyalists stood no match for the professional soldiers. The deafening screeches pierced the room and crimson blood sprinkled down. They stood in the middle of a massacre. If Mason thought the same thing she did, he acted on it first. Grabbing her arm, he rushed them for the door. But two Guard members beat them there. Mason backpedaled as they slid to a stop. The Guard didn’t lash out at them. They slipped outside and in seconds, the doors slammed shut with a thunderous boom. The whole ground shook and Avery slipped from her feet again. Mason’s grasp on her arm tightened until it hurt as he tore her back upright. Forced to whirl again, they faced the fight. But the fight had ended. The loyalists fell in heaps to the ground. The Guard remained standing.
“Don’t move,” Mason commanded but she knew there was no reason he should have such confidence in his voice.
He stood frozen just like her. The next move belonged to the Guard. It belonged to Stern. At this moment, whether they knew it or not, Mason and Avery were entirely at their mercy. Avery shifted first, even with Mason’s tight grip on her, and moved to slip in front of him. She could feel the resistance in his grip, but she didn’t allow him to stop her. Fear was all they had now. And they should be afraid of Avery.
“Stop,” Avery said as firmly as she could muster. Her voice still seemed hoarse but that was a result of the Willow magic’s deterioration more than anything else. “You come close, I’ll zap you all to hell.”
Stern took a few steps to clear the fallen harpies. His eyes scanned over them without sympathy. A grimace twitched at his face. The now closed room reeked of smoke and metallic blood. It must have nauseated him too because Avery felt like it would make her pass out already.
“I know,” Stern said when he’d settled himself across the room. “But I have a gift for you. Please, send them in.”
Mason’s grip tightened as Avery glanced backwards. A momentary slit opened in the door but closed before they had the chance to make a break for it. Two people entered slowly. Avery had to double take. She didn’t know what she’d expected, but this wasn’t it. Skipping over the rubble left from the battle was the tiny girl from the market who Avery had met not long ago. She held the hand of the doctor. The two walked in, eyes down, as if nothing stood amiss.
“What’s this?” Avery demanded. Her knees rattled.
Stern held his hand out when the two stopped.
“Come here, Lily,” he invited the girl. She glanced up and gave him a bright smile through the curls that dangled in her face. Skipping quickly, she hurried to him.
“Councilman Stern, what are all the people doing on the floor?”
Stern gave a smile in return, but it looked more like a grimace. He took her hand and brought her forward. “Just playing dear. Now I’m sure you know Ms. Avery.”
The little girl glanced between them. For the first time, it appeared that the oblivious happiness started to slip. Her round cheeks dropped with a frown and her brown eyes danced around the room a second time. Maybe she smelled it now, the smoke, the blood, or the bitter tang of fear. She scrambled to hold Stern tighter, but he kept her at bay.
“What’s wrong?”
“Why’d you bring her here?” Avery seconded the question. Somewhere deep down, an ugly feeling told her she already knew. Avery tore her hand away from Mason. His attempt to resist was ceased when the Guard took a single step forward. Avery walked forward on her own. All eyes remained on her. She was probably being stupid. But then she was the one dying anyways.
“Why’d you bring me here, Councilman Stern?” The girl asked again but this time it went unheard.
“Guard, please grab Avery now,” Stern said.
The Guard mobilized immediately. Mason screamed somewhere in the background but Avery didn’t fight. Stern’s hand rested the girl was an unspoken warning. Struggle and she’d die. A true harpie may not have cared, but Avery did. And Avery may have been on death’s doorstep where the little girl wasn’t.
Her muscles had officially locked up in fear, it didn’t take much for the Guard to hoist her body weight. Their claws tore at her but the sharp pains didn’t hold her attention. On her way back, the fluorescents blinded her and her eyes burned. The harpies dropped her to the ground and propped her up from behind. The world swirled. Avery remained only aware of a few things. Mason screamed her name somewhere in the background, but it sounded utterly surreal. Before her now stood the do
ctor and the faceless members of the Guard on all sides.
Her heart fluttered in her chest, and she let out a gasping moan. Unable to fight back, she slumped but the harpies kept her from falling forward. Avery suddenly didn’t know how much longer she had left. She had been near death only once before and couldn’t describe the sensation as anything particularly memorable. She only remembered that it seemed her world was escaping her. But Avery held on longer this time. She stayed aware when the doctor used a tentative hand to open her mouth. He pushed a vile to her lips and tipped the thick liquid down her throat. Avery gagged on it, finally able to jerk back. But she couldn’t spit it out. The stuff stuck to her lips and gums like glue.
Windswept (The Airborne Saga) Page 21