“Don’t say a word,” I hissed. “You will tell everyone here the truth—”
The enormous double doors to the Great Hall burst open with a crash and a voice I recognized immediately rang out. “Stop this wedding!”
Chapter 48
Kadin
I SPIED ARIE’S BLADE pressed against the king’s throat at the same moment as his guards. With her eyes on me, she didn’t see them move in. They wrestled her away from his neck, wrenching the dagger from her hand. She cried out in pain.
My men followed close behind me and now that we’d opened the doors, the villagers poured into the room, mostly out of curiosity, assuming they’d been invited to the wedding as well, heading toward the tables filled with food along the back.
The volume went from nothing to bazaar-level noise in a heartbeat. Chaos broke out across the audience as well, as if everyone seated suddenly woke up. Some of them stood, and I lost sight of Arie briefly.
I swore as I sprinted out of reach of the guards. Bosh limped in the other direction, while Daichi disappeared in the crowd. I knocked one guard into a man behind me and ran while he was distracted. She’d had the King right where she’d wanted him, and I’d ruined it. I swore again.
“Gideon,” I shouted, pulling off my helmet. “We need you here!”
Another guard took chase at my yell. Pulling a chair over to block him as I ran, I turned back as Gideon stepped into the room. I didn’t know what I expected to see... Lightning bolts flying from the Jinni’s fingertips. Or King Amir floating in the air at his command. Or even Gideon marching toward the king. I would’ve accepted any of those things as helpful.
Instead, our calm, dependable comrade had grown as still as the marble statues behind him.
While Bosh wove and danced to evade the guards, and Daichi dug in to fight, swinging wildly this way and that, knocking men across tables and chairs... Gideon didn’t even seem to register the two guards taking hold of his arms. He just stared at Arie and King Amir.
“Gideon!” I yelled, but his gaze didn’t flicker. What in all the lands was he staring at?
I risked his ire, snatching fruit off one of the tables, tossing it at him with all my might, glancing back. His fingers twitched, just slightly. Otherwise he didn’t move. It was almost as if... he couldn’t move.
I ducked behind a pillar, waiting for the guard still chasing me to come around the corner. I tripped him with an outstretched foot, grabbing his hair and smashing his head into the stone pillar. He fell, out cold.
I peered around the other side of the pillar, only a dozen or so feet from the front of the room now, scrutinizing the scene. What was Gideon staring at so intently?
King Amir shouted commands I couldn’t hear over the din, but it caused villagers near him to quiet down, turning to face the room and spreading their arms wide, blocking others from reaching him. Arie screamed and kicked as the guards held her back.
And then I saw him.
Another Jinni.
His eyes were a strange violet color. And they were fastened on Gideon with the same intent, immovable focus as my friend, as if locked in an immense inner battle.
I hadn’t realized until this moment that I thought of Gideon as a friend, but I did.
So, without thinking, I charged.
Chapter 49
Arie
KING AMIR LOST HIS hold on the room seconds after Kadin and his men burst in. More specifically, the moment the violet-eyed Jinni faced the doors and froze.
Thoughts shifted from calm to chaos, relaxed to riotous, open to outraged. And as the villagers spilled into the room, my mind stretched and bucked against the vast number of thoughts filling it.
I fell to the ground, head pounding. Instead of imagining a glass jar and managing each individual thought, I envisioned a glass bowl settling around me, like a shield, sheltering me from them.
The relief was instant.
As the pressure eased, I opened my eyes. Amir struggled to maintain order and the violet-eyed Jinni ignored his demands for help.
“Guards,” I shouted at my father’s soldiers, testing the change in the air. “Seize King Amir!” They moved toward him.
“Be still,” he snapped and their arms fell loosely to their sides like puppets. “Don’t let her go.” They grasped my arms again. “We have a wedding to finish.”
“There’s no way in this Jinni-forsaken land I’ll ever marry you!” I screamed, losing control. “Tell your men to bring my father out of the dungeons right now!”
Voices rose with my cries. Some of the guests stood, as if ready to support me. “Everyone be calm!” Amir shrieked. Some sat back down, while others stayed standing; confusion trickled into their faces through frowns and open mouths, waiting for words that’d gotten lost. His hold was tenuous at best. He continued to order peace between yelling at the violet-eyed Jinni behind him, “Enoch! Stop staring at nothing and help me!”
Enoch ignored him.
In the back of the room, Kadin’s form raced past and caught my eye. I yelled for help, but he couldn’t hear me over the noise.
I blinked when he hurled fruit in Gideon’s face. My mouth fell open when Gideon didn’t respond. His eyes were locked with Enoch’s in some mysterious, silent confrontation. I lost sight of Kadin in the chaos.
“Listen,” I shouted over the noise, focusing on those further away, who seemed less influenced by the Persuasion. “This wedding is a sham. King Amir is trying to steal my father’s kingdom.”
“False!” He called on the heels of my words. “These are false accusations, pay her no mind.”
I met the eyes of the villagers as they flowed into the room from the back, more curious than helpful. My gaze drifted to the nobles and royals who’d traveled to be here today. “If he succeeds, nothing will stop him from trying to steal your kingdoms as well! He’s controlling your minds, you have to fight back—”
“Silence her!” King Amir shouted over my words to the guards. Even as I screamed, a filthy hand covered my mouth and I couldn’t move.
Amir continued his cries for peace, and without my voice to stir them up, the crowd grew more and more docile. I thrashed harder, refusing to back down.
A blur of movement smashed into Enoch before I recognized his attacker: Kadin. Through brute force and surprise, he’d knocked the other Jinni to the floor, upsetting the strange duel between him and Gideon.
Between one blink and the next, Enoch was there beneath Kadin, grunting in surprise as he took a punch to the gut, and then he was gone, and Kadin’s fist punched the marble floor instead, making him wince. He leapt to his feet, searching the room.
The strange Jinni had vanished.
The guards still held me, but at Enoch’s disappearance, King Amir stopped ranting. The stupor over the room lifted. The hand over my mouth eased up.
Kadin turned to me. Before he took two steps, a guard knocked him over the head with the butt of his sword, and he crumpled to the ground.
I resumed my struggle, but they only gripped harder, and the hand over my mouth made it hard to breathe. Daichi yelled and thrashed against three guards who held him with effort, while Bosh struggled against one. What had happened to the rest of Kadin’s men?
At the back of the room, Gideon still stood in the large doorway between two guards, as if too taken aback to remove them. A tiny fragment of hope rose in me. Had they come to help me? Or was he just here to retrieve his lamp?
Now that I’d placed the glass shield between myself and everyone’s thoughts, I couldn’t seem to lift it. The silence in my mind as I tried to mentally scream for his help was infuriating.
I stomped on one of the guard’s toes, taking advantage of his surprise and ripping myself out of his grip long enough to yell, “Gideon, help!”
His gaze met mine across the distance. In one blink, he shifted across the room to stand in front of me, leaving his two guards blinking at the empty air between them.
The hands on my arms trembled at the sight of Gideon app
earing out of thin air with his pale skin and sharp eyes.
He spoke to the guards in that deceptively soft tone, “Why don’t you two take the day off.”
Even without the use of Persuasion, they released my arms. I didn’t bother to watch them leave.
“Thank you—” I began, gathering up the nerve to explain myself.
Amir didn’t give me a chance. He shoved the guards and holy man aside to stand beside us. “Did Queen Jezebel send you to replace Enoch? Is that why he left so abruptly?”
I didn’t miss the way Gideon’s eyes flickered when Amir mentioned the name.
“No matter,” Amir continued, waving arrogantly at Gideon. “Help me reclaim the room.”
Gideon swiveled to face Amir with iron calm, ignoring his summons. “You think the Queen of Jinn sent me?”
The murmuring of the royals grew louder. I should be able to hear what they were thinking, but whatever I’d done seemed impossible to undo. I struggled to focus, pressing my fingers to my temple. In a room filled to the brim with people, the lack of thoughts made me feel strangely vulnerable.
“Stand up,” Amir snapped at the holy man, as if he hadn’t even heard Gideon. “We have a wedding to finish. Come.” The holy man lurched forward at his command, opening his notes. My feet turned to obey as well, until Gideon put a hand on my arm. His blue gaze, pinned to Amir now, had turned cold.
“What’s wrong with her?” Amir growled, as if Gideon was his servant. “Why does she not obey? I said come.” Though his Gift swept over me, I fought it. Outwardly nothing happened, but inwardly it felt like bracing myself against an enormous wave. Without the violet-eyed Jinni’s help, Amir wasn’t strong enough to overpower my will and I held my ground.
I envisioned mental fingers slipping under the edge of the glass bowl that shielded me, heaving it up and off. A flood of thoughts rained down with hurricane force, but I opened up to them, hoping desperately that Gideon would somehow see everything and help me as I gripped his arm like a lifeline. “He’s keeping my father in the dungeons.”
Ignoring the king and everything else at the panic in my eyes, Gideon nodded. “I’ll find him.” In an instant, he vanished, leaving everyone to blink at where he stood, unnerved by this strange Jinni magic.
King Amir strode toward me and his fingers closed around my arm, gripping hard enough to leave bruises as he spoke into the silence, “Tell everyone the truth—that you’re happy to be married today.”
“If that’s the truth, I don’t think we’d be here,” Kadin’s voice rang out only a few paces away, rescuing me even as my mouth opened against my will.
Everyone’s attention snapped to where he stood on the side, rubbing the back of his head and wincing where they’d hit him. I blew out a breath. He’s okay.
A thought from Kadin reached me, louder than the rest, as if he was speaking to me intentionally. You wanna marry this guy? Or do you want us to bust you out of here? Just say the word. I swung my gaze to meet his warm golden eyes, and he winked.
“You’ll be quiet and sit down right now, young man.” Amir’s Gift made Kadin sit in the front row like a puppet. His golden eyes grew blank and unfocused; he couldn’t fight it anymore than the rest of them. “I’ll deal with you after,” Amir said, then he turned to face me, stretching out his hands, palms up, expecting me to take them. This was the moment of truth.
Kadin had accepted my Gift. Kadin didn’t think I deserved to die. Gideon didn’t either. I felt a profound freedom even with a complete lack of control. I stared at Amir’s hands. My own were suspended mid-air. I pulled them back and lifted my eyes to his as a slow smile formed. “No.”
“Take my hands now, you little brat,” Amir hissed at me under his breath.
Once again, I felt the full weight of his Gift flow over me, but I stood taller, letting my own Gift carry me above the waves of Persuasion. I lifted my chin to stare at him as I repeated myself even louder. “I will not.”
“How are you doing that?” Amir hissed, eyes narrowing.
Everything in me wanted to give in. My lungs couldn’t get enough air, but I stood stiff and held his gaze. How is she resisting?
I tried to ignore his thoughts as I faced the guests, addressing them instead: “King Amir’s purpose with this wedding was to steal my father’s throne. He planned to kill both of us before the night ended.”
I felt their shock and horror as if it were my own. Glancing at Kadin, I expected him to verify my words with his own testimony—after all we’d all heard Prince Dev’s words—but Amir’s Gift still gripped him and his face was blank.
“How would you know that?” Amir’s anger shifted into a calculating fury that gave me goosebumps. No one else knows that plan. How would she know unless... I saw him follow the train of possibilities to the logical conclusion as if he’d spoken it aloud. She has some kind of Gift. A wicked smile curved his mouth and made my heart beat faster as he said, “I’ve always thought there was something off about you.”
I’d wanted to tell them myself, but before I found the right words, Amir began, “Your precious Princess Arie has been keeping a terrible secret from all of us. She is a Gifted woman.”
The way he said those last words sounded more like he was telling them I had the plague.
The reaction was deafening, even without my Gift.
“She reads your mind,” Amir continued. The terror spread, like shards of ice pelting my mind.
I stood tall, the way I had against Amir’s Gift, lifting my chin and pressing my lips together. But my eyes betrayed me as I glanced at Kadin, still vacant and expressionless. Not that he could stop what was coming next. They could easily call for a Severance... for my execution.
Prior to this moment, the idea would’ve made my heart race... but I’d faced death once today already. Instead of fear from my secret being revealed, I felt pure relief, like an enormous weight being lifted off my shoulders.
“It’s true,” I called above the clamor of voices. “But I’m not the one abusing my Gift.” I licked my lips, calling on my upbringing to find the right words to twist the public opinion in my favor. “Amir, with his Gift of Persuasion, has convinced each of you that you were attending a happy union today. You can see with your own eyes that this was never the case. My Gift is the only thing preventing him from taking my father’s kingdom by force!”
“Your Gift,” Amir replied with a sneer, and once again I felt tendrils of Persuasion stretch out across the room, trying to touch each mind, despite how weak his influence must be when spread across such a vast number of people. “Your Gift is to rip open a person’s innermost thoughts and use them to your advantage.” Cries of outrage sounded. People were listening to him. “Someone with a power like that can’t be trusted,” he continued, pounding the nails in my coffin. “Especially not a Gifted woman. You should be put on trial immediately.”
I swallowed, fighting the urge to run. “You’re misusing your Gift right now,” I shouted back, aware that I was losing. “Close your minds to him. Don’t let him influence you.”
“Be silent,” the king said over me. “You will obey me now.”
Pain built up behind my eyes, the result of my growing Gift clashing with Amir’s. It felt like a losing battle, but I pushed further. “He should be put on trial. Reading minds is nothing compared to reshaping them completely without their consent!”
“So, you really can read minds?” Rena spoke up. I’d completely forgotten she was present. A silence radiated from her. This girl was undoing all my efforts with her innocent question.
I swallowed and it felt as if every single person within earshot held their breath, waiting for my answer. “Yes.”
Spikes of emotion hit me as people digested my admission. Fear and surprise rose to new levels, as well as a fresh new wave of emotion that felt putrid and dirty. It took me a moment to recognize it: hate.
They muttered to each other, and I closed my eyes, wishing I could bring back the glass shield or find some
way to hear one at a time instead of this swarm of thoughts like attacking hornets.
As I stood there taking deep breaths, I began to feel the differences between them. One silvery thread of hope stood out. When I focused on it, someone else’s thought came through, clear and strong, stopping me in my tracks: I’m not alone.
Chapter 5O
Arie
NOT ALONE. MY GAZE shot toward the woman. Lady Eiena. Tall, blonde, and formidable, she studied me solemnly. Before I could acknowledge her somehow, another optimistic thought surfaced across the room. Another Gifted woman. If they accept her, maybe they’ll accept me too.
As more and more of these Gifted women revealed themselves, intentionally or not, I blinked at the overwhelming strength and numbers. Before I could search them out, Amir yelled over the murmurs, “She’s a criminal! Stealing our thoughts—she should be put to death!”
I backed away from his fierce screams, unable to stop the trickle of fear as a wave of agreement crossed the room.
“If you kill her for her Gifts,” a strong female voice rose above the confusion, “then you’ll have to kill me too.” It was Lady Eiena. She stepped out of her row and made her way toward us, stopping beside me to face the onlookers.
Was she truly declaring herself in front of all these people? Didn’t she realize she couldn’t take it back? I felt torn between thanking her and telling her to sit back down. They could easily take her up on her offer. But a slow smirk curved her lips as she added, “If you do choose that route, I guarantee you, it will not be easy.”
My eyes widened. What was her Gift?
King Amir glared but didn’t move as he wondered the same thing. The threat had silenced him.
The pause after her declaration stretched on for what felt like an eternity, before a small, dark-haired woman from the village stepped forward, trembling. “I have a Gift as well,” she whispered. Her shaking increased, but she clenched her fists, determined. A Gifted commoner? The Jinni-blood was said to only run in royal veins, but this proved all those assumptions false. Similar thoughts floated around me.
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