Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 131875 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 659(@200wpm)___ 528(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131875 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 659(@200wpm)___ 528(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
“Your attempts are valiant,” Bastian called. “But we will kill all of you and then take Kerrigan for ourselves if you do not hand her over to us.”
“Good luck,” Wynter snarled, her shadows coming to her hands.
Clover held out a necklace at her throat. A soft light glowed from it. Kerrigan had seen the necklace before, but never seen it do that.
Hadrian was far from a fighter, but even he had flames that danced at his hands. Dozan had procured knives from his pockets. Kivrin no longer had the use of his legs, and still, the wind picked up at his behest. Everyone was preparing the best they could against an immeasurable force.
But there wasn’t enough of them. Even with Fordham and his shadows. Maybe even with Kerrigan and the new power she’d taken from the stars. Powers that the Red Masks had no knowledge of. For all they knew, for all any of her friends knew, she was powerless.
Except Kerrigan wasn’t powerless.
She had magic. More magic than she’d ever had before. Magic they would never see coming. She just didn’t know if now, when they had only been back in Alandria for hours, was the time to tip her hand and reveal what she was.
She was a Doma. Daughter of Keres Andromadix. Descendant of He Who Reigns. She was formidable in this world and the next.
No one else might know what that meant, but they would. She would be sure of that. They would know, and they would burn.
But only on her terms.
Bastian was forcing her hand. Forcing all of them to fight again on his terms. Well, she’d seen how well that went in the arena after the council election. She had seen what it was for him to choose his battle and set the stage for his success. Allowing him to fight here and now would be the same thing.
He had the advantage. The only way to win was for it to be on her terms. Bastian had picked the last battlefield. This time, it was Kerrigan’s turn.
“Ford,” she whispered, “do you think you could jump us out of here?”
Fordham didn’t balk at her request. He carefully assessed the situation, counting the number of people. “And the dragons?”
“Preferably.”
He frowned at that. “A short distance without the dragons would be doable. I’d be depleted, but we’d have a chance. The dragons could fly to another safe keep.”
Kerrigan didn’t like that option. Not one bit. Fordham’s magic was growing day in and day out. He was moving them miles farther than he’d ever been able to before, but this was asking too much, too soon. Even with her magic bolstering him, he wasn’t ready to make that kind of jump. And she refused to sacrifice even one of her friends. Not when she had just gotten them back.
“This is going to suck,” she said.
Fordham shot her a look, but already, she was pushing her way through her friends. She knew what she had to do.
“Bastian,” she called out, “you have come all this way for nothing. I was really looking forward to seeing you too.”
Her voice rang back to him as amplified as his. He wasn’t close enough for her to make out his expression, and anyway, she could tell that he was wearing that red metal mask that named him the Father of the terrorist organization. He probably didn’t like that she’d called him by name.
“Hello, Kerrigan. Are you prepared to surrender?” he asked, unmoved.
“You know, surrender doesn’t really sound like my style. You should know me better than that.”
“Then, you doom all your friends.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.”
Kerrigan lifted her hand to shoulder height. There were no markers laid out. Nothing to contain the spell that she was about to cast. She had seen her mother do this exactly once, and it had drained her magic thoroughly. But that had been a portal to another world, and this was within a world. She still didn’t know if she had enough magic, but she saw no other option.
Not one that didn’t involve the Red Masks capturing her and using her as an example. Something she refused to let happen. They wouldn’t win. They couldn’t. Not after all she’d gone through to get back here.
Bastian thought she didn’t have magic. She couldn’t help but feel grim satisfaction that she would get to show him how wrong he was about that assumption.
The bangle snapped tight around her wrist. It wasn’t constricting, but it wasn’t loose and jangling, as it had been since her mother had thrust it onto her wrist. It heated slightly, almost uncomfortably. She stretched her awareness to find a safe place to take her people. Somewhere the Red Masks couldn’t touch.
Her focus was sharp and contained as she released her magic like a flood into the portal. A gasp left her lips. The magic was a torrent more than a trickle. Her mother had told her it would take a lot of her magic, but she hadn’t been prepared for how much it would use to create the portal that shimmered to life under her hand.