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.