I’d only ever experienced something like it once in my life, when the Paladin High Council had opened the gateway in Visimperum—the pull, the need to get closer to all that power, drawing me to my feet.
Raidyn grabbed my hand, stopping me before I would have begun walking toward it, bewitched out of common sense. The call to come, to join my power with it, still coursed through me, but his touch brought me back to myself enough to resist it.
“What is it—what’s going on?” My mother’s groggy voice came from behind us, followed by my father’s response, “The gateway has been opened again.”
I glanced back to see her rubbing her eyes, pushing herself to her feet. Perhaps she had managed to fall asleep after all, and I was glad for it. She was worn too thin around the edges, so much of her indomitable fire doused from exhaustion and loss. “How do you know?” she asked, looking from him to me.
“We can feel it,” he said, the edges of his eyes tight as his gaze moved to the shattered window. “But we can’t tell what’s about to come through it.”
“Nothing good, I’m afraid.” Raidyn spoke under his breath, so I wasn’t sure anyone heard him beside me.
“Do you think it’s Barloc?” Mother blanched, her eyes also going to the side of the citadel, so high up in the air.
“If it is, then who came through it yesterday?”
There was no answer.
“What do we do, sir?” Sharmaine turned to my father, pale but determined, the dawn breaking bleak overhead, the sky washed gray by thin, low-lying clouds.
His gaze dropped to my mother at his side. I had so many memories of her in this courtyard—how I’d always imagined her a tiny mountain made flesh, immovable and unstoppable. But faced with the possibility of a frighteningly powerful jakla and more rakasa, she’d never seemed more fragile—more mortal and breakable. We all had power to at least give us hope of fighting and surviving, but she … she had nothing but her will and a temper, neither of which would save her from this kind of enemy. “We prepare to fight,” he said, his eyes meeting mine, the bleakness in his echoing the cavernous fear inside me.
Mother swallowed but nodded, squaring her shoulders, as if she could possibly hope to face what was to come.
Naiki suddenly rose to her feet, hackles raised, with a sharp caw, Taavi and Keko right behind her.
“How touching.”
We whirled to face the hedge where the voice had come from.
Barloc.
Flanked by at least a dozen other Paladin.
Behind them, the hedge was pulled back, the gate open.
Had they come from outside the hedge? Then who—or what—was coming through the gateway?
“I don’t want to kill all of you,” he continued, slowly strolling forward, as if he were commenting on the weather, not our lives, “but I will, if you force me to.”
Raidyn’s hand tightened on mine, his veins lighting with power. My father and Sharmaine’s did as well; their gryphons rushed to our sides.
“I’m disappointed in you.” Barloc shook his head, his eyes and body filled with so much Paladin power, almost every inch of his skin glowed, not just his veins. “You know that’s useless against me. Unless you intend to donate your gifts to my cause.” He flashed his teeth at us, an expression of vindictive greed, more like an animal baring its fangs as a threat than anything resembling a human smile.
“What do you want?” Father spat, pushing my mother behind him, toward Taavi.
The gryphons’ wings were all partially lifted, prepared to take flight the moment their Riders climbed on. But we all stood there, frozen in fear—at an impasse, knowing the power we wielded would just be absorbed by the jakla. I wondered if the fire Raidyn and I could create together—strong enough to incinerate a Chimera—could destroy him before he could absorb it. Our hands were still clasped, but though his power filled his veins, ready to explode out, he hadn’t summoned it fully yet, so there was nothing I could do, except cling to him, ready and willing to lend my power to his if he chose to use it.
“I appreciate you taking the time to ask, rather than wasting any more lives needlessly. I’m not completely unreasonable.” His laugh did little to convince me of his sincerity—or sanity—but Father remained still, tensed, ready to fight or flee, but not moving—yet. “All I want is your daughter’s power. And the rest of you walk away, unharmed.”
“No.” Father’s response was so immediate, I’d barely had time to assimilate the meaning of Barloc’s words before he spat his answer back at the monster that had once been Halvor’s uncle. I’d thought for a moment he meant Inara—the one I was used to thinking of having power, even now. Even with her gone. “You already took hers.”
“You know I’m not talking about that one.” His gaze lifted to mine, and I barely kept from flinching at the fathomless malice in his blinding eyes. “I want her power.”
“She has no power,” Raidyn burst out, his fingers digging into my hand to the point of pain. I squeezed back just as hard, every muscle in my body taut, strung too tight and ready to snap. There were fifteen Paladin men and women plus Barloc against the four of us and my mother. If this turned into a fight, there was no chance we would survive.
“Liar.” The word was low and sinuous and spoken so calmly it was almost worse than if he’d yelled. “I watched you all. While I waited for my strength to return from opening that gateway, I watched and learned. Oh, she has power. Yes, she does. I did warn you … do you know what I do to liars?”
Sharmaine threw up her shield, but it wasn’t fast enough. The blast came with so little movement on his part, none of us were able to react quickly enough.
Time slowed, as viscous as the blood sludging through my veins, so that one blinding blast of power seemed to travel at half speed, but I was still unable to move or do anything to stop it. I could only watch as it shot past my father and mother, past Sharmaine, past me—and exploded into Raidyn, ripping his hand from mine, throwing him backward.