Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 127026 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 635(@200wpm)___ 508(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127026 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 635(@200wpm)___ 508(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
“It is because of my past that this is the most logical path. Humans and half-Fae are a drain on our resources. They multiply like rabbits, overpopulate our cities, and then act as if they deserve to join our Society and our council. When they will live maybe a hundred years. As if anyone with so little magic who will age so quickly should be making choices for the good of the Society.”
Bastian sidestepped her earth work and shot it straight back at her. She ended up on a platform a hundred feet in the air. Helly used the air to bring her back to the arena floor and then wove intricate water magic to shoot back at him.
“And yet you supported a half-Fae through the entire process.”
He grinned. “Ah, is that what bothers you? Kerrigan?”
“You’ve betrayed her. You’ve betrayed us all.”
“Everyone is betrayed by her sheer existence,” he snarled.
The arena was enraptured with this fight. Kerrigan wanted to step in, but she was locked in an endless parade of guardsmen trying to push her back. A circle had formed around the two Fae so that she couldn’t get past. But every word was a knife in her chest.
“Kerrigan is pure good,” Helly said. “You knew that once.”
“She is pure potential. She proves exactly why we need to cut these abominations off at the feet. If you don’t agree, then you belong on your knees with them.”
Kerrigan felt it in the wind before it happened. As if the plates of the earth rumbled in response to Bastian’s magic. The water shifted in the oceans. The fire in the earth’s core listened to his beckoning.
“Get down,” she shrieked, falling hard to her knees and covering her head.
The earth itself split down the middle. Everything shook hard enough to drop most of the guards who had been attacking them. The arena was cleaved in half from one end to the other. A line ran straight down the center, large enough that Hydie and her dragon fell straight through it and disappeared entirely.
Then, the screams began in an increased fervor as the crowd erupted in terror. An earthquake like no one had ever seen before rattled the earth beneath their feet. And Bastian had caused it.
“This is my power,” he shouted as he walked with an even gait toward Helly, who had fallen to her knees. “Now, feel my wrath.”
A stiletto blade dropped out of the black of his Society robes, and he drove it straight through Helly’s heart.
51
THE AMULET
CLOVER
Clover had never feared anything like the rumble under her feet.
Hadrian and Darby clung to her as they all tried to hide on the floor of the stands. Guards had been climbing up to where they were seated, but they hadn’t made it yet. They had been rounding up humans and half-Fae to bring forward and kill. Screams came from them as their magic was stripped from their bodies, and they writhed on the ground until they died.
Clover didn’t have a lick of magic, but it wouldn’t stop them from enacting their own form of justice. None of that compared to the fear she now felt as the earthquake struck Kinkadia.
“Stay down,” Hadrian said.
Darby was sobbing in her arms. “Why is this happening?”
“Hate,” Clover said. “Pure hate.”
“We’ll get you out of here,” Hadrian told her. “They won’t take you from us.”
She wished that she could believe him. That in this terrible world they lived in, a human girl could have everything she wanted. It had been too much to hope for. Too much to believe would be possible.
They would come for her. If Darby and Hadrian tried to stop them, they would be cut down too. She knew it even if they didn’t.
She would never let it happen. She would die before letting them get hurt too. Already, they were in danger by being affiliated with Kerrigan, by loving their friend who wanted to see a world where everyone was treated equitably. But no … not in this world. Not when she had been so close to claiming it.
“This is my power,” Bastian shouted.
Clover’s anger hit a fever pitch as she watched the man who should have been Kerrigan’s mentor and friend ruin the world. This male. This one male got to choose for everyone else who he thought was worthy. And because of this unbelievable magic he somehow wielded … he was going to get to do it.
Helly was on her knees. Helly—beautiful, strong, loyal Helly—who had patched them all up at one time or another. Helly, who had never judged her for her loch cigarettes. Who saw her as an asset even if she was a human with nothing to offer.
That Helly was on her knees before a monster.
She couldn’t see Helly’s eyes from the distance, but she imagined them to be defiant. And the feeling rose in her chest so abruptly that she knew she couldn’t let this stand. She couldn’t cower and let the Red Masks win.