Page 197 of The Shadow Wand

He and Cael know that the priestesses have been given new powers to enforce every rule of theEalaiontorian, with no deviation from the holy book’s rigid words allowed.

And so they’ve sent the Marfoir after Wynter again.

But not just two this time. Thirteen of the horrific Alfsigr assassins.

Rhys struggles against the soldiers’ restraining grip as the priestess kneels before him once more, grabs up the chain of his Zalyn’or, and slides her rune blade’s edge just under it, then pulls the chain taut.

Panic rears inside Rhys at the thought of losing the Zalyn’or, along with the sudden, desperate desire to beg and plead to keep the necklace. To recant every blasphemy and do penance for his corruption, for his traitorous thoughts.

To scour his own mind.

But he grits his teeth and battles the feeling back, his love for Wynter stronger than the pull to keep hold of the Zalyn’or.

The priestess slices through the necklace’s chain, silver sparks flying off it as Rhys has the sense of his whole body momentarily losing its form. Then the priestess wrenches the necklace from Rhys’s neck as she drones the shunning words from theEalaiontorianholy book,branding him as forever non-Alfsigr.

One of the polluted.

Rhys can barely hear her.

Emotion surges up, up, up inside him with volcanic force, his entire mind sharpening as grief, rage, and rebellion gather into a whirling storm within him and the image of a white bird made of blinding light blazes for a split second behind his eyes.

He whips his head toward Cael as the priestess rips the necklace from Cael and the arms that grip Rhys fall away, the soldiers and priestess and rune sorceress all retreating through the silvery shield dome.

Rhys draws in a hard breath, lit up by the incandescent outrage rising within him. Defiance rising, he quickly regains his sense of balance and starts to push himself up from the ground as Cael also gets to his feet and straightens to his full, intimidating height.

There’s a look of sudden, raging shock in Cael’s silver eyes as he levels them at the Council and the priestess. His gaze narrows and flashes like a volcanic storm, his pale fists clenched, a cataclysmic level of rebellion firing in his eyes.

Rhys straightens as well, ignoring the slashing pain.

As they both face down the entire Alfsigroth hierarchy.

“What have you done?” Cael seethes, the force of his tone like a blizzard, sweeping in with monstrous force. “What have you done to your own people?”

“Silence the Evil Ones,” the priestess demands of Monarch Talonir.

“You’re not trying to silence us because we’re Evil,” Cael snarls. “You’re throwing us into the sublands because even your Zalyn’orwas not enough to subdue our minds. You’re afraid of us. Because you can’t control what I say—” he jabs a finger toward Rhys “—or what he writes.”

Rhys is mesmerized by Cael’s open rebellion, at the beautiful, vengeful creature before him. Gone is subdued Elfin Cael. He’s like some magnificent other being.

The Cael that Rhys remembers from before the Zalyn’ors.

Angry Cael.

“You cannevercontrol us,” Cael rages. “Because our power of free thought is too strong.”

“Cast them into the sublands,” Iolrath Talonir orders the rune sorceress. “Where the Evil things reside.”

The rune sorceress steps forward and points her stylus at the ground beneath Rhys and Cael.

“Long live the Resistance!” Cael cries with enough rage to shake the heavens as the ground gives way.

Rhys’s arms fly up, his stomach lurching, as he falls along with Cael into subland darkness, hurtling down as the circle of sunlit world above them flies up and away, the birds small, circling dots on its receding palette of blue.

Rhys cries out as he hits the ground, his wounds a blaze of pain as the sunlit hole far above them shudders to a close, like a mist quickly solidifying.

Silence.

And then...a sudden flash of bright green light, as the surprisingly sharp emotion of fear cuts through Rhys’s pain.

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