Page 13 of A Deception of Courts

“Stop!” Althea roared. “It is not safe for you out there.”

I saw her the moment I broke free from the wall of fey. Her skin was pale, her eyes wide as concern practically poured from her. She did not shout at the crowd that I had fought my way through but toward the outlines of figures that broke away from it, and ran toward the city instead of away from it.

“We need to stop them,” I said, stumbling toward her, my heart lodging in my throat. I dared not blink and miss the fey running away from me, toward danger I couldn’t save them from.

Althea raised her hands and placed them at the back of her head. “There was nothing I could do.”

“How many?” I asked, breathless.

“I don’t know, Robin, they just ran. There was no stopping them.”

There was a part of me that longed to remind her she was wrong. She could have, in fact, stopped them. My mind raced with ideas of how her power could have conjured a wall of flame and kept the fey penned within the courtyard.

But what difference would that be to the prison they’d just been in.

I gave them freedom, but expected that to come with them handing their free will to me.

From one captor to another.Aldrick’s voice taunted across my mind. Since his power had invaded me, he’d occupied my thoughts countless times, even if it was only the memory of him rather than his amplified, controlling presence. I knew it was not actually him this time, but more a figment of his presence that lingered on my consciousness like a demon upon my shoulder, whispering into my ear.

In fact, it was Kayne’s voice that tore me from my destructive thoughts. Looking sidelong at the wall of the fey, Kayne had gripped one by the forearm as though to stop her. “You’ve been told to follow orders. Heed them or–”

“Enough,” I snapped, grappling with the understanding that I was failing.

The young woman in Kayne’s grasp fought hard to get free so she, like the others who tried to break away from the remaining crowd, could flee into the city in hopes of freedom.

Kayne saw the powered fist fly toward his face a moment too late. As he gripped for his nose, catching the burst of red gore in his hands, the fey woman escaped and ran for the raised gate, following the small group that fled.

Time seemed to slow as I made my decision deep within my subconscious. I followed the woman as she ran for her freedom. A shiver of cold passed across my arms. My breath thickened into a silver cloud beyond my parted lips as I moved my eyes ahead of the woman and toward the open gate.

Althea made it two steps forward, hoping to catch the fearful woman before I opened the floodgates to my magic and let it free.

Duncan called my name from somewhere close, but it was faint enough that I could ignore it. All I could focus on was the fey now steps from leaving the courtyard to join the others who had fled, not from danger, but into it.

I dropped to my knees and slapped my palms across the street. The moment my fingers touched the stone, my power left me with a raging hunger.

I closed my eyes as euphoria filled me. In the dark, I saw an image. The bloodied bed of grass around the axe-scored stump of a tree. Another image came next of the spreading ice as it crawled up the legs of the executioner, turning skin to glass and blood to rivers of frozen diamonds.

When my gaze flew open, I could hear the body of the executioner as it snapped in half and crumpled before me. This moment was very similar to the time my magic first revealed itself in the field full of fey captives and Hunters who longed for fey deaths. I wasn’t in control of my emotions or power then. Now, I commanded both as the rightful king I’d been forced to become.

Ice spread across the courtyard. It cracked across the stone, turning the ground white as it swept toward the gateway. The fey cried out as my power burst before her. It took effort to encourage it to flow around her whilst focusing on my end goal. The gate.

As my icy presence reached it, I threw my hands upward. I conjured a wall of pure, diamond-cut ice to fill the gateway until the city beyond could no longer be seen. Curls of mist danced across the view before me. Tendrils of frozen air stung pleasantly across my skin as I admired my creation.

You and I are no different.

“Yes, we are,” I hissed aloud in response to my inner thoughts. “I do this to save them, not enslave them.”

“That’s enough, Robin. Keeping them trapped hardly sets the example of freedom that our effort has been focused on,” Althea said beside me, her innate flame working to melt the ice closest to her feet. “There have to be other ways, Robin.”

“No,” I said, glancing only for a moment toward her. “For the safety of everyone, I cannot let them run into a city full of people that hate them. I’ve done what I had to do.”

I could see from the pinching of Althea’s mouth that she had more to say but kept it to herself. But the sharp glint in her eye also revealed that she would tell me, eventually.

Facing back toward the crowd, I looked over the wall of dirt-smeared fey as they, too, regarded me with an expression I had yet to see on them.

Trepidation.

“The city is full of people who would see you nailed on pikes for the birds to feed off your flesh. I cannot allow you to wander blindly into your enemy’s arms. They’d treat you in far more hateful ways than the imprisonment you have experienced thus far. The freedom you seek is close, but we must act as one to see this through.” I gave myself a moment to catch my breath, taking in the band of fey that had stuck with me. “Please, to those who still think running now is the best option, I beg you to listen. Know I don’t wish to stop you from finding your freedom, but I simply wish to ensure you do so in a way that sees you survive long enough that Lockinge becomes nothing more than a terrible memory.”

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