Page 46 of Water Dragon
Everyone seemed a traitor before proven innocent in her eyes.
“How could you not know?” she couldn’t help but demand of Ewan.
“Iona,” Malcolm said calmly. “I would never have suspected Lady Shannon.”
“Lady Shannon isn’t doingthat,” Iona remarked, pointing at Leon as he raised his hands over his head, the dirt of the yard rising into the air with the movement.
Ewan took a step forward, a stricken expression in his eyes.
“Earthmagic?” he said slowly. “How is that possible?”
The comment redirected Iona’s focus from the possibility of Ewan’s involvement to the strangeness of the scene playing out before them. She furrowed her brow. Only the bloodlines of the Houses could access the elemental magic. Except for very rare and truly powerful sorcerers.
“He’s a channeler,” she said slowly.
Like Maize.
“A channeler can’t access the elemental magic,” Malcolm said, even though that was exactly what Leon appeared to be doing. “They cannot have it work through them. Only the bloodlines can.”
“How is he doing this?” Ewan murmured, both princes transfixed by the power on full display.
There was no answer, though Ewan was watching them with a small smile on his equally small mouth.
Iona didn’t like the look of him.
“He must have learned how to,” she said. “Even Maize can’t do that,” she added with a look at Malcolm.
What could they do? Should they make a run for it?
They seemed to have had the thought at the same time as they both turned to do exactly that, but Leon’s voice rang out as a warning against it as he said, “Not so fast.” They both stopped, tense and unwilling, knowing they had little other choice. He had elemental magic—they did not.
“Won’t you, please, stay for a while?” he asked. “I’m enjoying having an audience for once.”
“This is insanity,” Malcolm said through tightened jaws, his frustration barely contained. “Stop this now. You can’t win.”
“Can’t I?” Leon asked.
“Leon,” Ewan pleaded. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because the kings of old are long dead and you who now claim the crown are unworthy,” Ewan said.
“It was never about giving the magic back to the people,” Malcolm stated, taking a step forward and making Iona’s hearts leap into her throat.
She had to let him go, though, and so she stood back and watched as he slowly walked into the wreckage of the tiltyard to face Ewan.
She knew what Malcolm was doing. He was trying to buy time. But for what? For whom? His father, perhaps, or Maize, but what if they had been captured? Perhaps they were all alone in this.
All around, faces were appearing. After the deafening ruination of the tiltyard, it seemed most spectators had fled or hid. Now curiosity was bringing them out of the woodwork. There were highborn, servants, and citizens filling the balconies of the castle and the ground surrounding the tiltyard.
None of them could offer any help, merely bear witness to what was happening.
Iona let her eyes travel over them all, feeling the helplessness rise within her, unyielding and cruel. She would not give in to it. There must be some way to break the spell Malcolm was suffering, to free the magic that had been bound within him. She had to put her trust in Maize still working on finding the solution.
“This was only ever about claiming the power of the Houses for yourself,” Malcolm stated, loud enough for his voice to carry beyond the tiltyard, to the ears of those watching.
“The power of the Houses,” Ewan repeated. “The bloodlines need to be spilled into the earth and the air and the water and the fires where they came from. This is not the natural order. It’s a tale spun by ancestors of those who sought to control and to oppress.”
He had raised his voice as well.
