Page 170 of The Lands Defying
We stare at each other, noting the difference in both of us since we last saw each other.
Since I left her in bed after she fell asleep.
Memory after memory crashes through my mind, of her first shy smile at me, the way she would clutch onto Axis, her laugh, the way she would always run to me when she saw me. Pain radiates through my head but I try to focus on them, trying to determine whether they are true or not but I know they are. I can feel it.
Only she isn’t running toward me now, and the butterfly disappears.
I take a step toward her, and after a moment of hesitation, she does the same.
A breath escapes from her, like she was about to say something but can’t.
I take a breath, then two.
If she can’t do it, I’ll do it for her. I think I’m the only one who can.
“Hi, Winglet.”
Fifty
Darius
Rhea and I port in with Leo, leaving the others behind to not draw attention to ourselves with a large number. I turn and make sure Rhea’s hood is all the way up, her mask in place as she waits patiently until I’m satisfied she is hidden.
Once I am, I make sure my own face is covered and grab her hand, the act now so familiar, always wanting her palm against mine.
We wade through the large crowd that has gathered just outside Wolvorn Castle to the center. It will be easier to blend in that way.
Rhea makes a distressed noise, and I hold her in front of me and discreetly let some of my power comfort her. She leans back heavily against my chest, her body shaking as none other than Higher Charles, Higher Warden, or should I say, Edward, and Alpha Christopher walk the battlements.
Rhea tenses, and I rub her shoulder, trying to comfort her as rage settles in my gut.
“Where do you want me,”Leo asks down the link.
“In the back, get a vantage point of the whole area.”
Seeing Charles here makes me want to storm up there and tear his head off of his shoulders, but I know I can’t. Guards line the walls, archers at the ready for any disturbances.
Edward shuffles his feet and I look to the male Rhea adores. He may have betrayed her, and I want his heart for it because the way she speaks about him is close to how a daughter would a parent.
I don’t care for him, but she does and that’s what matters.
“People of Vrohkaria, after a thorough investigation, we have deemed the culprits of those heinous posters that were distributed across the Lands,” Charles’s voice rings out, and Rhea curls into me more.
I look around at the crowd when they start shouting. Some don’t believe him; some agree with him, and some are just pleading to be saved from the rogures.
He ignores them all as guards at the front keep them back from the gates.
Fucking coward.
“Can we just kill him now?” Rhea says to me under her breath.
“I don’t think we would even get close to him. Plus, Edward would be inclined to protect him as he is a Higher. The bond they have will deem it so. Do you want to fight him?”
Her shoulders slump in answer.
Truthfully, I don’t think we are prepared to fight Charles just yet, and there are other Highers to take out one-by one first. It will weaken Charles as we do, and we need the best chance of winning as we can get.
So as much as I want to rush him to his death, we have to be as patient as our anonymity allows it.
