Page 172 of The Lands Defying
I grit my teeth, managing to grab the back of Rhea’s cloak and drag her to me.
“Stop,” I tell her as I feel the painful current spreading through me. “You are going to be seen—”
Her watery, blue eyes look up at me as I turn her toward me, her panting breaths being seen in the cold air. My shoulders sag at the grief in her eyes.
“Always these fucking eyes,” I tell her, as Higher Charles calls out to the people to behave. “Okay, little wolf.”
“If I do not have silence in the next moment you will be joining the traitors in being hanged!” Charles roars. The crowd becomes silent, though I notice their eyes. Some fearsome, some full of anger.
Guards step up behind the males and Edward, moving them to a slot in the low walls.
Charles tells the crowd how Edward has been working against the Highers for his personal gain for many moon cycles. How he has orchestrated the whole thing with the posters and caused many deaths, and has collected deceivers and rebels along his way.
“It is so very disappointing to know one of our own has betrayed us. This is just more proof that you may not know who you work with at all,” Charles says with fake sadness. One I have come to know over the years to try and get sympathy.
Rhea’s shoulders shake harder, desperation in her eyes but they soon widen as all of a sudden, the males are pushed over the edges.
And bodies are being dropped.
“Let this be a lesson to you all!” Charles declares as the males all choke, their faces turning purple.
“Leo, arrow!”
Rhea turns, hands out and her magic pulses from them. People scream and jump out of the way when they see the magic, and the crowd gasps when that ball of power hits the guards directly in front of the gate, the hanging men above them.
The wood splinters and breaks, and then the whole thing comes crashing down as the people scream.
And Chaos ensues.
Two guards fall from the battlements, and most topple over from the surprise impact, including Christopher and Charles.
Leo’s aim is true, and within moments, arrows cut through all four ropes and the hanged men fall. I call my power, letting it out to roam around the crowd and toward the guards at the edges.
I rush forward with Rhea as Charles bellows in anger. Leo fires arrows off toward them and the guards on the battlements as the people fight the guards.
I shove people out of the way until we are eventually in front of what is left of the gate, people stampeding on the hanged males to rush inside. Rhea hits a guard in the face and I grab another and throw him into the crowd. I mold my magic into a spike in the next moment and I stab another guard in the neck as Rhea rushes for Edward, cutting the rope around his neck and then doing the same with the males.
I make sure to cast a barrier around them, holding people back from trampling her.
“We need to go, Brother,” Leo says, “They are ready to do an attack.”
I look up at the battlement above and see Christopher looking over the wall, directly down at us. An arrow lands in the center of his head next, and then he’s falling down. I watch as his body becomes broken on impact.
“Who dares attack your Lord Higher!” Charles roars, and I grab Rhea’s shoulder as magic crackles in the air.
She grabs Edward’s arm and I touch the port stone.
But my eyes lock onto Charles’s as he looks down directly at us.
And I know he saw me.
And now he knows I’m a traitor too.
Landing in Eridian, I drag Rhea away from Edward and the other males as he coughs and splutters on the forest ground.
“Stay next to me,” I tell her and for once, she doesn’t fight me on it.“Warn Vokheim, Charles knows I am no longer under his paw,”I say down the link to my brothers.
We are not ready for the consequences of that, not ready to fight, but we have no choice.
