Page 179 of A Touch of Stars and Stones
“Ever, what are you doing?” Micah grits his teeth.
“I have to stop this. Please,” I beg.
“You can’t just take something that isn’t yours.” He rips his arm free, and the tremors stop, but continue to shake inside of me. Adrenaline and fury mix with the slap of guilt at my own actions. “Ever, stop,” Micah repeats.
My hand is still against the ground, but I can’t stop. I stand and flex my fingers, searching for any feeling or spark of power that I can pull and use to fight back.
A Warrior comes towards me and sweeps into an assault. He’s fast, choosing to fight with his fists rather than steel, but as soon as he makes contact, I focus and leach his power, using his own speed against him to manoeuvre, just like Calix taught me. But all I do is run right into more trouble and the sharp end of a blade, now resting at my throat.
I still. My heart now joins the blade at my throat as I wait, listening to the pounding of my pulse. The storm in my chest loses some of its bite and calms under the threat to my life.
“That’s enough,” the man commands in a deep growl.
My breathing stutters as I pant, suddenly out of breath, and my limbs begin an uncontrollable shaking that has nothing to do with Micah near me.
My eyes track to Ten, who’s now being led away, his wrists bound.
“Ten!”I shout down our connection, and I watch as he turns, hearing me.“It’s alright. I won’t stop.”
“You’ve got to keep yourself safe, Ever. Above everything, above me, promise me. I love you.”
My heart gives way to the fear of not seeing him again as the knife at my neck digs in, a warm trickle slipping down my throat.
“Take her, too.” It’s not Orion’s voice issuing that command, but Kamari’s. “Guard!”
Before I see them, three Guards surround me. They don’t knock me out this time. They enclose me, and then I’m travelling through air and light with no sense of gravity until I’m in front of the bars of the cell they locked me in previously.
As I catch my breath and regain my balance, something hard and pointy digs into my back, urging me inside, back into the same cell. The blood from the man Ten killed is still on the floor. Nobody’s been in to clean it up.
The door slams closed, the metal clang of the lock slipping into place, and cold dread silences everything.
I’m alone.
Sleep is hard.
It’s the only time I think I’ve thought that because since arriving in Kirrasia, I’ve become acquainted with a tiredness I’d never known back in Estereah.
Where Ten is now banished to.
Maybe this is all going to work out? I close my eyes and imagine my old house, Lyle and Ten waiting for me there. The images flicker behind my eyes, and I hope that this might be a possible future I can will into existence.
Footsteps pull me from my daydream, and I swivel on the bed and plant my feet.
Visitors are a bad thing when there’s no way out of a cell.
Orion Ciro stumbles forward, his cheeks already the ruddy colour he’s shown me glimpses of in the past.
He sways as he comes towards the bars, but I don’t stand to meet him, even if every fibre in me wants to lash out at him, scream and yell and tell him he needs to let both of us go; he can banish me right alongside Ten.
I wait. I channel every calming thought and technique that Kyra gifted me and sit.
But Orion just grabs the bars, his hands clenching around the metal as if he might pull them apart with his bare hands. His lips stay shut. He waits, and the mere presence of him is enough to ignite my wrath.
“Why are you doing this?” A wave of energy blasts out from me, but he just tightens his grip.
“You wouldn’t stop. You got your hooks into him, and now look at the consequences. He was meant for more, and you drove him to this, you witch.”
“What? You did this. You banished your son, not me. And we both know you’re the one keeping secrets.”
