Page 23 of Wings of Ebony
“Rue.” Luke’s bottom lip trembles as he sets the truth serum down. I stare at the vial. It’s clear as water with bubbly fizzes at the bottom. I’m not taking that. They won’t make me. He drags a chair across the room and I seize the moment, slipping the vial in my pocket while his back is turned. The three behind the window are still talking. No one sees.
“I-I’m so sorry,” he gestures at the chair. “I don’t know what to say. Whoever you touched, I-I’m so sorry. Can you sit? The serum can make the lower limbs unstable; works better secured in a seat.”
“No!” I’m hollow and my chest is heavy. Everything’s so heavy. I gape at the door. This is some cruel dream. He didn’t mean that. He’s coming back. This isn’t real.
He lowers his voice to a whisper. “I promised Bri I’d do what I can to help.” Luke shuffles through his pocket, his back to the window. “Can you pretend to go along with it?” Clearly, Luke’s scared of the General. “T-tell me what I can do. A-anything? I’m so sorry.”
I should answer, but I have no words. There’s nothing he can do. I’m not letting him get caught up trying to help me. Who knows what they’d do to him or Bri? This is my burden to carry and I’ll carry it alone.
“I’m going to figure this out.” I sit in the chair.
“H-how?” He pats his pockets and looks around for the missing vial, genuinely confused. Back behind the glass, Aasim is silent. Does that mean he won? Or gave up? The General leans in to the Chancellor’s gaze locked on mine.
The first time I met the Chancellor, he told me I shouldn’t exist.
“We don’t lie with humans,” he had said. “It’s beneath us.” I remember how he stood there, arms folded with hostile judgment in his eyes. He wore a jade-colored coat, and stubble dotted his chin. He smelled of earthy spices that burned my nose. I should have clawed his eyes out that very moment and cut out his tongue. If I had, maybe he wouldn’t be contorting his twisted mouth right now to condemn my sister to death.
A twelve-year-old who’s nothing to him and everything to me.
“Humans are underdeveloped as a species,” he had said two seconds after our first hello. “They tote around unchecked emotion without any sort of self-control. We aregods. Though your father breeding you was a grave crime, I’m a reasonable man.” His words sear my memory like a fresh-inked tat. “Show your loyalty ishere,” he’d said. “That you’re moreusthanthem.” Then he turned to Aasim and said the four words that changed everything. “She may be Bound.”
Aasim was pleased. Said it was a real mark of trust. “It’s the only way I can keep you safe,” he’d said.
The Chancellor moves closer to the window, not even a nose length from the glass. His stare pierces like needles, eyes as still as death. There’s no sympathy in them. No warmth. No understanding. Only judgment.
Something inside me snaps. I’m up and nose to the window too. My wrists are scorching hot and I let my anger burn like fuel. Everyone around here plays fiddle to his pompous ass. If the streets taught me anything, it’s to see through the Laws bullshit.
Moms raised a diamond.He won’t break me.
I slap the window; it vibrates and he slow shakes his head in disdain.
“You don’t scare me!” Anger swirls in my head, throbbing. Magic surges through me like lightening and the glass between us shatters in a shower of chimes. The Chancellor flinches, his stone exterior cracking for a second. The glint in his eye… is that anger? Fear?
Face to face with the man condemning my sister to die, I don’t feel regret or sadness. Only rage.
“You shouldn’t have brought her here.” He looks at Aasim. “She’s far more like them than us.”
CHAPTER 8
BEING BOUND TO MAGICwas by farthemost painful experience I’veeverendured. And I’ve had a hot comb too close to my scalp. I don’t know if Unbinding hurts as much as Binding. And I have no intention of finding out.
Lights creak overhead as I stand near the door in the concrete box, waiting to be taken to Unbinding. Warm fingers shove cold metal into my grasp.My watch.I curl my hands around it and stick it out of sight. Luke nods without a word and I hope he knows how thankful I am. His shift is done and the new guards taking over are complete strangers. He tugs the restraints on my wrist gently.
“She’s all ready to go, sir.” He snaps to attention.
“Get her to the Infirm Ward afterward. She’ll be out of sorts.” The General’s voice is firm and his men obey without question. The guards drag me along more roughly than needed, but I stay compliant. I’m the unpredictable human, the emotional creature they don’t understand.
And I’m wounded. This makes them fear me.
We head back down the glass elevator and into a breezeway that bridges over a courtyard to the Binding building. Inside, the halls are just as I remember, blinding white. Hollow footsteps echo aroundme and orbs float overhead, lighting the corridor. People in lab coats walk to and fro, scribbling on clipboards.
I keep my head down on my hands bound in front of me, magic subdued by the restraints. He’s going to have to take them off to access the onyx on my wrists for Unbinding. Even if for only a second. That’s my chance.
Maybe my only chance.
We stop at a carved opening at the end of the hall with a sign over it that readsRECEIVING WINDOW. A woman with curly teal hair sits, typing. She points to a circular gadget sitting on the ledge without a word or a glance at me.
“Your thumb.” The Patrol at my right nudges my elbow and I press my thumb to the scanner.
