Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 127026 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 635(@200wpm)___ 508(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127026 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 635(@200wpm)___ 508(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
Which meant … it had been launched at her.
She peeled her eyes open and found the rest of the world was in similar chaos. Alura was knocked out on the stage. Blood ran from her ears, but Kerrigan could see her chest rise and fall. The explosion hadn’t killed her. It must have shattered the floor behind them, which had launched her forward and Alura off to the side.
She pushed her way up and reached for Tieran in the process. To her shock, she felt … nothing. Not like the bond was broken. Just that it wasn’t responding.
Coughing as the pain pulsed through her, she found the dragons were knocked out. A blue light rose around all of them, except Bastian’s dragon. Kerrigan had never seen anything like it. As if a dome had been constructed to pen them in. As if they were animals.
Kerrigan wanted to throw up at the sight. How despicable to even have made an artifact to do this. Because there was no other explanation for what she was seeing. Kerrigan had demanded the council give her access to the vault that held the magical artifacts, and Bastian had used that to take down the Society from the inside. She had given him the weapons he needed to succeed today.
“This is our time,” Bastian said, his voice booming through the arena. “Red Masks have risen to our proper place. We are the voice of reason in this new future. Those who oppose us will be struck down. Let it be so.”
Kerrigan realized that all the exits to the arena had been sealed off. The guards that had been standing there moments earlier had donned red masks and were herding people away from the exits.
Society members in their black robes roared at the outrage.
But already, other members removed their masks from their cloaks and put them over their faces. To Kerrigan’s shock, they began cutting down their foes. When the first few members died, others realized what was happening, and magic battles began all over the arena. Humans and half-Fae huddled together and hoped for escape, but there was no escape.
And now, they were coming straight for her on the arena floor.
Fordham and Wynter jumped to her side.
“I can get you out of here,” he said as he helped her to her unsteady feet.
“He’s mine,” she snarled.
She yanked the Ring of Endings off of the chain around her neck and slid the ring on her finger. Now, Fordham couldn’t jump her out, and whatever magic Bastian threw her way wouldn’t work on her. From a distance, as Bastian continued his monologue, his eyes seemed to lock on that ring. She arched an eyebrow at him. A challenge in her irises.
“I’m going to kill him,” she declared.
Fordham nodded. He didn’t need to know anything else.
“You should get reinforcements. We need Netta.”
Fordham shook his head. “Netta has been incapacitated. I can tell through the bond. They did something to the whole aerie.”
“Gods,” she hissed.
“We fight.”
Wynter grinned wickedly. “I will enjoy this.”
Then, she started to tear people apart.
Kerrigan felt none of her zeal. Her head still felt like it had marbles in it and that they had been shaken up. The one well-placed blast had nearly taken her completely out of the fighting.
The Red Masks that came forward lobbed magical artifacts into the arena toward Kerrigan. Not a one of them touched her. But that didn’t mean they wouldn’t hurt people she cared about.
“For the black ones, use water,” she yelled to Wynter as one collided with her shadows.
She jumped out of the way just in time but came out on the other side, coughing.
Kerrigan plowed straight through the black smoke. None of it touched her. She could see the milky white of her assailant’s eyes. The terror there at her ability to walk through without any trouble.
She cut the male down where he stood. Not stopping as she engaged the next one.
“The red ones are explosions,” she informed them. “They react to earth.”
“Gods,” Fordham growled as one of the roses exploded off his shoulder. He pulled up the earth in the center of the arena at the last second, keeping the majority of the blast from him.
“And the white ones?” Wynter shouted. She jumped again, narrowly missing an explosion.
“Air.” But it was Audria’s voice who called it out.
She dropped into the sand out of the stands and rushed to their defense. She blasted her air magic like a funnel to scoop up the blanc before it could deafen them or worse.
“Good to have you join us,” Kerrigan told her with a smile. “Where’s Roake?”
Audria’s face narrowed in anger. “I left him on his ass.”
“He’s not …”
“He’s from Elsiande,” Audria said with a shake of her head.
Roake hadn’t liked her from the start, but she had assumed that he had gotten over that. They were brothers- and sisters-in-arms. They’d endured a year of dragon training together and the Battle of Lethbridge. That had shaped them into family.