Flare of Villainy
The Imdalind Series, Book 10
Rebecca Ethington
Text Copyright ©2021 by Rebecca Ethington
The Imdalind Series, characters, names, and related indicia are trademarks and © of Rebecca Ethington.
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ISBN (print) 978-1-949725-50-6
ISBN (e-book) 978-1-949725-42-1
Printed in USA
This Edition, June 2021
Created with Vellum
Contents
THE IMDALIND SERIES
1. Ryland
2. Ryland
3. Míra
4. Míra
5. Ilyan
6. Ilyan
7. Ryland
8. Joclyn
9. Wyn
10. Wyn
11. Ilyan
12. Joclyn
13. Míra
14. Ilyan
15. Ryland
16. Ilyan
17. Ilyan
18. Wyn
19. Ryland
20. Ilyan
21. Ilyan
22. Joclyn
23. Joclyn
24. Ilyan
25. Ryland
26. Wyn
27. Ryland
28. Ryland
29. Ryland
30. Ilyan
31. Joclyn
Special Thanks From The Author
Enjoy This Sneak Peek of the next book in the Imdalind Series
Also by Rebecca Ethington
About the Author
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THE IMDALIND SERIES
THE COMPLETE IMDALIND SERIES
BOOK ONE: Kiss of Fire
BOOK TWO: Eyes of Ember
BOOK THREE: Scorched Treachery
BOOK FOUR: Soul of Flame
BOOK FIVE: Burnt Devotion
BOOK SIX: Brand of Betrayal
BOOK SEVEN: Dawn of Ash
BOOK EIGHT: Crown of Cinders
BOOK NINE: Spark of Vengeance
BOOK TEN: Flare of Villainy
THE ACADEMY BOOKS
The Gauntlet
Rogue Royalty
Broken Renegade
Reluctant Seer
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1
Ryland
“No surprises this time, okay?” I pulled Jos close, whispering the words in what I hoped sounded like a warning. She just grinned at me and pulled back, turning toward the crowd that had gathered in the great hall of Imdalind for the council.
“No promises.”
She was still smiling, but neither that or the reason we had called the council here was going to do anything to calm my nerves. I felt as though I was going to explode. I needed to get out of here. I needed to save Míra. We were wasting precious time with these meetings and as much as Jos promised me she was going to be okay, I didn’t believe it. The council needed to approve this, and we needed to leave.
I already felt coiled tight enough to explode.
Before Jos could even get a word out, however, a gasp and a sob echoed from the back corner of the council hall, from the exact place Wyn had said the Americans were. The panic in the sound was only pushing me closer to the edge.
Jos turned, clearly wondering what was going on, but I didn’t have an answer any more than she did. Another cry pulled her focus, and we all stepped to the edge of the dais, Wyn and Thom’s faces as panicked as mine.
“Everything okay over there?” Joclyn called, her voice wavering as the shocked cries turned to whispers of panic.
“No, I’m sorry my Queen,” someone responded, their voice breaking. Bodies shifted as everyone made way for the American that was rushing towards us, phone already extended.
Damn it. Something had clearly happened.
When Joclyn jumped off the stage to meet the approaching man, I was only one step behind, magic rushing right to my fingers in case this ended up being some stupid attempt at an assassination.
But no, it was a sobbing man with a cellphone. Not that that was any better. He flashed the phone at her, the message and its following news article blazing in brilliant color.
‘Kyō take White House! Extermination order given!’
I had only just finished reading the headline when every phone in the vicinity began to go off. One after another they buzzed and sang, people pulling them out of their pockets to look in horror at the screens.
“Fuck!” I should have known, with the way that bastard talked. So much for killing him. It didn’t do a damn bit of good.
“The Kyō have taken the United States,” Joclyn said, her voice loud even though I could hear it shake. “We must move quick--”
“It’s not just the United States!” someone called from the back, and everyone turned as an older Chosen with greying red hair held out his phone. Even from here I could see it. “They took Brazil!”
“Mine says Russia!”
“Spain!”
“South Africa!”
“England.”
Countries echoed around the room as one after another phones were lifted, news articles displayed as the worldwide takeover by the Kyō became clear.
Suji wasn’t kidding when he talked about his divine right to rule. He had clearly already granted himself that right.
“How is this possible?” Joclyn hissed, looking from phone to phone as she spun in the quickly deteriorating crowd. Their mood had shifted from shock to panic, the emotions growing more volatile as they began to read the articles and exchange notes on what was happening in their countries. The crowd was quickly turning into a powder keg.
I looked from Jos to Wyn, who glared at me with the same ambivalent shock that I felt. After what we had seen in the house on Trafalgar Square neither of us were surprised by this. I should have bet on those bastards trying to take over the world. I would have made a little bit of money. You know, if money still had any value.
“You need to take control of this,” I whispered to Jos, my voice low in her ear as I led her back to the dais. “We need a plan.”
“How are we supposed to devise a plan against an army who likes to suck the power out of the Chosen?” Jos hissed, hands waving through the air as we jumped onto the platform, forming a tight little circle in the middle of the madhouse.
“Easy. We calm them the fuck down and devise a plan against an army who uses the Chosen’s magic as their sole energy source,” I said, glaring at my best friend. She knew she was letting that Queenly facade slip. Now was not the time.
“You two killed the leader, you saw what they were doing, how do we end this?” Thom asked, looking between Wyn and me as the crowd began to yell for the doors to be opened and the war to begin.
Screw a powder keg, they were going to be an atom
bomb if we didn’t do something fast.
God, if Ilyan was here he would have already fixed this. Probably just flown into the Kyō’s headquarters and kicked all their asses on his own or something.
“First, we clearly didn’t kill the leader of the Kyō or this wouldn’t be happening,” Wyn began, holding up her finger on the half with a hole in it so that it looked like an exclamation mark. “Second, I am a million percent sure that those governments did not fall to the Kyō. They probably handed over the keys nicely.”
“She’s right,” I said, glancing at the crowd and angling myself between them and Joclyn a bit better. “Suji said that he was working with the United Kingdom, that they were already in control. But those articles say that it was just taken over today. They offered them electricity, the governments took it and--”
Joclyn held up a finger, cutting me off as she twisted to the crowd that was little more than a mob now. They screamed at us, raging as they pumped their fists in the air. It was probably good that the magic of the council stopped them from attacking.
“Thom,” she whirled back around, Thom jumping at the mention of his name. “Do a search, find out which countries they didn’t take control of.” Thom nodded and turned away, already tapping on his phone. “Wyn, I’m going to need you to release the shield on the hall the second I am done. We are going to need everyone to get out of here.”
“What? And attack you?” Wyn folded her arms. “Ry and I are good, but we aren’t that good.”
“So dramatic. Don’t worry, I’ve got this.” Jos winked at her before turning back to the raging faces and panicked expressions. I tried to keep myself at an angle in front of her, but she wasn’t having it.
Okay, shield it was. She sure made playing her bodyguard difficult sometimes.
“Quiet!” Joclyn yelled in Czech, the magic in the word silencing everyone instantaneously and leaving them only able to throw daggers with their eyes. Which they did.
“As you all know, the Kyō have taken control of most of the countries on our globe, and have called for the capture and destruction of the Chosen. I have Thomas checking on locations that might not be affected.” And the ‘Queen’ voice was back. Jos was firm and confident. Too bad it only made everyone else even more ragey.
“For now, I need you to know that the Kyō is who Ryland and Wynifred fought while on a mission for me in the United Kingdom. We have seen what they are doing to the Chosen, and why these extermination orders have been given.” The more she talked, the more they calmed, and the more I was reminded of just how much of a powerhouse she was. “The Kyō will not be executing the Chosen. They will be rounding them up and using them as weapons to keep their crown.” She paused, everyone looking horrified as they glanced at me and Wyn.
“We’ve seen it!” Wyn yelled, and for once she actually sounded sick. “They are sucking the magic out of them. It’s how they have their power. We need to protect the Chosen if we want to defeat the Kyō.”
“I know many of you are wishing to go after the Kyō right now,” Joclyn continued, “and we will. But first we must take away the power at its source. We must save the Chosen!”
Thank God everyone roared in agreement as she finished. With how her speech started I wasn’t sure we would get much more than eye daggers; but they all stomped their feet and clapped their hands excitedly.
I didn’t feel any of that emotion. I only felt dread.
I needed to save Míra; but, I knew Jos was right, even if I felt all angry about it. Even Wyn, who flanked Joclyn on her other side, was looking energized.
“Go to your home countries, bring all of your people here. This may be the last safe haven, and we need to use it until we have made our world safe again. Once we are gathered, then we will plan, and as one we will go after the Kyō! We will take back our world and make it safe for everyone, magic and non-magic users alike!”
More clapping, more stomping, and more cheers of approval. Jos gave Wyn a nod and in a wave the shield fell from the hall, the doors swung open, and everyone ripped out, bowing to Joclyn as they fled.
Hopefully, they would retrieve their people and return. With how everyone was scowling and stomping however, I had a bad feeling it was much worse than that.
“Is it just me, or did you just declare war on the world?” I asked, the knot that had been in my stomach since Míra’s disappearance growing.
I knew we wouldn’t be going after the SSU from the second the first report was shouted across the hall. But, to hear the plans change, knowing that it was taking us further away from her broke me for some reason. I was sure it broke Jos, too. It wasn’t just Míra we had been planning to rescue. They had been so close, but with one news story they were gone.
That fun loving girl of the last few minutes had been instantly replaced with the stoic battle Queen that she had built by shoving all of that hurt and pain down.
I didn’t think I could let her do that.
I didn’t know how she did.
2
Ryland
Latvia. Ukraine. Georgia. China. And, of course, Japan.
Those were the only countries that had not been in the news about some takeover by the Kyō. Australia had been in the news last week about a hostile takeover, images of battles plastered on news outlets for days. But everything else was peaceful, or in the case of those five, nonexistent.
The Kyō started in Japan and very quickly spread to China, so those two being excluded from the reports made sense. From everything we could piece together, the Kyō had already been there for the last year or so. But Latvia, Ukraine, and Georgia did not fit that bill.
Which meant only one thing.
“That’s where the SSU are,” Jos said, tiptoeing her fingers over the map. “They don’t already have control of those countries. If I had to guess, and seeing as we know the SSU to be there, they are going to go down much the same way Australia did.”
“In a blazing ball of fire!” Leave it to Wyn to be excited about that.
I didn’t miss that Jos’s trek over the surface of the map ended with her pointer finger right against Kiev, Ukraine. Right at the hospital we were so certain Ilyan was.
Where Míra could be.
The spot seemed haunted with the way the shadow of her hand flickered over it. The lamps that surrounded the map turned all the lines into wobbly monsters, of course that might just be me seeing things thanks to the fact that we were all up way too late after helping talk down many of the regional leaders from just going after the Kyō themselves.
If we were going to stop them from doing that we needed to have a plan in place before they returned. I was really starting to regret not having slept at all when I was in London the last few days.
“So, the Kyō are going to attack the SSU. Wouldn't it make more sense for us to attack the SSU, then force them to submit and be prepared for the Kyō when they arrive?” Thom asked, his brow furrowed as he looked over the map, all of us focusing on the spot in Kiev. He wanted our brother back as much as I did.
“Yeah, it’s what Ilyan would do.” Wyn nodded to Thom. “Battle planning must be in your genes.”
“Either that or I've sat in on enough of these meetings over the years,” Thom deflected and I chuckled.
I knew the types of meetings Thom was talking about, although I am sure when Thom sat in on them they were more heavy battle planning rather than planning the espionage missions that I was always sent out on. Either way, they were all focused around our father’s need to kill Ilyan.
Thankfully, he had failed at that in the end.
“So have I, but I just wanted to go in and kill the leader.” Wyn shrugged, pointing to the town in Japan that the Kyō were supposedly centered around.
“That’s what everyone else wants too.” Jos finally removed her finger from over Kiev and instead ran it over her ribbon. She wasn’t looking at anyone, just at that spot on the map.
The same heavy weight that had lived around her right after Ilyan
had gone missing had returned, sucking away the light that had returned to her eyes only hours before.
Just seeing her fall back into that pit was making my heart ache. I stepped closer.
“So? If going after the SSU is the right choice, then we do that. They will all come along,” I said. Her shoulders didn’t even lift.
Her eyes were dark as she looked at us, jaw set, everything in her wound like a coil.
“They won’t though,” she hissed, still rubbing her finger over the ribbon as she looked at me. “They want to take out the Kyō once and for all, and to them that means cutting it off at the head.”
“Makes sense,” Wyn mumbled, shrugging.
“But this way we get Ilyan back,” I said, tapping the map over Kiev a bit too firmly and sending the lights flickering again. “Surely they can see that?”
“They would if they knew him.” Jos’s dark eyes bored right into me. “You know that all these regions are made up of the Chosen, often led by only one or two Skȓítek, and sometimes none at all. They don’t know Ilyan. To them, he is a legend, a guy from a picture that’s five years old--”
“And one we can save!” I snapped, interrupting her as I poked at the map again.
Flare of Villainy: The Imdalind Series, Book 10 Page 1
