by Kali Argent
“True.” He crossed his arms, clenching his teeth so hard his jaw ached. “He didn’t, however, have the right to speak to you that way or try to grab you like that.”
She looked as if she’d argue, but Elder Meadowlark chose that moment to call everyone to attention. It was probably for the best, because no excuse Rya could offer would placate him. He agreed that she shouldn’t have disappeared without warning, but that didn’t entitle Garrik to growl or yell at her, and it damn sure didn’t give him the right to approach her with anger.
“We’ll talk later.” Easing gracefully into her seat, she sat straight, spine rigid, with her hands folded in her lap, her full attention on the elder.
Though it burned his ass to concede so easily, Sion nodded once and dropped into the seat beside her. Arguing would serve no purpose, and he realized—belatedly—that it wasn’t fair of him to ask her to choose between her brother and her mate. Whatever issues lied between him and Garrik, it was something they needed to work out on their own, because Sion refused to drag Rya into the middle of it again.
Curling his fingers around her wrist, he pulled one hand away from her lap and lifted it to his lips. “I’m sorry.”
“All is forgiven,” she murmured, her eyes still on Elder Meadowlark, but her lips curved into a gracious smile. “Thank you.”
“Why are you thanking me, princess?”
“While misguided, I understand you were only trying to protect me.” Finally, she turned to meet his gaze. “I also realize how hard it must have been to apologize when you feel you were in the right. So, thank you.”
Sion didn’t know what to say. He’d been impulsive and quick tempered for most of his life, but no one had ever thanked him for it. Mercifully, he was saved the need to formulate a response when the first emissary rose from her seat and looked out over the masses.
“The Court will vote first,” the female announced. “All those in favor of regulating the Court of Elders to an advisory capacity and giving the people a voice in the governing of Xenthian, say ‘aye.’ Those opposed, ‘nay.’ Let us begin.”
It came as no surprise to anyone when the Court voted against removing themselves from power—all except Kai’s father, Elder Elor Blackthorn.
“Elder Blue?” the female emissary asked, her tone slightly breathless as she addressed the elder who looked more like a rock star than any governing official. “Your vote?”
Elder Blue templed his fingers together under his chin and smirked. “The people want to fight amongst themselves, let them be the ones to clean up the mess.” He turned his head, looking down the table at his fellow Court members. “Aye.”
Just as it had surprised no one that most of the elders had voted against, it also didn’t shock Sion that the majority of the emissaries voted in favor—including Elder Ashgrove’s own daughter, Aria. When it came to the rulers of the Five Isles, however, he had a harder time deducing where their allegiances would fall.
Vasere Finn Silveroak stood and swept his dull, lifeless hair over his shoulder. He looked somehow taller than the last time Sion had seen him, but also gaunter. His angular cheekbones pressed insistently against his sickly pale skin, creating deep, dark hollows around his eyes. Through the V-neck collar of his tunic, his collarbones protruded, and even the splotchy iridescent markings on his skin looked faded.
“Nay.” His voice echoed throughout the hall, reaching the far back corners, but it sounded tight, strained.
If Sion didn’t suspect the guy for having a hand in the attack on Ivy, he might actually feel sorry for him. “What’s wrong with him?”
Rya shook her head. “I don’t know, but he looks unwell, doesn’t he?”
“He looks like he’s dying.”
While technically considered immortal beings, that didn’t mean the Xenon were indestructible. They could sustain injuries, even die from those injuries, and they were affected by poisons and toxins just like any other race. They didn’t, however, succumb to mundane illnesses such as viruses, infections, or the like. Whatever was happening with Finn, Sion suspected it hadn’t begun naturally.
Vasera Lasha Snowden of the Southern Isle stood next, brushing her hands down the front of her shimmering silver dress in nervous, agitated movements. A single streak of bronze hair curled down the side of her face, and she licked her lips twice, wetting them before finally casting her vote.
“Nay.”
Lasha had barely retaken her seat when Vasere Jericho Sundale rose to cast his vote.
“Aye.”
Doing the math in his head, Sion calculated the votes so far stood at nine in favor and eleven against. He knew Kai and Ivy would vote in favor of the proposal, especially considering they’d been the ones to introduce the motion. That left Rya as the deciding vote, and as she pushed her chair back and stood, everyone in the hall turned to stare.
“I have spent many nights thinking about this, and while it was not an easy decision to make, I feel I must do what is best for my people.” Clasping her hands together at her waist, she lifted her chin and squared her shoulders. “Therefore, I vote—”
The thunderous boom of an explosion erupted from midway down the risers. The benches burst apart, fragments and splinters of wood raining down over the great hall. Sion was on his feet at once, yelling Rya’s name over the screams of the dignitaries as they all attempted to flee the room at once.
He reached for his mate, but Rya stepped back and shook her head. “Go!” she shouted. “Help them!”
“Can you transport to your room?” He didn’t want her out of his sight, but he knew she’d be safe there.
She shook her head again, more fiercely this time. “I’m not going anywhere. These are my people, too.”
With that, she did transport, only she reappeared on the other side of the hall instead of the safety of her quarters. Growling under his breath at the stubbornness of the female, Sion leapt off the stage, intending to go after her, just as another explosion rocked the dais. The heat of the blast scorched his back, while the force propelled him several feet into the center of the hall where he landed on his shoulder with a sickening crunch.
Bright flashes of light crossed his field of vision, but Sion dismissed them as hallucinations brought on by the pain. Rolling to his back, he trapped his wrist between his knees, gritted his teeth, and shoved the ball of his shoulder with his free hand, roaring as the joint snapped back into place.
A moment later, when he thought he could move without being violently ill, Sion struggled to his feet. Only then did he realize the flares weren’t illusions, but what appeared to be lasers, shot from the firearms carried by several Xenon in nondescript tunics. Gathering his wits, he inspected the scene more closely, horrified to realize the amount of firepower currently filling the room.
Some of the weapons being wielded he’d only read about in history texts. Even as he thought it, one of the rogue Xenon took aim at Vasera Snowden and fired his archaic rifle, cutting her down before Sion could even think to move. More explosions sounded from the corridor outside the great hall, the noise rising over the screams of the delegates.
Blood painted the floors and splattered the walls.
Fires burned.
Chaos reigned.
Most of the delegates had transported out of the room, leaving only those too frightened or too injured to focus their thoughts. Everywhere Sion looked, he saw nothing but death and destruction, and he couldn’t find Rya anywhere.
His heart hammered against his breastbone as panic seized him. Lifting his nose toward the sky, he tried to search for her by scent, but all he could smell was the metallic scent of spilled blood. Giving up on the fruitless endeavor, he jogged toward the back corner where he’d last seen her, calling her name as he frantically searched each face he passed.
At the front of the hall, beneath the large, curving windows, Kai stood shoulder-to-shoulder with his personal guard, Captain Tira Meadowlark. Balls of fire in varying colors flew between them and the two X
enon they fought. Near the north entrance, Vasere Sundale cut through three of the rebels, brandishing his golden sword like an avenging god. Three of the captains had formed a perimeter around what remained of the dais as citadel guards began appearing in the hall, seemingly from thin air.
Sion had just spotted Garrik at the base of the risers, when a Xenon male with bronze hair widened his stance and took aim at the captain’s back with what looked like a blaster. Sprinting across the great hall, Sion dropped his head and plowed into the male, tackling him to the ground where he wrestled the weapon from him—and hit him in the head with it for good measure.
Gritting his teeth against the pain that exploded in his injured shoulder, he threw the blaster against the stone wall, hard enough to shatter it into pieces, and staggered over to the risers. “Where’s Rya?” he demanded when he was close enough for Garrik to hear him. “I can’t find her.”
“I thought she was with you.” His statement sounded dangerously close to an accusation.
Sion didn’t have the time or patience to fight with the asshole. “She was. Then she fucking transported across the room. Trust me, it wasn’t my idea.”
Garrik glared at him for another heartbeat before simply nodding. “I’ll find her.”
When the captain vanished before his eyes, Sion had little choice but to continue his search the old fashioned way. Mechanical whirs, loud bangs, crashes, and screams still filled the hall, but one voice in particular caught his attention as he turned away from the risers.
“Get off me! Get the fuck off me!”
Whirling around, he jogged toward the sound of the voice, snarling as he searched through the pandemonium for his friend. A red haze descended over his vision, and an angry roar burst from his lips when he spotted Ivy being dragged unceremoniously through the door behind the dais. She didn’t go easily, fighting valiantly against the two males who bracketed her.
Rounding the raised platform, Sion leapt over a crumpled body with long white hair and sprinted toward the exit. He didn’t know which elder had fallen, but he couldn’t do anything for them now. He could, however, prevent Ivy from meeting the same fate.
With no time to shift, Sion pulled his dagger from its sheath on his belt, lifted it over his head, and sent it flying. The blade found its mark, piercing one of the would-be kidnappers in the chest, right over his heart. The male’s eyes widened, and his mouth rounded in surprise as crimson welled across his cream-colored tunic. He reached for the hilt of the dagger, his fingers encircling it loosely, but it was too late. A wheezing moan escaped his lips just before he sagged to the ground, distracting his partner long enough for Ivy to ram her knee into his groin, then finish him off with a well-placed uppercut to the jaw.
“So much for my grand rescue.”
Ivy smirked, sauntering over to join him as if nothing had happened. “Oh, I don’t know. I’d say you did just fine, pussycat.” Pausing at his side, she reached up and patted his cheek with an air of motherly affection. “Looks like the cavalry has arrived.”
What appeared to be every guard in the entirety of Sommervail crawled through the hall, easily identifiable by their black and silver tunics. They’d managed to gather what remained of the rogues in the center of the room, forming a loose circle around them.
“Is that all of them?” Sion counted only six—two females and four males—on their knees in the center of the circle.
“All that survived,” Ivy confirmed, even as two guards rushed past them to retrieve the male she’d rendered unconscious. Her bravado faded, and moisture shimmered in her jade eyes as she surveyed the devastation. “Who could do this? Why?”
Sion didn’t have any answers for her, so he said nothing. Besides, he didn’t really think she’d been looking for a response. It was just one of those questions people asked themselves in the face of tragedy, as if some divine answer loomed just out of reach that would make sense of the carnage.
A flash of pale pink caught his attention, and he jerked his head up, relief flooding him when he found Rya disheveled but unhurt on the other side of the dais. She didn’t see him, though, her gaze fixed on something at her feet as tears streaked down her face. Garrik stood next to her, his head bowed and his shoulders rounded. Sion couldn’t see the male’s face, but he had no trouble recognizing Kai’s hulking form knelt on the ground, his large frame bent over something—or someone.
“Ivy, I think your mate needs you.”
Ivy nodded slowly, making her way through the debris, but stumbled to a stop at the edge of the stage. “Oh,” she gasped, placing her fingers to her lips as tears spilled over her lower lids. “Oh, my stars. I don’t…I can’t…”
Sion’s throat burned as he fought to rein in his own emotions. Resting a hand on Ivy’s shoulder, he gave her a gentle squeeze and a light push. “You can. I’m right behind you.”
He said the words, but still, it took him several heartbeats to force himself to move. His legs felt too heavy, weighed down by dread, but he put one foot in front of the other, leading Ivy forward. There, she knelt beside her mate, wrapping her arms around him tightly as she sobbed against his shoulder.
Needing to hold Rya, to know she was unharmed, Sion held his hand out to her, grateful when she didn’t hesitate. Readily, she sank into his arms, burying her face against his chest as her shoulders shook with quiet grief.
Resting his cheek on the top of her head, he pulled her closer and inhaled her warm scent in an attempt to banish the coldness. “Shh, I’ve got you, princess. It’s okay.”
“It’s not,” she whispered. “Nothing is okay.”
No, it wasn’t.
As he stared down at the pool of blood, the strands of white hair fanned out over the floor, and the wide, sightless gaze of Elder Elor Blackthorn, he didn’t think it ever would be again.
CHAPTER FIVE
The universe was a cruel, unforgiving place.
Reasonably, Rya knew this. She’d seen firsthand the greed and selfishness of others, but never had she witnessed such brutality on a mass level. For hundreds of thousands of years, Xenthian had been a safe harbor, free from war, from the influence and immorality of outsiders.
But outsiders hadn’t infiltrated the summit with stolen weapons. Outsiders hadn’t slaughtered their people without prejudice. Outsiders hadn’t murdered twenty-seven Xenon, including Kai’s father, and injured countless others.
Not one of the elders had escaped the ordeal unscathed. Elders Ana Lakewood and Lydia Rayne joined Elor Blackthorn in eternal slumber. Elder Joss Ashgrove had several contusions to his face and upper body, but he’d already been released by the medics. Elder Meadowlark had not been so lucky. He’d suffered a concussion and severe lacerations to his neck, face, torso, and hands, and it would be several more days before he was well enough to leave the medical unit.
Elder Blue had sustained a gunshot wound to the shoulder, but he’d refused any type of medical attention, going so far as to transport the medics from the room when they’d attempted to persuade him. Instead, he’d taken the strip of leather from his hair, placed it between his teeth, and extracted the piece of mangled metal from his flesh with his own dagger. It had been one of the most gruesome and unsanitary things Rya had ever seen.
Among the other fallen included seven emissaries, twelve delegates, four attendants, and Vasera Lasha Snowden. Rya hadn’t known any of the emissaries or delegates, but Lasha had been her friend. They hadn’t always been in agreement on certain matters, and Lasha refused to go against tradition, but that didn’t mean she’d deserved to die.
Normally, it would have been Kai’s duty to inform Lasha’s family on the Southern Isle, but understandably, no one had seen him or Ivy in the three days since the tragedy that had befallen the summit. Lasha’s captain, Traj Brightsong, would have been the next logical choice—had he not been unconscious in the medical unit beside Elder Meadowlark. Lorcan had offered to deliver the sad news, but in the end, Rya felt it was her responsibility, not only as a le
ader, but as a friend.
It had been one of the most difficult conversations of her very long life, and she’d been grateful for Sion’s presence. He hadn’t spoken, not even to greet Lasha’s siblings, but he’d held her hand, his quiet strength lending her courage. Lyrica and Lynx had been too shocked and heartsick over their sister’s death to ask for further details, but the questions would come. Rya just hoped she wouldn’t have to be the one to answer them.
After her conversation with the Snowden twins, she’d then had to contact the loved ones of the six delegates who had died at the summit. She hadn’t known any of them, nor their families, but it hadn’t made the task any easier. Mothers cried. Fathers raged. Siblings demanded justice. But the worst had been looking into the eyes of a young male as she explained that his soulmate had passed, seeing the pain, the confusion, the fear, and ultimately the acceptance.
“That’s the last one,” Sion informed her as he reached across Kai’s desk to close the communication. “You did well.”
“I shouldn’t have had to do it at all.”
“No, I suppose you’re right.” Taking her hands, he stood, pulling her up with him. “How are you feeling?”
“Tired.”
She’d overexerted her magic during the summit, and moreover, she hadn’t slept well since that night. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the carnage, the devastation, and she knew it would haunt her for some time to come.
“Go, rest.” Gently, he slipped two knuckles under her chin in a move she was becoming very familiar with, urging her head up for a chaste kiss. “I’ll make sure no one bothers you.”
Though brief, barely more than a brush of their lips, his kiss sent tingles down her spine and tripped her heart into a wild gallop. Since their reunion, he’d been careful with her, contained. Under the circumstances, she didn’t expect him to whisk her away and tear her clothes off, but she wouldn’t mind a little less restraint from the shifter, either. Unfortunately, that conversation would have to wait for another day.
