“They did this to us,” I whispered.
“Who?” Emily asked.
“The shadows. Our kind.”
She gaped at me, unwilling to understand. “What are you talking about?”
“This isn’t natural, there’s something, some reason we were stopped … separated from our powers.”
She glanced at the men, both of us knowing they were different. The letter hadn’t fully explained, but the Seven Lines’ power had been taken long ago, stolen from their ancestors thousands of years back. Ours, ours had been robbed from us. And no one would have the power to do that except a shadow. One of our kind.
Emily stared at me, gaze beseeching, begging for it not to have been our own mother.
I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter now. Morgan, that’s what matters now. We can do this, Emily. We have the key.”
Chapter Nineteen
Time
All this time, the whole of my life, I’d thought the Seven Lines were the powerful ones. I could see the future, bits and flashes of warning, but they held the power. Emily was the chosen, I the prophet. And we would save them.
Things were just not turning out that way at all.
It was time. Now that I knew how to repair the connections in Emily, the moment she was strong enough, we’d have to go after Morgan. Every minute we waited was one more chance for him to use that power, one more life he could destroy. It was the risk that the rest of them would find out the truth, that the Seven Lines would lose the anonymity that kept things from getting out of control.
I mended another link, joined another disconnected fiber, and Emily said, “So, when you’re done, then I have to figure out how to use it.”
Behind closed eyes, I answered, “It won’t be as hard as you think. Once it’s there, you’ll know, it will be a part of you.”
“And I’ll just break someone’s sway, and then we’ll go find a human to test it out on.”
I shook my head, focusing hard on the smallest of the threads, the tiny fibers that coupled with her bond. “I don’t think that’s the best idea. We should probably keep this experiment in a controlled environment.”
“So, you’re thinking order a pizza, snatch up the delivery guy?”
I opened my eyes to look at her, face pinched and knee hopping with the rhythmic bounce of her foot. “I don’t know, Em. We’ll figure it out.” I wasn’t sure if she felt the urgency, felt it the way I felt it, or if it was just the idea of waiting when it was so close. I drew back, searching inside my own threads, suddenly convinced I’d been wrong about the bond with Aern. If its purpose was to protect him, then it didn’t make sense that I’d seen the fire in my visions. But I hesitated, because Emily had been gone in those visions, cut down before the flames tore through the city.
“Bri,” Emily asked, “are you okay?”
I shook my head absently. “Yeah, I just ... I think I need a break.”
Aern checked his watch. “We’ve got a meeting at eleven, some of the Division men.” He glanced at Emily, back at me. “If you feel up to it.”
I nodded, mentally binding one more piece in place before the process, the throbbing in my head, became too much.
Aern gathered the documents, sliding them into one neat folder before crossing to Emily and me. He put a hand on my shoulder. “I’ll have Ava send up some food. If there’s anything else you need …”
“Thanks, and I’ll be fine.” The three of them tried to hide their concern, but I could feel it, suffocating. “Really,” I said. “Go do your thing.”
The corner of Aern’s mouth turned up, and he gave my shoulder a pat before he and Emily left the room. Logan moved to sit beside me, drawing me against him for the twenty minutes or so I had for a nap. When I woke, there were sandwiches and tea waiting on a small white platter that sat on the end table, and my head was resting in his lap.
“You’ve got about five minutes,” he said when he saw me squinting one eye open to check. I squeezed it back shut, not quite recovered but not wanting to miss the meeting if there was a chance it would spark a vision.
Logan ran a finger across my temple. “How’s your head?”
“Better,” I promised. I wondered about Emily, if I’d made enough connections for her to feel the change. “Five minutes?”
“They’ll wait on you.”
“It’s all right. I can do it.” I sat up, pulling my hair into a low ponytail, and reached for a section of the quartered sandwich. “Logan,” I vowed, “if this all works out, I’m going to lock myself in a room for a three day sleep-cation.”
He smiled, stretched a leg over the carpet. “I’m right there with you.”
The others had already assembled in one of the conference rooms, a dozen or so Division soldiers including Kara, Seth, and Eric. They stood randomly scattered about the room, talking, but when Logan and I entered, they began making their way to the leather chairs that circled the dark glass table.
Wesley surprised me by the door, his familiar face somehow changed, older in the few weeks I’d not seen him. I drew in a breath before greeting him.
“Brianna,” he replied warmly. His voice was more confident than I remembered, stronger despite the thin white scars that ran the length of his neck.
I resisted the urge to reach out to him in front of our audience, to run a finger over what was left of the damage. “Wesley,” I whispered. “Are you okay?”
He shrugged it off, his smile more of an assurance than any words could be, and I realized that he was here, at a meeting of Division and Council soldiers. My gaze flicked to Aern, scanned the room again, but I couldn’t determine exactly which team he was on, where he fit in. “Where’s Brendan?” I whispered.
Wesley’s chin tilted down, the boy I’d known suddenly returning, and said, “He … well, he’s not really feeling up to this yet.”
I stared into Wesley’s eyes, knowing the answer went deeper, his hesitation implying much more. I was struck with an image, something not quite a vision, not quite right. Brendan, head down as he sat at his desk, a desk at the Westlake house, waving off a fretful Ellin as she tried to offer him a cup of hot tea. His face was scarred, but not like Wesley’s. This was worse, much worse, as the skin that covered one side of his face and most of his ear was raw, even with the healing. I placed a hand absently over my cheek, as if feeling the damage, and Wesley nodded.
There was something so off about the image that I couldn’t process it. It was not a vision, not the future. Not something that would come to pass. It was the impression of Brendan now, hurt worse than the healing could repair in the days since I’d been taken. It meant that he must have been near death when they’d found him.
But it wasn’t a vision. And I didn’t know how it had gotten there.
The others were watching us. Wesley laid a hand briefly on my arm before walking to his seat, leaving two chairs open at the head of the table beside Emily and Aern. I glanced at her, a silent inquiry about her reaction to the changes I’d made and she shrugged a shoulder, apparently not sure if she felt any different. I’d have to do more, there was something I’d missed.
Aern was determined to do whatever he could to keep me safe, so he opened discussion without mention of our discovery, of our plans, merely allowing the others to relay the updates and information they and their teams had gathered. Morgan’s numbers were growing too big. He was getting to a point that he would have been hard to deal with even without the benefit of sway. But he did have that influence, which meant that every man, every soldier, would fight until the end, to whatever lengths Morgan had ordered them. However he had manipulated them.
“It’s not just that,” Kara said. “He’s placing them in strategic locations around the city.” She dropped a map to the center of the table, dots spreading out and around the Council properties, near Division houses, and near any place unpopulated. Any place where the Seven would be free to fight without having to conceal themselves from the masses of unknowing, from the wa
tching eyes of humans. My fingers tightened on the cold metal frame that supported the glass top table. He was collecting rundown properties, vacant lots that were no longer under the care, the watchful eyes, of the city. To build his army.
“He’s getting close,” Seth said, his gaze skirting mine. No one was going to make predictions with me in the room, but that didn’t stop them from thinking it. Morgan was coming, and soon.
“Let’s keep teams at these four locations,” Aern said, gesturing to points outside the Council gates. “Keep an eye on his movements, but don’t engage. We only want you to report what he’s up to.”
“By then it will be too late,” Eric argued, “all we have to do is—”
Aern cut him off, “We do not engage.”
He wasn’t one to repeat an order, and the room fell silent. Eric said, “Sir.”
When he leaned back, openly accepting the instruction, Aern looked to Kara. “I want your team outside the Westlake Properties.” She nodded, and by her solemn expression, I knew the vision, the impression I’d had, had been right about where Brendan was recovering. Aern didn’t take his eyes off her. “This is your call, Kara. But you have to know, if they descend too quickly, we won’t be able to get there in time.”
My focus drifted from the conversation as I became aware of the meeting’s purpose. They had decided it was time, were prepared for the end. This group, the leaders of the last soldiers of the Seven Lines, was prepared to either give their lives in the fight or to lose themselves to Morgan and his sway. All of it, to protect their way of life, what they believed in.
And they believed in me. Their prophet. Their guardian. I closed my eyes, sinking in to the horrible, horrible feeling. Maybe I was put here to save them, and to save the human lives. Or maybe I was put here to stop them. A shade, a hidden shadow, meant to slay the dragon. Their leader, their dragon.
It was Morgan, no matter what the visions said. It had to be Morgan. That other sight, the one with fire and Aern, that was some alternate fate, some destiny that wouldn’t come, that couldn’t play out, because my sister was not going to die.
Logan put his hand over mine under the table and I squeezed, grateful for the touch. I could do this. I would do this. I concentrated, finding that network again, fusing my connections back into place. I didn’t stop to think what it meant, how they could have been destroyed, why the power was taken from me. I just did what I could do. What I had to do.
“Brianna,” Aern whispered from his chair beside me, and I opened my eyes to find him leaned over, as if he were casually offering me water from the pitcher while the others talked. But I could see the truth, the concern in his eyes, and I came back, abruptly aware of how far I’d fallen into my task. I nodded, assuring him I was okay, and pulled my grip free of Logan’s.
It was ice cold. He watched me, waiting for some sign, neither of them wanting to cause a scene, and I said, “Tea if you have it. Something warm.”
They exchanged a glance, but Ava had heard, and a steaming mug and the fall of her auburn hair were suddenly intersecting their view of each other. I managed a casual smile and slid my hands around the heat of the cup, my gaze raking the table, finding Seth, Eric, Council women and men. Suddenly, a loud pop broke the remaining conversation as everyone’s heads snapped in my direction.
I sat the mug onto the glass tabletop, the chink of its contact too loud, and managed a light laugh. “Sorry to scare everyone.” I pointed toward the cup, keeping the rest of my hand folded over my palm. “Mug must have had a crack in it.”
Ava was there, a damp towel wiping at the tabletop and an apology on her lips, but I stopped her, “No, no, really. It’s fine. I’ve just,” I covered my stomach, as if there were a spot, some stain I was embarrassed to let everyone see, and stood. “I’ve made a bit of a mess. I think I’ll go get this cleaned up.”
I hadn’t felt it, hadn’t realized how severe the chill had been.
Logan pushed out his chair, following close behind me, and I could see out of the corner of my eye it took everything Emily had not to stand up and follow as well. But she didn’t have an excuse.
His hand went to my lower back, steps swift as we made our way down the hall. We passed a member of the staff, her hair pulled tight into a braided bun, crisp white shirt tucked into a navy pencil skirt, and I smiled at her greeting. Logan reached in front of me, twisting the lever to my room, and practically thrust me inside. The door clicked shut behind us and he drew me back to him, gently pulling my fisted fingers away from my palms.
They were clean. Free of cuts, marks, or liquid of any kind. Nothing had touched me, and his gaze came up to mine, clearly a what was that?
I raised a brow. “Thermal shock?” He stared at me, and I said, “It’s when something really cold touches something really hot. Like dropping an ice cube in coffee.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. He knew what thermal shock was.
I bit back a grin. Shrugged. “I guess the connections are working.”
Chapter Twenty
Breaking
Logan stared at me, apparently unable to form an appropriate response. I pretty much felt the same way. Of all the things we’d been after, of all the things we’d been hoping for, this wasn’t even a consideration. All we’d planned on was some spectacular talent of Emily’s. Some way to stop Morgan. A hidden thing, really. Not this.
Not this.
“Is it …” he started, his thumbs slowly crossing my palms as we stood frozen. “Is it like the old ways?” He was being careful with me, the shock not stealing from him the knowledge that this might hurt me, that I was a shade. A shadow.
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “I haven’t … I mean, I didn’t even realize it was so strong.” I glanced at our hands, the tattoos. “I was only trying to mend the connections, Logan. I didn’t realize …”
It was starting to sink in. The gravity of what had happened, of what I’d done. I said, “I need to sit down.” The words were flat, emotionless. I couldn’t even process how I felt about it.
Logan went with me, both of us finding the edge of the sofa, and we sat, wordless and without movement, struck still by the enormity of it. Time must have passed, unaccounted, because Emily came in, breathless and impatient from being forced to wait.
“What is it?” She knelt before me, hands hovering over mine where they lay palms open, tattoos exposed. “Brianna, what happened?”
My eyes met hers, identical despite everything else. Sea glass green, lit by tiny sparks of amber. “It worked,” I told her. My palms spread, fingers splaying open in a gesture of helplessness, explanation. She stared at them, not sure whether to recoil or reach for them, and I laughed, an edge of hysteria coloring my tone. “It worked, Emily. We did it.”
She flushed, excitement or adrenaline, or some other wild emotion boiling in her blood, and said, “It’s over?”
“Well,” I shook my head, relief warring with reason, “I …” But I couldn’t think, couldn’t decide. Surely this was it. The key we needed to stop Morgan. I had found Emily’s connections, was just short of repairing them all, and now this. This in me.
But it was a turn, wasn’t it? The power coming back, the things that I could do so similar to the visions, so close to the picture of fire. Inferno.
“It has to be,” I said. “This must be it.”
It was over. Eighteen years of living under a prophecy, and we were about to break free, to fulfill a destiny that was set forth thousands of years ago. Everything we’d lost, everything that had been taken from us, was for this. She took my hands and smiled, and it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen on her, finally, completely free of worry and stress. It was nothing but relief, and freedom. Because it was over.
And then a piercing ache tore through my chest as a vision began. “No,” I whispered, my hands squeezing hers too tight. Her face was awash with blood and fire as Morgan’s men tore through the city.
“Brianna,” Emily cried, tighteni
ng her hands, pulling me back. I opened my eyes, but whatever she saw there frightened her more than my words ever could have. She was on her feet, ready to fight. To protect us.
The door burst open and Aern was running in, Logan on his feet, the room seeming to spin around us. I closed my eyes tight, pressed my palms against my temples. Focused.
“He’s coming,” Aern said, and the image of Morgan—dark suit and malicious smile as he walked into the Council’s main hall—swam in my vision. We only had minutes. They were all there, Seth, Kara, Wesley, they’d not gotten free from the building before the warning came, before Morgan had decided to make his move.
“They can’t fight him,” I said, gaze going to Aern. “Stop them.”
A quick nod answered my warning, and I realized there were other men, waiting for Aern’s instruction. He barked an order and a wiry man with dark blue eyes disappeared, the beat of his steps dissolving into the hallway. Two more stood there, armed and ready.
“He’ll approach at the west entrance,” I said. “If they try to stop him,” my eyes cut to Logan, to Emily, “he’s got explosives. Fire.” The sway.
Aern’s gaze was unflinching. “And if we let him come?”
I bit my lip, took Emily’s hand. “I just need to find it. The one last piece.”
He nodded. “The walls are stronger in the central rooms. We should wait there.” My pulse skipped, the tempo giving me strength I knew I didn’t have. He was taking us to the main hall, the one from my vision. This was it.
The four of us moved through the corridor, Aern’s men rushing forward and behind, packs of soldiers that could do nothing to prevent this attack, and I held Emily’s hand, searching for the link that would free her power. Aern would delay things as long as possible, I knew that. He’d do whatever it would take to give us that time.
But if it didn’t work, it was Emily that would pay the price.
Logan’s hand went to his ear, the small device back in place. “He’s on Langhorn, cutting over to Thompson. There’s a group moving in from the east as well, and three more waiting for the go-ahead.”
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