Rebel Born (Secondborn #3)(62)

“I prayed you’d be able to escape the Silver Halo.” His gaze moves pointedly to Reykin, whose jaw tenses. “I did manage to locate the platform later, but it was abandoned on a practice field. You were gone.”

I don’t want to think about that night, so I quickly ask, “How did you survive without your head, Clifton?” In my mind it isn’t possible.

He has the audacity to smile. “Had you taken it with you, I wouldn’t have survived long, but you dropped it, so my body reclaimed it, put it back on, and healed itself. Well, with some help from deft physicians and technology.”

The world I thought I knew was merely a fantasy.

“Why are you hiding from Crow?” Cherno interrupts. “Why haven’t you laid waste to him and his tyranny?”

Apparently it’s the Lord of Raze and Ruin’s turn to be angry and embarrassed. “You should be thanking me for what I did to you, friend,” Clifton taunts him. “You survived the end of our world because of me. None of your brethren were as fortunate. Dragons are long gone.”

Cherno flinches, as if Clifton had struck him. “What happened?”

“As far as we can tell, it was massive solar flares—not the weak kind that we have now, that threaten power sources. No, these were massive flares that carried radiation and melted polar ice caps in hours. The entire planet became a giant storm for decades. Our cities sank beneath the seas in a matter of days. The famine that occurred afterward wiped out your species and most of ours. Radiation proved to be too much for us. We survived it, but—”

“But what?” Cherno demands.

“Prolonged exposure to that kind of radiation reduced the strength of our powers. We can still heal ourselves, but the traits that made us extraordinary waned.”

“I once witnessed you raze a temple of gold and stone with your bare hands. Can you still do that?”

“No. My powers are gradually returning, but none of us are what we once were.”

“Show me what you can do,” Cherno growls through clenched teeth.

Clifton glances around at the table. He focuses on my sweaty water goblet. Condensation drips from it onto the gleaming mother-of-pearl table. Ice cubes float on the surface of the half-full glass. With a deep exhale, Clifton moves his manicured hand above the rim of the goblet. His handsome lips turn down, and his brow furrows. The clear rim buckles like a wax candle consumed by a flame. The ice melts away. The water boils, steam rising from it. The goblet loses shape, and the stem folds over, spilling the hot water onto the table, over the edge, and onto the floor.

When Clifton glances up, Cherno has a hideous scowl on his face. “That’s it? That’s what you can do?”

“It’s much better than it was. I’ve been doing experiments with a new drug—”

“We’re doomed,” Cherno growls, picking up a chair. He hurls it across the room in rage. It crashes into the far wall and shatters into pieces.

“Calm down, Chernobian,” Clifton orders in a clipped tone. He puts his arm out protectively and pulls me closer to his side. “Technology, new weapons, and information are our strength and magic now. Harness them, and the world’s yours.”

Panting with fury, Cherno retorts, “Someone has knocked you off your hill, Cassius! I have lived with this new evil for the past three years.” He tears at his hair. “I go to my death willingly rather than return to that madness!”

I leave the protection of Clifton’s arms, go to Cherno, and clutch his elbow. “I won’t let him get you. I promise. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you from Crow.”

“The only thing that will keep this new world from crumbling into another one of those lost kingdoms out there”—Cherno’s massive arm sweeps toward the watery empires outside—“is power. Do you have that kind of power, Roselle? Are you a death-harbinger? Because if you’re not, we all die.”

I turn toward the table we vacated. Concentrating on Cherno’s napkin, I lift it with only my mind into the air and mimic the flight of a butterfly. Then the other napkins in the room join it, floating up from tables and fluttering in place.

“We need more than that from you, Roselle,” Cherno urges. “Crow will snap your spine like a stick with those parlor tricks.”

I clench my teeth and try harder. Tables rumble and break free from their bolts in the floor. They levitate and spin in a whirling dance. The dishes and cutlery bounce up as well, hovering above the tables, then twist in a howling vortex that encompasses the entire dining room—except for the eye of the storm, which we’re standing in. The chandeliers swing. The napkins fly around now, more like a murder of crows than butterflies. The chaos stirs a breeze through our hair. The intensity of it is staggering. I’ve created a maelstrom—and I’m being cautious. I wonder, If I were really to let loose, would I rival the Lord of Raze and Ruin of old?

A tug—like the feeling of my heart unraveling—distracts me. Through the debris of floating chairs and half-eaten morsels, I glimpse the sea outside. Hawthorne’s there, against the glass, pounding on it. He makes no sound. His screams are silent, but they’re traumatizing nonetheless.

The tumultuous cyclone I’ve created crashes to the ground. Glass shatters. Metal clatters. It’s deafening, but it’s not as shocking as the fury of silent pounding from Hawthorne’s fists as he tries to break through from the sea.