Reign the Earth (The Elementae #1)(100)

The land bridge broke in the center first, and with its support gone, the rocks began shearing off in huge, heavy boulders. My power clawed at them, crashing them down one after the other until the land bridge was nearly gone, a jagged mouth of teeth laughing at Calix’s audacity, his hate, his mortality.

My work faltered, and it took several seconds for me to feel the pain.

Something was burning in my shoulder, and my power was slipping from my hands. I twisted, looking at my shoulder to see the shaft of an arrow sticking out strangely behind me.

My flying boulders tumbled down into the crevasse, and a crack formed in the ground near my feet. The moving dirt and rocks wobbled in their pattern, flying out, evading my grasp.

My knees went weak, and I fell, and suddenly all the rocks dropped to the ground with me. It was then that I saw the blood Kairos must have seen, seeping down my skirts.

My baby. My daughter.

A new scream came out of me, frightened and trembling and wild, shaking my lungs and my hands and my skin. Then I saw boots striding toward me, and then another set.

I looked up and saw my husband, still a distance away while his soldiers closed in on me.

My hands trembled and I realized, He knows.

The soldiers grabbed me and pulled me up, and I thrashed against their hands. Their grips didn’t even tighten as I fought, and I realized I could barely control my limbs. I had nothing left.

I cast around, searching for Kairos in the clouds of dust. I heard Osmost shrieking over the shouts of the soldiers, but I couldn’t see my brother.

“Kai!” I screamed. “Kai! Kai!”

I heard a roar, and I looked over to see Zeph fighting off at least seven of Calix’s men. I couldn’t see Theron. Zeph drove his elbow into the face of one man, and the guard dropped so fast I wondered if Zeph had killed him. Galen jumped in between them, tackling Zeph down to the ground. Zeph fought him, but it wasn’t like he fought the guards. Galen said something to him, and my big protector stopped.

Both men looked at me, and I shook my head. “Help me!” I screamed. “Please, help me!”

Galen’s eyes met mine for a long moment. He was filthy, his handsome face covered in dirt and dust, making his green eyes stand out more. He looked devastated.

But he wasn’t moving. He kept Zeph pinned, and even Zeph had stopped fighting. Galen never moved. He didn’t even have the decency to turn his face from mine.

“You coward!” I shrieked. “You damned coward!”

A hand struck my cheek, and I turned forward to see my husband. He grabbed my chin. “Did you really think that my own brother would betray me?” he snapped. “For you?” His words were so forceful that spittle landed on my face. I flinched, but his fingers were gripping me too hard to move. “I swear to the Three-Faced God,” he growled at me, “if our child still lives, I will tear it out of you, and then I will wipe your existence from this earth. Never will a queen of the Trifectate be a filthy sorceress.”

Calix pointed to a carriage, and my heart seized. He wouldn’t take me back to the City of Three. If I went into that carriage, I would never leave his grasp alive—I was sure of it.

I called for my power, waiting for the threads to curl around my hands as the men pushed me farther. I made my hands into fists, bursting the pain from the arrow in my shoulder. I shook my fingers out.

Nothing.

I remembered Kata’s advice, and I tried to call up my memories of Gavan rubbing his face into my stomach.

Gavan’s tiny arm covered in blood and dirt.

Catryn, not far from him, twisted and broken.

My baby. My baby. My baby.

The guards shoved me into the carriage and brought rope to tie me to the floor. I curled around my knees.

I had no power left.





Missing

By the time they pulled me from the carriage, it had been long enough that my body disdained the movement. My skin was thick with dirt; blood crusted in places that made it feel like I was tearing a new wound open when I moved. It felt like the arrowhead shot into my shoulder hadn’t been removed, even though they snapped the shaft off. Every muscle ached and cried, and I could hardly stand on my own two feet. Long enough in the carriage, long enough with my despair, and my feet almost failed me.

It was a whole new heartbreak when my body was already crowded with others.

I knew by the smell of the air that we were near the mountains. We were on a narrow path covered by dense forest, and in front of us a sheer rock face loomed with a small door in it. The door opened, and torchlight flickered, the only light I had to see by.

A single guard took me now, carrying me in his arms. I curled my fingers, searching for the threads, but they were still gone.

Without a way to fight back, I let myself be carried.

He took me into a long hallway that burrowed neatly into the rock. I couldn’t tell how long he walked; all that caught my gaze were the moving, jumping shadows of the light on the ceiling of the tunnel.

I heard metal clinking and moving, a low, dark sound somewhere ahead.

A high-pitched scream rang out, strangled and disembodied, sliding over the walls like a ghost. The guard’s hands tightened on me, but he didn’t stop or show any other reaction.

The tunnel widened, and the jumping shadows on the ceiling receded from me.

“There,” I heard Calix say. The guard turned and moved into an open room. The rock here was gray, not like the warm red of Jitra, and the light on it made everything look wet and slick. There was a huge stone altar in the center of the round room, hooks hanging above it with lanterns swinging, illuminating the girl who was lying on top of it.