Reign the Earth (The Elementae #1)(31)

It was cold inside the cage, and quieter, my own breath magnified, rattling around inside the ice. There were wide gaps between the ice branches that meant I could see out, but in a limited way, the light refracting and bending as it came through the glass-like ice. I was nearly twenty feet above the platform, far enough that if the ice broke, it would be a long way to fall.

The ice wrapping my feet pulsed like there was energy rolling through it, and my fingertips tingled and itched. The air around me felt thick, tangible, like it was full of fine threads that breathed and rushed with energy.

No, not energy—magic. Something in the ice was calling to me, making my blood rush and beat, making power thicken around my fingertips.

The ice around my feet loosened, and I gasped, stepping out of it, but the power didn’t calm, rushing so fast it made me dizzy. It was an Elementa who was controlling the ice, and being so close to it made my power tremble frighteningly close to the surface. With every terrified heartbeat, my power drummed closer.

There was no denying what I was, not now, not with the feeling so intense beneath my hands. I was Elementa, and in a moment, my husband and his whole court would see me completely unmasked if I couldn’t control the threads weaving wildly around my hands.

“We have been in an age of terror and pain!” a voice yelled. “But it is NOT over!”

The voice seemed to move, changing locations in the middle of a word, a syllable, a breath. I tried to track it, but I couldn’t see enough around me to even begin to follow the source of the sound.

“You steal our people from their beds!” a new voice shouted.

“Kill them!” I heard Calix shouting at his guards.

“You hunt and kill those of us with power!” This was another voice.

I was breathing in short little gasps, trying to suppress the threads pushing at my fingertips, and Skies Above, it wasn’t working.

Now several voices joined in. “You have no power, you have no might, and you have no dominion over the Resistance!”

My eyes roved over the crowd, trying to find who was doing this. Everyone was moving, turning, talking, searching, but there was one face staring straight at me.

Unmoving.

Smiling.

Rian winked, and I couldn’t tell if he truly saw him or not, but I watched Calix stretch out his hand toward my brother.

Instantly, my control on my power snapped and I felt it rush out, a wave of crushing, numbing relief sweeping through me.

It was as if someone took a hammer to the side of the cliff the castles were built on, and one hard jolt threw my husband to the side, swaying the platform.

The ice around me cracked, and a moment later it shattered, a barrage of sharp crystals that melted as they moved.

I screamed as I fell, dropping toward the ground in the shower of ice shards.

Arms caught me, but the force was too much and we crashed to the ground in a heap. The fall slammed the breath out of my chest, and Galen was under me, gripping me tight, every inch of his body against mine.

I couldn’t open my eyes for long moments. I could smell him, like sweat and salt and something I wasn’t used to, that I vaguely knew from the ride here as the scent of forest. Green. Free. I was surrounded by his body, safe and sheltered, and I dug my fingers into his chest, trying to claw out a breath.

He touched my face, and I heard him calling my name, his chest heaving so hard that it pushed me up and down. “Shalia!” he said.

I opened my eyes. My hands on him curled tight, and I drew in a hard breath.

Galen held me as he sat up, then managed to get his legs beneath him to bring us to our feet without letting go of me. I stood and my knees sank as if I was standing in sand. He held me close.

I was vaguely aware of him checking me over in his soldier’s way, the touches quick and light and impersonal, but my head was buzzing and I was still struggling for deep, even breaths.

“Shalia?” he asked, holding my arms now. “Shalia?”

I nodded belatedly.

It was like all the noise around us rushed back in at once; Calix was yelling and pointing, and people were screaming, trying to rush out of the courtyard, but the gates were closed.

There was a keening sound, and then a terrible crack as the platform buckled.

“Clear the platform!” Galen shouted, and he pulled my hand, rushing to the stairs and tugging me behind him. “Jump!” he shouted at me, and I obeyed him, leaping from the stairs as the platform collapsed in a cloud of dust. His hand in mine anchored me, guiding me close to him.

“Kairos!” I called, seeing him in the rising dust.

Galen let go of my hand. “Get her out of here!” he told Kai.

Kai pushed me in front of him as we ran up the walkway. I felt weak and disoriented, but I kept putting one foot in front of the other, glancing back to see his scimitar drawn and gleaming in the sun.

When we were in the archway, I looked back and saw the madness. The gates were shut, and the guards were trying to control the terrified people. I watched them use their shields like weapons, battering people and pushing them back.

Hurting people.

At the center of it all, my husband was barking orders for the guards to search the crowd by any means necessary, very nearly condoning their brutality, but somewhere in the melee, Rian was there too. Which one of them was more to blame for the people’s suffering?

“Shy, come on,” Kairos growled.