Cursor's Fury (Codex Alera #3)(77)

Amara looked around them. "I don't think so. I've never seen anything like that. Bernard?"

Isana's brother shook his head. "Never saw anything like it." He glanced at Giraldi, who shook his head as well.

The confusion around Isana became something thicker, almost tangible, and tinged with more than a little fear. Over the next several seconds, the tide of emotion continued to grow, getting rapidly more distracting. Seconds after that, the sensations pressed so loudly against Isana's thoughts that she began to lose track of which were her own emotions and which came from without. It was excruciating, in its own way, and she suddenly found herself in a battle to hold on to her ability to reason. She put her hands to the sides of her head.

"Isana?" said Bernard's voice. It sounded like it was coming from very far away. "Are you all right?"

"T-too many people," Isana gasped. "Afraid. They're afraid. Confused. Afraid. I can't push it out."

"We need to get her out of here," Bernard said. He stepped around the table and picked Isana up. She wanted to protest, but the pressure against her thoughts was too much to struggle against. "Giraldi," he said. "Get the coach."

"Right," Giraldi said.

"Amara, watch for those two that were shadowing us. Be ready to knock someone down if you have to."

Isana heard Amara's voice grow suddenly tense. "You think this is an attack of some kind. "

"I think we're unarmed and vulnerable," Bernard said. "Move."

Isana felt her brother walking and opened her eyes in time to see the grotto's pool passing beneath them as he walked over an archway. Desperate, she reached out to Rill, calling up the fury to let the emotions washing over her pass through her, into the water. If she could not stand against the tide of emotion, perhaps she could divert it.

The pressure eased, though it was strenuous to maintain the redirection. It was enough to let her remember her name and to have the presence of mind to look up and see what was happening.

Sudden excitement, exaltation and battle lust washed over her, near enough to make her feel as though she stood too close to a forge. She looked up and saw confusion, patrons and staff rising and moving toward the exits, and among them she saw a number of men in the clean white tunics of restaurant staff moving with professional, calculated haste, expressions sharp with eagerness and purpose.

Even as she watched, one of the men closed in behind Mandus, the Rhode-sian Fleet Tribune, seized his hair, bent his head back, and cut his throat with swift efficiency.

More excitement made Isana look up. Three more men stood on the ledge above them, crouched and ready to leap. Each wore a white tunic, each bore a short, curved, cruel-looking sword, and steel collars shone upon their throats.

Her own sudden terror destabilized her crafting and plunged her into an ocean of confusion and fear.

"Bernard!" she cried.

The three assassins leapt down upon them.

Without Isana's warning, Amara would surely have died.

Her eyes were scanning what lay before them, looking for the two men who had shadowed her and Bernard after the presentation at the amphitheater. A shrill scream of horror drew Amara's eyes to the far side of the grotto, where she saw Fleet Tribune Mandus, his throat opened, the cut hopelessly deep and precise, fall to his knees and slump to his side to die on the floor.

When Isana cried out her warning, Amara had her back to the assassins. She spun and managed to dart aside from the nearest man's first, sweeping cut. Two of the men were falling upon Bernard and Isana, and burdened as he was with his sister, Bernard would never be able to defend himself.