Zhek woke Shyla at angle sixty. He stood next to her sleep cushion with his arms crossed and watched as she struggled to move. Every single muscle in her body—even her fingers!—was so stiff they were close to being inflexible. Pain pulsed with every movement. She hurt. Bad. And she’d only managed to sit up. Perhaps she should have added an extra fifteen angles to their timeline.
Zhek raised his bushy white eyebrows.
“Yes, you’re right. And if I didn’t have so many people in danger, I would drink your tea, crawl under the fur, and embrace your healing sleep.”
He huffed, somewhat mollified, and left.
At least he spared her his lecture. The colossal effort to stand left her weak and on the edge of tears. So much for being the powerful sun-kissed.
Zhek returned holding a large glass of orange-tinted water. “Drink this.” He handed it to her.
Not sure she trusted him, she said, “It’s orange.”
“That’s what happens when you mix a restorative with pain medicine.”
“Thanks.” She gulped it. Her relief was as cool as the liquid sliding down her throat.
He grunted. “They’re my people, too. I’m coming with you.”
She choked. “But—”
“The survivors will need to be tended to. And you know that dolt Timin isn’t as good as me.”
If Timin had survived, but she quickly stopped those thoughts because she knew they’d lead to her wondering about a certain other person and whether he’d survived or not.
By the time she joined Mojag and Gurice, her pain had eased. She glanced at Zhek.
“It’ll wear off in about eighty angles.”
Good to know.
They followed Mojag down to the rendezvous point. He took them on an odd route, zigzagging through the edges of Zirdai, but they encountered no one. And no one else was in the lounge on level ninety. They’d arrived early. Shyla wanted to ensure another ambush wasn’t waiting for them. She checked all the nearby tunnels and used her magic to sense if Arch Deacons were hiding inside the apartments on this level. All was quiet and rather empty. She wondered if they’d been spooked by the explosions and had gone to the higher levels just in case.
Soon after she returned, the guards and Invisible Swords started arriving. As familiar faces filled the room, she hugged each one tight. Rae, Jaft, Lamar, Yoria, and many others. Not Elek, Lian, or Ximen. Or Rendor. Didn’t mean they were dead. Everyone was equally glad to see her as well.
Shyla pushed her fears and doubts to the back of her mind and focused on the task at hand. She explained what they were going to do.
“You’ve one job. Incapacitate the enemy. Wielders, team up with a fighter. You can freeze your opponent with the stop command long enough for your partner to knock him out. For the rest of you, do whatever it takes to get through. Question any thoughts that are not your own. If something appears impossible, it’s an illusion. If they disappear, attack the spot they were just at—they’re still there! Don’t stop. Understand?”
A chorus of yes.
“Good. I need a volunteer to be my partner.” She held up a hand. “I need someone who’s quick. I’ll be stopping multiple opponents at once.” Zhek’s fantastic potion had given her a great deal of energy.
“Did you really need to ask?” Jaft asked with an insulted tone.
“As long as you can pace yourself.” Did he remember their race to Tamburah’s temple?
“I wasn’t the rotten velbloud egg,” he said dryly. “No worries. There’s no sand down here.”
That reminded her. “But there’s rubble and debris and holes. Prepare yourselves, it’s not pretty and there are…bodies buried. There will be unpleasant odors.”
Grim nods.
“Jaft and I will take point. Let’s go.”
They weren’t subtle or quiet and they didn’t care. There were seventy-six of them and they slammed into the twenty people defending the only entrance into the prince’s complex. Shyla almost felt sorry for them. Almost.
She reached the doors first. They were closed. But they were warped and couldn’t be locked—one good thing from the explosions. Three dozen Arch Deacons armed with long knives waited on the other side. They all wore torques. Shyla didn’t slow down. Freezing a handful, she barreled between them as Jaft flitted around, delivering precise palm-heel strikes to their temples.
However, she needed information, so she made eye contact with the next Arch Deacon that tried to stop her.
“Where is the priestess?” she asked her.
The woman said, “Surrender and I’ll take you to her.” But she thought, In the throne room.
Shyla groaned. Not the throne room. Why couldn’t that place be a pile of rubble? Shyla froze the woman and continued. She fought her way toward the throne room with single-minded determination.
When she reached it, she had the presence of mind to pause and seek the number of souls on the other side of the ornate glass doors.
“Fifteen people are inside,” she said to Jaft.
He inclined his head to the corridor behind them. The two of them had outpaced the rest. A clump of her people fought with the deacons at the end of the corridor. “Better wait for backup.”
“Good idea.”
Except the doors to the throne room suddenly opened. Two Arch Deacons grabbed Shyla’s arms and yanked her into the room. She flew forward and fell onto the floor. The doors slammed shut, blocking Jaft.
Shyla gathered her magic as a ring of people surrounded her. She was about to freeze them when magic grabbed her, forcing her to be still.
They were all wielders. All focused on her.
She was trapped.
Twenty
“When one of my deacons came running in here with the news that you had arrived with a tiny army, I didn’t believe him,” the Heliacal Priestess said, stepping through the ring of ten people. “But my holy seers”—she swept out a hand, indicating the people who had snared Shyla with their magic—“insisted it was true, so I ordered my army to allow you to reach me but not your pathetic soldiers.”
It was awfully quiet on the other side of the glass doors. What happened to Jaft? No wonder it’d seemed easy for her to get to the throne room. From Shyla’s prone position on the floor, the priestess loomed over her, beautiful, tall, and regal. Except Shyla made eye contact with the holy despot and, if she could move, would have recoiled at the black rot inside the woman. Being able to read her soul was due to The Eyes, but Shyla needed her magic to physically influence the woman.
“I’m astounded by your ability to survive and by your incredible stupidity. Why did you return? Why not cut your losses and take your powerful eyes to another city?” the priestess asked with genuine curiosity.
Even though she was frozen in place, Shyla could still speak. “Why? Because you need to be stopped. You just murdered a bunch of people. You say you speak for the Sun Goddess. Do you really believe she would have wanted you to kill hundreds of innocent people so you can gain power?”
“She directed me to this course of action. She’s upset with how this city is being run. She wants me to have control of The Eyes and the city.” The priestess’s gaze lit with an inner fervor.