The woman believed all the nonsense she’d just spouted. Her faith was rooted deep in her soul. Shyla would get nowhere appealing to the priestess’s morality or sense of decency. Instead, she focused on the seers. The ten of them concentrated on keeping Shyla locked down. She fought to deflect their magical commands, but their combined power overwhelmed hers.
“And you are all mindlessly following this woman?” Shyla asked them. “Did you not see the bodies? Feel the vibrations? She risked the entire city with that attack. Your Blessed One is insane.”
“Do not listen to the sun-cursed. She lies.”
“I’ve woken the power of The Eyes. I see your soul, Bakula.”
The priestess jolted at the mention of her given name. Her hand flew to the torque around her neck. “You can’t—”
“I can. You do not speak for the Sun Goddess. You earned your position by poisoning the previous leader, the Heliacal Priest Uri. A very kind man who trusted you. And you got away with his murder. When you add in all the bodies under the rubble, how many more people have you murdered, Bakula?”
“Stop.” She backed up a few steps. “Timin!”
An Arch Deacon pushed the physician into the circle. That made thirteen people. Where were the last two?
“Cut her eyes out,” the priestess ordered Timin.
Although haggard and disheveled, he appeared to be uninjured. Blood and dirt stained his ripped tunic, but Shyla suspected the blood wasn’t his own.
“I can’t. You confiscated my tools.”
She growled and sent the Arch Deacon to fetch them. He hurried through another doorway. Thuds and curses abruptly sounded from outside the main entrance, which gave Shyla a surge of hope. But the glass doors seemed to be thick enough to keep her rescuers from breaking through. Unless the noise was from the fighting. Had more deacons joined the fray? Did anyone know about the Water Prince’s special access?
While they waited, Shyla didn’t waste the opportunity. Appealing to the seers, she said, “Imagine how many more people will die if the priestess wakes the power of The Eyes. Think about how she will rule. Before her term, going to confession meant seeking forgiveness. Now, it means torture and—”
“That’s enough. Someone shut her up,” the priestess said.
“She wants to silence me because she knows I’m right. I—” A force clamped on her throat, preventing speech. Scorching hells.
When the Arch Deacon returned with Timin’s bag, Shyla knew she couldn’t count on being rescued. She focused on the closest seer, making eye contact with the young man. His power glowed inside him. It wasn’t a crack, but it wasn’t wide open either. Odd. Obviously, the seer could wield magic, but did that mean Jayden hadn’t had enough magic to complete the process? Would the man be stronger if he had been opened all the way?
“I won’t do it,” Timin said. “Shyla’s right, giving you more power is insane. You should be locked up for the rest of your life.”
The word locked triggered a faint memory. It danced at the edge of her thoughts. Something with Mojag and—
“I’ll be happy to do it,” a terrifying and all too familiar voice said.
Yates stepped into Shyla’s view. He dragged the Water Prince with him—they were the last two people she had sensed in the room. The prince’s hands were tied behind his back. And he’d been gagged. Blood dripped from his nose. His fine clothes were ripped and stained. Hatred lit his gaze. Yates forced him to kneel beside the priestess. The reek of the black cells emanated from him. Now Shyla understood why Yates had a torque and the prince didn’t when they had all been in the professor’s room. He’d been working for the priestess.
The woman grabbed the prince’s hair and yanked his head back so he looked up at her. “You’re about to witness a historic occasion, whelp,” she said. “When I become both priestess and princess of Zirdai.” Then she turned to Yates, gesturing to Shyla. “Be careful. Don’t damage The Eyes.”
“I won’t, Mother.”
Son of a sand demon! Or, in this case, son of an insane demon. If she wasn’t in massive trouble, Shyla would have laughed. Instead, tiny barbs of fear dug into her skin. Yates took the scalpel from Timin and approached.
If only she could move or break the magical hold or shut the seers out! Then it hit her. Not shut them out, but close them like a druk! When Mojag had gotten upset as she opened his magic, she had started to reverse the process before he stopped her. In theory, she could close them, but she didn’t have any magic to do it.
Yates knelt next to her—an all too familiar and horrific situation. So much for The Eyes being so powerful; the seers just had to trap her in a bubble of magic and—
Seven hells.
There was magic. All. Around. Her.
She glanced at the seer, reached with the man’s magic and closed his power with a mighty slam. The man cried out and crumpled to the ground. Yates paused, glancing about in confusion. Shyla did three more before the rest lost their concentration. She could move!
Knocking the scalpel out of Yates’ hand, she sat up.
Yates grabbed her. “You’re not going anywhere.”
She twisted from his grasp and hopped to her feet. Before he could straighten, she kicked, aiming for the dark bruise on his temple from Rendor’s strike. The heel of her boot connected with his skull. The force sent her back a few steps while he only wobbled. She focused all her magic on him in one powerful blast.
Sleep.
He swayed but fought the command.
Cursing his thick head yet again, she sent another blast.
Sleep!
Finally, he slumped to the ground. Then she turned to the rest of the seers.
They held out their hands. “Don’t, please. We—”
“You had your chance. You didn’t take it. So I will take your magic.” Or rather, close it. However she called it, it was still harder to do without using their power.
Once she finished, she looked around for the priestess, but the woman was gone and the prince lay on the floor in a pool of his blood. The priestess had sliced his throat open. He stared at her with wide-eyed horror, but Shyla remained in place until he died, bearing witness. No grief touched her over the prince’s death. Instead outrage that his demise was too easy gripped her. He should have been stripped naked and hung upside down for a few sun jumps to pay for his crimes.
An insistent banging on the door spurred her into motion. She opened the glass doors. Jaft, Rae, and a bunch of Invisible Swords practically tumbled into the room.
Jaft gaped at the prone forms. “Did you kill them all?”
“No. The priestess killed the prince, the rest are recovering. Come on, everyone, I need backup.” She raced to the other entrance.
“For what?” he asked, almost on her heels.
“To hunt down the priestess.”
At each intersection, she sent teams of two to each side while she kept straight with the rest. Something pulled her in that direction. This area of the complex was intact, but soon they reached rooms with collapsed walls or holes in the floor.
They rounded a corner and spotted the priestess. She stood on a small pile of debris. In front of her was a large gap where there used to be a floor. The destruction she had caused prevented her from escaping. Shyla took a moment to appreciate the irony.