Chapter 13
Raey
It felt like every molecule in my body was tearing me apart. It felt like pain so complete it was past pain, not numb, but everything. I knew that nothing else I ever experienced would come close to this.
I could vaguely hear shouting above me, dark shapes moving in my blurring vision.
With the cuffs gone, my power surged back through me, but the glamour was gone, all of my controls, all of my checks blown away. All of my power flowed through me, and it was too much for me to handle. This was why I kept it under wraps, this power to create and destroy worlds, this impossibility that I had never shown to anyone, ever.
My power was surging out of me, the well inside of me tipped upside down, flowing freely into the world. I could feel the earth shaking around me, feel the mountains, the animals, the plants, all of them, all their thoughts, all their desires, all at once.
I could feel the shadows brushing the sides of my mind, their words flowing over and through me, whispering, deafening, aching.
"-too soon-"
"-stronger than expected. Right away-"
"antidote. Knock h-"
-shelterfoodhungercold-
"-go go move now! Don-"
I screamed, the sound tearing out of my throat jagged and raw, joining the cacophony that was the world. Among the sounds, I could pick out Astor's harsh voice commanding the other Illyrians and various faeries scattered around the cavern, their minds raindrops in the tornado that was my senses. I snatched out with my mind and grabbed Astor's sword, gripping it tightly in my hand.
I couldn't breathe.
He told them to ready the second serum.
My body wouldn't move.
I acted on sheer instinct, my most base function.
Find Rhys.
Find safety, home, family.
Rhys.
I burst through the cavern roof, my power pouring out of me in vicious dark waves, destroying everything in its path. Memories flashed before my eyes, I could see my mother screaming, her broken body floating down that stream, Rhys smiling, my father shouting, the faces of all those I killed, the broken screams of the ones left behind.
The begging of the mothers whose children I stole, the silent tears of the children whose mothers I murdered.
The blood on my hands.
So much blood.
Drip.
Drip.
drip
dripdripdrip
drip?
And the drips became a flood, and then my hands were leaking, the sky was falling, the world was breaking, the chorus of voices stabbed my ears, my wings were burning, what wings, the world was dark, the world was too bright, my head hurt, was flying, I was falling, it was all so much.
A second.
A breath.
A moment.
Just one.
But it was enough.
My glamour slammed into place, my power weakened, but still too strong, and I winnowed away.
A familiar blank spot where there should be minds, familiar warding, home.
Velaris.
I slammed into the wards, dark power still pouring out of me, and I fell toward the ground, trapped outside.
Shadows flowed out of me, as unstoppable as the ocean, a force of nature, and I could only watch in helpless horror as they started attacking the wards, shaking the city.
This wasn't supposed to happen.
But I didn't control my power anymore. It tore away from me, a separate entity, so much more powerful than myself.
Nobody was safe now.
As it turned out, nobody's name was Rhysand.
As he and Amren raced out to the warding, he sent feelers ahead, his own power spearing towards the heart of that darkness, that monster of death and destruction
Already they could see the area around the figure. Or, what was left of it. Trees ripped from their roots, grass and small shrubs withered and grey, rocks shattered, boulders disintegrated.
Rhys tried to sense what it was, but it felt- familiar?
Like a combination of his and Azriel's power. Darkness and shadows.
As he and Amren sprinted through the wards, he wondered what could possibly feel like that. What could possibly cause this destruction.
And then Amren was blasted away. A strand of power smashed into her and slammed her into the wards, a good ten metres away. Rhys slowed. Whatever could singlehandedly, seemingly easily dispatch Amren was not a force to be trifled with.
For whatever reason, when Rhys reached out to touch the flurry of power surrounding the figure in the centre, the darkness just flowed over his skin, horribly, achingly familiar. Not harming him, just- cocooning him. Gentle. Protecting. Just like- no.
The shadows pushed at me, gentle fingers trying to get him out of the way, but Rhys knew somehow, instinctively, that they wouldn't hurt him.
He sent a spear of his own power racing into the centre of the furiously roiling mists, seeking the centre. A figure stood there, shaking. He could fear its fear, its pure terror, at- itself?
Why would something so powerful, powerful enough to attempt an attack on Velaris feel so scared? So utterly helpless? And so, so achingly familiar?
Rhys shaped his power into a barrier, a cocoon containing the storm within. He cut it off, stealing the air inside, hoping to knock the figure unconscious. The darkness began flickering, falling apart, letting in glimpses of sunlight.
A figure crouched in the centre, an oddly familiar figure.
"Millie?"
And indeed, the figure was the small girl that had broken through the wards and taunted them in a game of questions months before. The same girl that Rhys' best spies had been tracking across Prythian, yet had found no information about.
Her blonde hair was longer now, but was hanging greasily around her shoulders, tangling in the massive sword attached to her back. That was new.
Rhys ran through their powers and strode up to her.
"Stop this! What are you doing? Why are you hurting them?"
The girl looked up, and for a second, just a second, she was someone else.
Long hair flowed down to her waist, shadows floating around her head. Sharp cheekbones cut through her olive skin, delicate and beautiful, and her eyes-
Her eyes.
Violet as a crystal, just the same as his.
Raey.
Rhys blinked, and the illusion was gone, deep brown eyes staring up at him, afraid and helpless. They shifted from his face to his wings, and he quickly hid them.
But that power kept tearing out of her, not stopping, racing towards the city and slamming on the wards, shaking the ground and sending yet more people screaming through the Rainbow.
Rhys old feel the wards weakening, the constant onslaught draining the power out of him, his teeth clenched against the strain.
"Stop! Please! Or I will stop you," he threatened, but she just kept staring at him with those brown eyes.
He grabbed a dagger from its sheath on his belt and sent it flying at her head.
The pommel slammed into her temple with a dull thud and she toppled over, shadows swirling around her body in worry.
Rhys could feel as the attack ceased, and stopped entirely, the ground calming, trees and rocks falling from where they had been trapped in the air, the wards strengthening once more.
Cassian and Azriel landed behind him and walked up to them, Rhys standing over 'Millie's' unconscious body.
"Well. That was exciting." Cassian's comment had Rhys turning to face them, Amren running up behind, Mor still within the city.
"This is a problem. She broke through our wards, and now she's attacked the city. According to all of my informants, she doesn't exist. We need to interrogate her, but we have no way of containing her."
"What about faebane?" Azriel spoke up, his voice like dark velvet rumbling through the clearing, shadows flying around his head. The girl shifted on the ground and for a moment it looked like she was going to get up, but she soon fell still once more.
A few hundred years ago, they had had an encounter with a rogue Illyrian tribe, one of the first at the beginning of the civil war. The lord had somehow gotten his hands on a strange type of stone that could nullify magic. Of course, Cass and Az had easily defeated him anyway, but they had taken the faebane with them, partly to get it out of the hands of any other rogue Illyrians, and partly to add to their own arsenal.
Hopefully the cuffs would work on the strange girl.
Rhys, still shaken from his brief hallucination turned back to the girl and picked her up. His wings spread wide once more and he spoke to his Court.
"I'll put her in the house of wind. She could probably use some medical attention. Meet in the townhouse in an hour, with Mor, and we'll see where to go from there."
With that, he shot into the sky, soaring towards Velaris, a memory of violet eyes haunting his wings.