Haven (War of the Princes) (27 page)

Unlike Dylan, he didn’t look away from me. His blue eyes locked with mine and I even thought I could perceive the faintest of nods. It was the smallest expression of reassurance I had ever received, but in that moment it meant the world to me. It told me that I would be safe to sit in the chair.

I squeezed my hands into fists, squared my shoulders and sat primly, as though it were of my own accord, in the frightening chair to await my fate.

I should have been scared out of my wits, and maybe under all the stress and shock, I was, but an infusion of courage rejuvenated me. I felt like myself again and would not be silently mistreated.

“I am Katelyn Kestrel,” I announced to the room. Where it was mostly quiet but a moment ago, it went dead silent as I spoke. Dylan looked up, his face matching the surprise of the crowd. “It’s true I’m not from Breakwater. It’s true I’m not from anywhere near. I came here knowing nothing about the ways of these lands. I may have shared with you the location of my home, I may have told you about our country, but we are a people of peace, and you… you are hostages of war and death. I am under the impression that you will hurt me, and if you do, you will hurt my people too. All I’ve ever wanted from any of you is to let me go home. Whatever your arguments about me are, and whatever you are going to do to me… never forget that I’m just a girl who got lost. I am Katelyn Kestrel: a human being.”

The room remained silent and I cleared my throat, feeling uncomfortable. My fingers fidgeted in my lap. Dylan looked away again. Guilt tinged his face. Brendon’s brow was furrowed and he stared at me searchingly. This time he looked like the one who wished he could communicate without speaking. My courage was waning fast and I couldn’t face the Lord of Breakwater for long. I looked back at Rune and found his expression far more difficult to read.

“
Ahh
, sentimental,”
Fallux
said clapping his hands together. “I’m afraid there are two problems with your heartwarming little speech. Firstly, I believe in fate: it was no accident you came here. Secondly, you have
The Pull
. You of all people
cannot
get lost. You chose to come here and here you are. Whatever your reason for leaving your precious home and traveling to Breakwater was, it is meaningless now. Anything that steps foot in this region belongs to my Margrave, my Prince, and me. Stakes, her wrists.”

“With pleasure,” Stakes grinned wolfishly. He stood in front of my chair, snatched my hands, forcing them atop the arms of the chair and winked at me. To my horror the metal clasps came to life, taking the shape of bestial faces and moving of their own to snap over my wrists. A second pair snaked over my legs. In a few second’s time I was bound. As Stakes stepped away, the metal ceased moving.

That was Stakes’ Ability. He could manipulate metal. I reminded myself what March had told me. It was always advantageous to keep one’s Ability a surprise. I hoped that by knowing his Ability, I could use it against him. Still, I had not been prepared to see iron move itself.

“That would be
The Steel
, pet,” Stakes informed me with a chuckle as he returned to his position beside
Fallux
.

Without any regard for me, Commander
Fallux
stepped forward. “I bring you here today to witness the existence of a second Ability. Once it has been assessed, there will be no further cause for insisting rights of custody concerning this girl. In addition to that, everyone in this room will know that I was right in searching for, locating and keeping the very first Lodestone in hundreds of years.”

“Are you going to continue preening yourself, Commander, or do you have something to show us?” Lord Brendon demanded impatiently. Even I could see the subtle signs that his words had put everyone on edge.

“Such fire. My Margrave and Prince have spoiled you with too many entitlements. Don’t forget who your betters are,
Common
-Lord. I could use the water in your own body to drown you where you stand and suffer no reprimand.”

Tension in the room boiled to a fever pitch. The militia present shifted uneasily, the Dragoons tensed and Dylan gritted his teeth. Again, Lord Brendon’s gall shocked me.

“Yes, but there would be so much bothersome paperwork,” came his defusing response. My respect for him was growing rapidly.

Senior Commander
Fallux
shot him a twisted smile and the spell on the room was broken. “Don’t you and I both know?” It came as a statement, rather than a question.

Fallux
had a water Ability. He had just admitted as much. Now I knew the powers of my two greatest enemies. I hoped that knowledge was worth something.

“One way to learn the nature of a subject’s Ability is to attempt to harm them with each of the elements. We could burn some part of her, freeze her, drown her, whatever the elemental equivalent would be. If she had an elemental ability she would be resistant to that type of damage. If she did not have an elemental Ability, it would yield no result, aside from general entertainment of course, but either way, it would be a waste of time. I want results now. What we do now will force her Ability to emerge without harming her. Dull, I realize, but quick and effective.”

I had been sitting, rigid with fear, until he said that I would not be harmed. My relief was only slight.

“I can see by your faces that you’re all wild with curiosity, so I’ll indulge you,”
Fallux
said seeming amused. He was enjoying this little show of his. “As you know, Commanders can, well, command the physical actions of others for a short time.”

Fallux
turned on his heel pointing to four Dragoons, one by one, while saying, “Kneel, kneel, kneel, kneel.” Down they each went, some trying not to look surprised, others wincing as they dropped unceremoniously to kneel on the stone floor. “Kneel,” he said to one of Lord Brendon’s men, and down he went like the rest, though he cried out in protest.

Lord Brendon looked slowly from his man back to
Fallux
. I saw a very well tamed bitterness on Brendon’s face. “I appreciate your desire for illustration, but we’re all aware of your Ability to Command.”

I wasn’t. Dylan had told me that Commanders grew more powerful each time they drained someone. They were tougher, their lifespan extended, and the metal that grew out of their skin was a side effect. The more people they drained, the more monstrous they’d become. He said that a Dragoon couldn’t take on a Commander in a fight and win, but he hadn’t told me that it was because a Commander could control the physical actions of the Dragoon. I wondered how far that kind of Ability could extend.

Now it made perfect sense how difficult it would be for anyone, even a Dragoon, to disobey a Commander. My eyes met Rune’s. I wondered how much of him was a slave to this system, and how much of him was a villain: brainwashed like the rest to follow orders and live in utter isolation as a pawn.

I saw no weakness in Rune’s face.

And then I couldn’t breathe. It was just for a moment, but for the life of me I couldn’t get my lungs to work. Fear was upon me like a hot flash. Panic jolted through me… and then I could breathe again. I looked around to see if anyone else had noticed the brief anomaly, but none had. I glanced at Stakes and he winked at me. A tempest of anger and fright spun within me. He had Commanded me not to breathe, just for a second… just long enough to get my attention.

“There is another level of Command,”
Fallux
went on, unaware of Stakes’ cruel prank on me. “We can command an Ability forward, dredge it up from within a person. If it’s a physical Ability, it will show itself. If it is invisible, such as The Luck or The Soothe, the Commander will be able to sense it.”

His words didn’t register to me. I was afraid, not only for myself, but for Dylan. He stood there, just shorter than the imposing figure of his brother. His beautiful face was so open. Innocent wouldn’t have been the right word, he was smart and far from naive, but he lacked many of the burdens that others suffered. He was friendly, quick to laugh, and I realized what made him seem so different. He felt safe: Safe enough to joke, to make light of life, to push or pull to get what he wanted. In that way, he was like all of my friends back home. He was like me before I left Haven.

But Dylan Axton wasn’t safe. I knew it as surely as I knew that Stakes had Commanded me to stop breathing. If he could do that to me, he could do it to Dylan. Stakes knew I’d realize it. That’s why he winked.

“Your friends will bleed and you’ll know it was me,” I remembered him say.

I was snapped away from my unpleasant thoughts when
Fallux
grabbed the back of my chair. My body jumped in reaction and I sucked in a breath at the contact.

“Stakes, if you would,”
Fallux
said sounding energized.

This time it was Stakes’ turn to look surprised.

“But sir, the Cost!” Stakes protested quietly, sounding genuinely displeased.

I didn’t know what the Cost was, but if it bothered Stakes, I was glad it existed.

“The Cost is precisely why
you
will be the one to command forward her next strongest Ability. Try and avoid The Pull,”
Fallux
said releasing the back of my undesired seat.

“Sir,” Stakes grimaced but bowed his head.

I didn’t like this.

He rounded on my chair to face me.

I didn’t like this one bit.

He simply stood there. His eyes peered out from under heavy brows and flicked up to mine. Chills slithered up and down my spine as his face warmed with a sadistic smile.

My bottom lip trembled as I inhaled a breath, pressing myself as far back into the chair as I could be. Pulling back on my clamped wrists, I curled my fingers and even my toes just to be millimeters farther away from him.

Stakes closed his eyes. As he tilted his head down, light from the bright white lamps on the walls glinted over the silver that jutted out of his brow and split his cheek. His face was gruesome, but I didn’t dare look away.

At first I thought nothing was happening. I felt normal and he was just standing still, a few paces away.

Then I felt it, uneasiness; it was different than anything I’d ever felt. At first, my mind dismissed it as fear or stress. But the feeling persisted, swirling and growing until it seemed there was an abyss within me, a great darkness, like the fathomless ocean beyond Breakwater. As soon as I recognized it, the sensation surged in, gusting and churning, to overwhelm me. Spots clouded my vision, white noise roared in my ears, and unbearable pressure built up with the force of it all, squeezing tears from my eyes.

I screamed, suffering from something far deeper than pain.

There was a pop… more like a boom, and everything went white.

I saw the white tree in the storm. It was the one that Rune had painted, and then… there was nothing.

I thought I died. I thought he’d killed me.

He hadn’t, of course. A high-pitched whistle rang in my ears. I blinked my unfocused eyes, my head lolling to the side. Sweat made my skin cold and clammy but on the inside, I felt feverishly hot.

I could hear muffled sounds of awe and argument. I couldn’t understand the words. Blurry images bled together and finally began to sharpen.

“
Wha
- what,” I stammered weakly in delirium, forgetting what I was about to ask.

The room had gone very, very dark. There was only a bit of light, lending an eerie glow to the stunned men and women in the room. I couldn’t focus on their faces yet, but their hair was blowing as if there was an indoor wind. They were shouting at each other and staring at me with wide eyes.

Dazed, I tried to stand and forgot why I could not. I could feel something pressing against my wrists and legs. I wanted to see what was holding me. My head tipped downward, feeling too heavy to hold up. I became quickly distracted when my vision snapped into focus.

Stakes was on the ground, struggling to get up and failing. I wondered why, and then it all came back to me. He had set out to command my second Ability forward to prove I was a Lodestone.

I sucked in a breath, pulling myself out of my slump and looked down at my arms. The eerie light was coming from me. There was a soft glow radiating from me, but more than that… thin tendrils of electricity flicked to life and scurried just over the top of my skin. There were hundreds of them, and when they connected, they roped along on a stronger path before disappearing. It tingled. My eyes dilated and contracted when they flitted over my face.

My jaw was agape in wonder, but I wasn’t afraid. I couldn’t be… I could feel somehow that this had come from within me, as impossible as that was.

I wondered what had happened when everything went white. The room was dark because all the bulbs in the once bright wall-lamps had shattered. The room, though meagerly furnished before, was in shambles and whatever event had occurred reflected upon the faces of my audience.

Had I really done all of this?

Logic interjected, arguing that Stakes could have inflicted something upon me- maybe some kind of show to make me look like I had power. That would force me to remain in the custody of the Commanders. I was just a normal girl from Haven. No one had any mysterious Abilities there.

The electricity faded quickly, my muted eardrums regained their acuteness and I could hear a rumble of thunder growing fainter by the second. I wondered if it had been there all along. When I couldn’t hear it anymore, all of my light was gone and the windowless room was in complete darkness. The voices quieted.