Page 100 of Iridian

The IDD soldiers? They were trained to use both, just like I had been. Which was why I knew that it wasn’t going to be a fair fight from the very beginning, but…

Colors.

So many colors were in the air, and they were coming from the hands of Taland’s soldiers. They were not engaging in the fight but all thirty of them had their hands to the sky. None were chanting, yet colors were bursting out of their palms and the magic was falling like sparkly fairy dust onto the crowd.

“Protection,” Taland whispered, before I realized that his hands were raised, and he was so focused on what was happening around us that his eyes looked different. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but it was like he was trying to see everything at the same time—and he was succeeding.

“They don’t need to fight,” he continued, and I watched in awe as the IDD soldiers dropped their weapons and turned to their magic.

With their wands and bones and staffs they chanted furiously, but their spells couldn’t get through to the civilians at all. All those people around us screaming and shouting spells at the IDD soldiers, and they were perfectly fine. None of them were being hit because twenty-one of Taland’s soldiers had spread their own colorful magic around them—or was ithis?—and they weren’t fighting, either. Most of them had gathered to create a line between the IDD soldiers and the civilians screaming their guts out at them. They’d created a line of bodies, and the strangest thing—the IDD soldiers werenotattacking them.

Not a single gun was aimed at Taland’s soldiers. Not a single spell fell on them, either, and right now I had no idea whether that was intentional or not, but the Council members were still there, still in front of those doors, watching. The people screamed like mad, and they tried to get Taland’s soldiers to letthem through to the IDD because they’d gathered courage now. They’d gathered courage because they still hadn’t been truly threatened.

“Taland,” I whispered, and I wasn’t calm yet, not even close. “Taland, I’m going in.”

“No,” he said.

“Yes, Taland. I need to find Cassie. She?—”

Suddenly he was in front of me, his eyes on my face. “It’s not safe,” he told me, and had it been anybody else, I’d have probably been terrified.

But this was Taland, no matter how his eyes looked right now, and so I took his face in my hands, too. I rose on my tiptoes and whispered against his lips, “She could die.”

“She won’t,” he said, his voice thick.

“You don’t know that. I know you’re scared, but I’ll be fine. I’ll—”Be back in a minute,I wanted to say, but he didn’t let me.

“If you die, all will be lost.”

The words died on my tongue.

“I can’t…I can’t just stand here and watch, damn it!” I understood what he was saying because I felt the exact same way, but I had to dosomething.

He said, “Trust me, sweetness,” and all my complaints faded away. “Trust me.”

“I do.” I trusted him more than I trusted myself. More than I trusted anyone in the world.

Taland nodded, didn’t smile. He didn’t kiss me, either, but turned to face the crowd again, the soldiers…

Meanwhile Radock and the others were still behind the line of Laetus soldiers who were facing the Council, and he was most definitely smiling as he looked up at us. We were maybe twenty feet away atop the bus, and the sea of bodies between us would make it impossible for him to get to us quickly, so he stayed put, but I saw his smile. I saw how he wasproudof Taland, how hewas greedy. It was so clearly obvious it made my stomach twist and turn. Made my instinct scream against him.

Then Taland spoke.

“We will only fight against the Council.”

Every single person out there held their breath, myself included. Not because I heard the soft voice of Taland standing beside me, but because I also heard those same words leaving the mouths of the soldiers who stood before the Council, and their voices were anything but soft. Anything but normal. They were…robotic at best. Monstrous.

Fucking hell, theyspoke.

Again, I found myself gripping his arm, not afraid of the Council or the battle or anything, no—just terrified of the fact that the soldiers were right there, standing tall, not hiding, and the IDD wasnotattacking them yet.

“Taland, what are you doing?” I whispered, and every person around looked up at us, athim.

“Ending this once and for all,” Taland told me. “They’re here. They came here personally, and nobody should have to die for them. But if they’re cowards and won’t face my soldiers…” His voice trailed off and he took a deep breath, and said,“We will only fight against the Council.”

Again, the words amplified when leaving the lips of the Laetus soldiers, in that strange voice, so powerful.

But now, the crowd went crazy.

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