Page 104 of Iridian

Fuck them. Fuckhim—he didn’t get to decide what Taland did withhissoldiers.

Colorful flames came alive in the palm of my hand.

Radock cursed out loud in frustration and finally moved out of my way.

I stopped chanting at the same second, pulling my magic back to save energy. “Run!” I shouted at the soldier, and he did.

My eyes were locked on Taland’s.

I’m coming.

Chapter 25

Taland Tivoux

The screams had become louder than ever before. The rain had stopped pouring. My body was not my own. I wanted to stand, was desperate to move, yet I couldn’t. The weight kept crushing me under, pushing on my shoulders, weakening my legs.

But she was coming.

I watched her as if from another world. This was what I hated most since I’d called those soldiers back to life—that only a part of me seemed to reallybe herein this world, and the other part was somewhere far away. Maybe in another time.

The voices screamed louder as the soldier ran to bring her to me—they didn’t like me to think of them in names. This one carrying her was Benion Otes,father of twins whose mother had died in childbirth. He pulled them out of her himself at the crack of dawn in their cabin near the mountains, and he had to kill her with the same knife he used to cut the cords just to end her suffering.

I saw his story, carried his pain over and over again, felt every struggle and every ounce of desperation, but most importantly,I heard his voice, too. His pleading.Allof their pleadings to set them free.

And I was going to. By the Goddess, I was going to release these men from this curse if it was the last thing I did.

But first, Rosabel.

She hung onto the neck of the soldier still. Eleven of them were left standing, the rest lost to the fight with the Council members. Had I been stronger, they’d have killed them sooner, but it didn’t really matter, anyway. Just because their bodies died and the soul vessels David Hill used on them disappeared, their souls were still tethered to the curse. Tome.The way they screamed my name andpulledat the very essence of my being had driven me over the brink of insanity that first day, I was sure of it. It was just Rosabel who somehow held me together for a little longer.

Then she was in front of me.

The way she moved was quite fascinating. The way she jumped off the soldier’s back and climbed on the rooftop of the bus kept me grounded, focused on her rather than the voices. That’s how she saved me every second of every minute and she didn’t even know it, didn’t understand it, not fully.

“We have to do itnow!”

I read the words on her lips as she put her hands on my face, and her touch gave me energy, too. I was already feelingmoreof my body.

“We can still leave,” I said, though I wasn’t so sure. I’d seen this coming, but I hadn’t really anticipated that I’d lose so many soldiers and so much of my energy in this fight. I’d been sure I could get us out of here afterward because Radock had always been a greedy man. He would do everything in his power to try to stop me from giving up the soldiers. I wouldn’t put it past him to keep me sedated if only he could, until he either got through to me or he got me to share the bonding with him. Neither ofthose things were acceptable, though, but now I found myself barely standing, andthe voices-the voices-the voiceswere so hard to handle. All of them. One hundred and twenty soldiers. One hundred and twenty souls pulling mine under.

“Wecan’tleave, Taland.”

Rosabel.

“Focus on me. We will do the ritual right now. There are still eleven soldiers left. They’ll keep everyone away. We do it right now, right here. We let them all go.”

That sounded like a dream.

That sounded likea solution—toeverything because…well, the Council was gone. I had no doubt Radock and the Mergenbachs would be taking over. The IDD soldiers hadn’t even broken formation, and they wouldn’t, not now. Not when they had nobody to lead them anymore. Not when they didn’t want to fucking die for no reason and no reward.

I blinked these strange eyes that were able to see so much more than a man was meant to see. Energies and colors so vivid, surrounding people, hanging in the air—the very souls of the soldiers that hung on mine.

My brothers were fighting the soldiers, trying to get to me. They were trying hard.

And Rosabel was no longer touching me—she was on her knees in the middle of the bus’s rooftop, and she was drawing.

A knife in her hand. She’d cut her fingertips and she was drawing a ritual circle on the pale-yellow paint with her blood. She was drawing it exactly like the soldiers had made it for me in the forest.

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