Page 61 of Iridian

I closed my eyes for a moment. “So…it really happened. You really…reallyawakened the Delaetus Army.”

“I did,” Taland said.

“Why are your eyes as white as theirs?” This I asked in barely a whisper, and when Taland flinched, I added, “Not that I care about the color of your eyes, Taland, but I want to know what it did to you. I want to…I want to know the side effects.” Because no magic came without cost. That much we’d known since forever.

“I…” Taland paused for a good long moment. “Ihearthem, sweetness.”

My stomach dropped all the way to my heels. “Hear them how?”

Taland stood up. “Come on. Let me show you.”

Chapter 15

Rosabel La Rouge

When Taland said that the soldiers of the Delaetus Army werearound,he meant it literally, it seemed. Because we walked out the front of the house and down the wide pathway between those gorgeous trees for a minute or two, and then we saw them.

They were standingall aroundthe land where that house was built, with their backs turned to it and their eyes closed, as still as the trees at their sides.

Goddess, they were in perfect formation, creating a wall of bodies all around the house, leaving barely enough space for us to fit through between them.

I didn’t think I’d ever seen a stranger thing in my life.

We said nothing, Taland and I, as we went to their front and we analyzed them. Or ratherIanalyzed them while Taland watched me and focused on anything else around us every now and again, as if looking at these soldiers made him uncomfortable.

Goddess, I understood why. These men looked soreal,yet unusual at the same time because their eyes were closed andtheyweren’t breathing.How strange it was to see a being that looked alive but didn’t breathe. I had never before known how much Isawpeople breathing without realizing it, or maybe I just noticed the absence of those slight chest movements much more than I ever thought I would.

Their skin looked like normal, ordinary skin, and even though at first glance they’d all looked the same, they weren’t. Different heights and different builds, different skin tones and different hair on their chests and forearms and brows that I could only barely see through the copper-colored helmets.

The swords strapped to their hips were huge, and they looked really heavy. Their armor plates were made of the same metal, which looked light and smooth through patches of dirt here and there. They wore brown pants and armor plates around their hips and groin area, too, and their brown leather boots looked a million years old, with metal on the tip of their toes as well as their shins. Their arms were naked from the shoulders down, save for leather gloves and the bracelets on their left wrists.

They weren’texactlythe same, though. The metal of it—yes. The color was exactly the same, and the image of it, like dried mud, was identical, but these bracelets were thinner and they were sealed shut—like cuffs. I couldn’t see a key lock anywhere—like the metal had hardened around their wrists like that and they could never be taken off again, which made me wonder.

“Can I touch them?” I asked Taland—too curious, even if the request did sound a bit ridiculous.

“Of course,” Taland said without hesitation. “You never have to fear any of them, sweetness. Their sole purpose now is to protect you.”

That made me feel all kinds of weird things, but I didn’t let myself dwell on his words for long. I slowly reached out my hand and touched the bracelet of one of them, my eyes on his face.

“Fuck,” I breathed when a second passed and his didn’t open. They remained shut—they all continued to look like they were carved out of marble or wax or something with those still chests.

But the feel of their bracelets was exactly the same as the one I’d stolen from the Vault. The only difference remained their width and the fact that theirs were closed—andtightlyaround their wrists, impossible to take off without breaking them or cutting their hands off.

“How many?” I asked Taland as I moved around the soldier one more time, this time touching his back and his arms and his armor plates as I went, his chin and cheeks—so terribly real—and his helmet, too. The guy didn’t even flinch.

“Thirty,” Taland said.

“I thought there’d be more.”

“There were. A hundred and twenty in total. The others were destroyed in the War of Mages,” Taland said. “These ones who remained were sort of…deactivatedby Titus’s death.”

“They’re all men,” I said in wonder.

“They are,” said Taland. “Seven hundred years ago I don’t think they taught a lot of women combat. Titus needed men who were very good at hand-to-hand, as well as magic.”

Again, I circled the soldier I was basically studying. “They’re not reallyalivethough.” They weren’t breathing, yet they were still standing.How very strange…

“They are puppets,sweetness. That’s it—they’re puppets.” This he said as if the words were being cut out of his very soul.

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