Page 95 of These Divided Shores
From the north, an Emerdian group broke through the streets. Nate, supplemented by Powersage, bellowed a war cry, ripped a shutter off a building, and hurled it at a defensor. The corner impaled the man’s chest, eliciting shrieks from cowering families.
The Emerdians dove into the fight, slicing and firing and tearing at the defensors with no care for the innocents among them. Rosalia was the same, leaping high, hovering, getting off better-aimed shots andgigglingas citizens, her citizens, looked on in horror.
One, a little boy, clung to his mother’s skirts, tears streaming down his face.
“What are they doing?” Lu asked no one in particular. “It’s Elazar!Get him!”
Nayeli, next to her, shook her head. “We shouldn’t have trusted them. They don’t care about this war. They care about themselves.”
Elazar and his knot of defensors vanished into the mission, the doors slamming tight. They would have the upper hand in defense now.
Nate ripped apart a market stall and dragged a man and woman out of their hiding place.
“Help!” the man screamed. “Help—defensors! Pious God, help us—”
Pierce cocked a pistol. “The Pious God can’t help you, Argridian sympathizer.” He aimed at the people his husband restrained. “Elazar’s got our raiders stashed away. Where are they?”
“Stop!” The Incris propelled Lu across the space. Pierce didn’t have time to fight her—she knocked the pistol from his grip. He swung on her, Nate jolting forward and releasing the man and woman, who scrambled away.
Lu, gasping, looked from Nate to Pierce as the screams and fighting intensified. Somewhere, Kari shouted at raiders to break into the mission; innocents cried for the Pious God, begging him to save them from theevil raiders; defensors fought and pistols fired and Lu swore she could feel Elazar in the mission, smiling.
The raiders were confirming everything Elazar claimed about them.
For all his insanity, Elazar knew this island well. This was the battle Nate, Pierce, and Rosalia would have fought regardless of their magic abilities. They would have been a mess of violence and disorganization; they would havetossed goals aside and given in to pride and bloodlust. Elazar had planned for it.
And Lu had given a powerful weapon to criminals.
Guilt had been on her shoulders for more than half her life. Guilt from being unable to stop the war, from killing people, from contributing to the horror that warped their world. It had been her fuel every waking moment, compelling her to mend the wounds she had inflicted.
She had caused so many horrors. It was her fault—so she would fix everything.
But in that moment, Lu realized itwasn’ther fault. People like Elazar, Milo, and Tom, even Rosalia, Nate, and Pierce—they were the ones who would do horrible things no matter what. Whether Lu agreed to help them or not, the awful acts they planned would occur. She was a tool, but she wasn’t at fault.
The world was bigger than her. One girl could not break it. But she could improve it.
Admitting that unraveled the layers of tension Lu had built, a delicate weave she had constructed to keep herself emotionless and determined. She didn’t want to be emotionless, she didn’t want to be a monster or a murderer or a soldier or any of the things she was. That childlike desire overshadowed everything else in a rush of undeniable need.
“Stop,” she repeated, unwilling to let go of Pierce’s arm, even as he bucked. “Look around! These villagers are afraid of you! This is wrong—”
“Argridis wrong.” Rosalia shot up on Lu’s other side. “Argrid is the enemy. This? This is the way we’ll stop them. If you’re not with us, you’re in the way.”
“And we don’t need you, sweetheart,” Pierce snapped. “Not anymore. Tuncian spices, Emerdian brickwork, Visjorn bear blood—I’m sure we can find someone else who can figure out the formula for permanent magic again, now that we know it’s possible.”
“Elazar,” Lu said. “He went into the mission. That is where you should go.”
“We don’t have time for this.” Nate shoved Lu back from Pierce. His supplemented strength slammed her into Nayeli, hard enough to knock the breath from her lungs.
A gun clicked. “Do not threaten my daughter,” Kari said.
Lu spun to see Kari, gun aimed. But her relief lasted for only one full inhale.
A fog of chokingly thick smoke crashed over the area. Lu lost sight of the raider Heads, Nayeli, her mother. Everything was gray and blurred, stinging her eyes and burning her nose.
“Magic!” someone cried. “The raiders—they’re using Rhodofume!”
Rhodofume, pods that released a smoke screen.
People coughed and shouted, bodies jostled in the gray-yellow cloud, and through it, Lu heard a staggeredpop, pop, pop. More Rhodofume pods; more smoke, more and more.
