Page 31 of Great Falls Protector
“He couldn’t have meant it.” Arisha touches my thigh, her hand snaking out of a hideous yellow gown that makes her resemble a frizzy sunflower. She sweeps her distracted blue gaze over the crowd. “And once he gets his memory back—ah, stop it! I can barely see over the fur in my mouth.”
“What—oh.” I frown down at Shade’s wolf, his black muzzle burrowed into my midsection as if looking for treats, his raised tail whacking Arisha in the face with every wag. I’d have expected the male to have shifted into fae form well before now, but here we are. Still in wolf form. Too long in wolf form. Grabbing the scruff of Shade’s neck, I try and fail to drag him to a more convenient location, the people around me shimmying away despite the tight seating.
I shift myself to provide some blockage for the tail, my voice bitter despite my best efforts. “Once they get their memory back—do we knowhowthey get their memory back exactly? Or anything about these wards we’re supposed to be repairing? Because right now, the best plan I’ve got is to sit on my rear, waiting for something bad to happen.”
My own words remind me to survey the filled stands, though I find nothing out of the ordinary but the number of birds and royals. And their sheer breadth of dazzling fashions, from a huge woman in a shapeless black sheath with what looks like an actual bowl of fruit on her head, to a whole family of laughing blonde girls, at least six strong, wearing matching gowns of pink tulle, their thin father cowering in the middle.
But all pale in comparison to Tye, bouncing on the balls of his feet at the arena’s edge, his emerald eyes alight. With a special gold athletic uniform hugging his muscled frame and his fiery hair catching the sunlight, the male exudes a confidence that rivals River’s striding across a throne room—a fact not lost on the many, many eyes watching the male’s every graceful move unblinkingly.
“Actually, we do know something.” Arisha moves closer to me so only I can hear her, her freckled cheeks bunched in thought—I have to use my foot to get Shade’s hind end to swing out wide enough to let her in. “Coal got Zake to admit that this Owalin and his Night Guard minions have been messing with the magical wards, which isn’t really new information, but that proves they havesomeonewho knows how to manipulate them. If we find who ever that is—”
“Then maybe thissomeonemight also have insight into lifting River’s and Shade’s veils.” I rub my face. “Or at least information on how to patch up the magical leak we’d come here to patch.”
“Information that he’ll no doubt be more than happy to share,” Arisha says with a crestfallen wince. “I imagine Coal will need to…you know.”
I squeeze her leg. “We’ll deal with interrogation when we have someone to interrogate,” I say, right as another round of applause draws my attention back to the stage. With the last of the ten parading teams clearing the sands, a set of men dressed in black carry a horizontal bar into the middle of the arena while Tye—whose exhibition round is to officially open the trials—dunks his hands into a bucket of chalk. As he slaps his hands together, working the chalk deep into his callused creases, bits of powder rise into the air like snowflakes, settling on his muscular thighs.
The music stops. Tye’s muscles bunch in preparation for the run. In the hanging silence, the creaking of benches and calls of overhead birds are a distant irrelevance.
Caw caw.
A gong sounds.
Tye leaps forward, his powerful legs propelling his body with a feline grace. Each step a practiced, measured precision, the male hits his launch point with ease and leaps into the air. Grabbing the high bar smoothly, Tye’s taut body swings around it in a blur of color and muscle. Beautiful. Powerful. Breath-stopping.
Reaching the zenith of his spin, Tye releases the bar and flies like a pike into the air, twisting in defiance of gravity and the stars themselves before catching the bar again as if nothing of great consequence just happened.
Applause rages through the stands—and not a few disgruntled mutters from the other teams. But even they can’t help staring in jealous admiration. Tye deserves this light gathering around him, I realize. Has earned this moment over and over for centuries, despite having it ripped from him by those in power. If this one good thing comes from our voyage to the mortal world, perhaps that’s worth it.
On the bar, Tye picks up speed and flies into the air again, his body tucking into a tight ball. Streams of silk lace he must have hidden in his uniform release from their bonds and trail the male through the air. Red and gold and blue, all flapping like standards in the wind, thewhoosh whoosh whooshof cloth cutting air loud in the breath-held silence of the arena.
Though I know it’s impossible from several benches away, I’m sure I can smell Tye’s pine-and-citrus scent, the exhilaration pulsating from him an intoxicating wine that makes my core blaze. The magic inside me rouses, bubbling and reaching to freedom, the cords of power clamoring jealously for their turn beneath the sun’s rays.
I blink over the flood of sensation, the sounds around me suddenly distant, unable to compete with the inferno inside my own body. The bench beneath me is hard, the wood slightly uneven, the silk of my scarlet cool against my skin except for where the sun has heated the fabric. The people around me stink of rose perfume mixed with unfamiliar spices.
Shade whines, the lupine call forcing itself into my swimming consciousness. That and the call of strange birds flocking around us. More than before.
Caw caw.
The crowd suddenly gasps, then breaks into shouts of delight and applause.
“Lera. Lera!” Arisha grabs my arm hard enough to hurt, while around us, the crowd grows rabid with excitement, many on their feet, the children jumping for a better view.”Look.”
Forcing my gaze back to Tye, I feel my eyes widen. The colorful silk ribbons flowing around him are now alight with flame. As the male spins faster and faster still, the fiery rings follow in his wake like blazing hoops, which the crowd thinks are all part of the show.
Except I know they aren’t. And if Tye has access to—
I gasp, the shackles holding my magic suddenly springing open almost painfully, my body flooding with what’s been gathering just beneath the surface. My heart races, the small breeze suddenly too hot, my dress too constricting. “He did it.” I snatch Arisha’s wrist, my words coming in pants over the effort of keeping the sudden tsunami of magic at bay. “Owalin released the magic’s shackles.”
“No.” Arisha shakes her head violently. “No, it’s too early. Zake told Coal it wouldn’t be until the end and it’s only—”
“An inconvenient change of plans, then.” I force my breathing to tamp down. “I feel it, Arisha. And that’s not part of Tye’s show either.”
“Neither is that, is it?”
The note of panic in Arisha’s voice has me on my feet before I see where she’s pointing, my eyes just catching a glint of metal in Han’s hands. His pale gaze trained on the circles of fire following Tye, the Prowess coach’s handsome face is set with grim realization. The mortals might imagine the flame a part of the show, but he has worked out the truth—and is meeting it with murder.
He lets the knife slip fully into his palm, confident that no one will notice it with all eyes on his star athlete.
