Page 91 of A Sword of Ice
Clay glared at her. “Not cool…” he whispered, his hand whitening against Julius’ shoulder.
Even Ryker stilled, his gaze going up to Shula, as if he could gauge the truth of Iona’s words by looking to his mate, who stood rock still, her eyes wide and furious.
Iona wanted to take them back, but it was already too late.
It was Weylyn who broke the uncomfortable silence. “It was a shit show.” His long, ringed fingers tugged at the end of his dark braid. “Perhaps now would be a prudent time to tell them the truth, Iona.” His glittering eyes didn’t hold mischief. Not since the first time she saw him. That was all they usually held. Now they flickered with annoyance.
“The fuck is he talking about?” Julius grunted as he tried to adjust his position.
Then, Weylyn’s eyesdidglitter brightly. “Shall you tell him or should I?” His lips pursed and his fingers flicked. Every gesture was calculated and cruel.
Her heart beat faster in her chest. She knew what he was talking about and loathed him for it. It was one thing to drag her secrets out before her in private, but to do it before the others was low.
His eyes flicked to the back of his head a mere second and then rolled back, a smile twisting his features. “Almost as low as you risking our lives for selfish reasons,” he murmured, loud enough for everyone to hear.
Valerio stood, shoulders back, glaring with all the bearings of a royal. “What is going on?”
Iona couldn’t bring herself to meet the prince’s gaze. She couldn’t bring herself to look at any of them. Not Julius, who was still paling, and staring at her with confusion and pain, as she could feel his gaze and his emotions down their bond. Not Shula, who glared. Certainly not Weylyn, who looked at her knowingly. Because he had a whole vial of her secrets gripped in the palm of his hand.
So she closed her eyes instead and took a deep breath, but there was a storm inside her. As perilous and destructive as the one that had nearly dragged her to her death. This felt the same. Like she was kicking her limbs and there was nothing to hold on to. The waves were a force to be reckoned with dragging her under, deepening, piercing into her mouth, her lungs, taking with it parts of her life and soul.
She tapped her fingers against her thighs as every memory, as everything came back to her. The stench of ashwood in the air, the rumbling ground as humans marched through the Herria Mountain pass to attack the Jade Court.
She remembered hiding, tucked against a wall with her sister and mother. She remembered the rest of it. The screams. The blood. Falling against the ground, a wound that should have been fatal, that should have taken her life pulsing at her shoulder. Her sister being dragged across the sand, nails clawing pointlessly against the ground, just before Iona fell into unconsciousness.
“Mana gave me a second chance.” The words were whispered, but they felt right. Because she’d survived that day. She’d felt Mana in the air as her eyes opened, taking souls back where they belonged.
Leaving Iona alone in the aftermath of death, blood, and ash.
Iona’s eyes fluttered opened and there were tears in them, even if she wanted to pretend to be strong. She wasn’t anymore. She’d been selfish, had led her friends into danger without wanting to.
“I was there when the humans marched on the Jade Court. I watched it fall. I watched the human soldiers drag my sister across the sand kicking and screaming, and that was the last time I saw her.” She looked at Julius, saw his understanding make way to confusion and betrayal.
She’d all but betrayed him by omitting the truth.
“I thought that if I joined the Resistance, I could get vengeance for my family and friends, but then we lost the war.” She tried not to choke on her words, so they ended up rushing out of her like water cutting through sandy shores. “And I was on the boat, and then in Teg. I thought it was over. The Resistance was gone, the Fae were all scattered, the humans had won. I barely got through life as it was. But then I met George, and he gave me his theories. I didn’t know if I should believe them, but Mana told me they were true. My sister was alive, taken captive in one of those camps because she had healing magic, but I had no way to get to her. Leaving Porir alone would have been suicide and I’d be no good to my sister dead.”
Her sister’s image rose to her mind. Her smiling, care-free face. Even when her skin clung to her bones in the aftermath of using her magic, she smiled through her pain. “Mana will make everything right,” she would say.
After she was gone, Iona had tried to live every day a life her sister would be proud of. She’d tried to be optimistic, she opted to send out daily prayers to Mana in the hopes that they’d come true. And they hadn’t.
Not until them.
“Then I met you, and I thought you could help…”
“Wait a fucking minute,” Clay interrupted. “Is that the only reason you joined us, and why you did it so quickly without asking questions? That’s why you manipulated us into going into one of those camps? Because you wanted to fucking find your dead sister?”
“She’s not dead!” Iona shouted, pounding a fist against her heart.
“How do you know that?” Shula asked in a much softer voice. “She was taken to an iron camp one-hundred years ago…”
“I feel it in here.” Iona tapped her chest, lighter this time. “And because Mana told me…”
Clay scoffed. “Great. We find the second Elemental and she’s delusional…”
Julius growled a weak warning.
“I’m not delusional! Mana is an instinct that I follow, and when I met you all, I knew you were meant to help find her.”
