Page 61 of Realm of Wind and Vines
Since I don’t know how specific I need to make my orders, I make them as detailed as possible to avoid loopholes.
“You will lead Emperor Bane Iceheart into that room,” I point to the room that Orion disappeared into earlier. “And you cannot let him, or anyone else, find out that it is a trap. Understood?”
He opens and closes his mouth for a few seconds, as if he wants to say something else, but in the end all he grinds out is, “Yes.”
“Good. Then go and find him now and start convincing him to come here.”
Hatred burns like black flames in Gremar’s eyes, but he jerks his chin down in a nod. Isera flips the levers, one at a time, which will make the wall retract into the ceiling again. Gremar turns towards it and waits.
All the orders that I have just given to Gremar are swirling around somewhere in the back of my mind. They don’t distract from my present thoughts, but they float there like glowing words.
Stone groans as the wall begins lifting. Slowly at first, but then it picks up. It disappears into the ceiling again with a bang.
And leaves us face to face with Lavendera.
I jerk back in surprise. But Gremar’s orders were to leave now, so he just strides past her and towards the main entrance.
For a few tense seconds, nothing happens. Lavendera just stands there, staring unseeing at the wall above my shoulder. As if her body is here but her mind isn’t. She looks exactly like she did the last time I saw her. Flowing brown hair rippling down her back, and the scar across her cheek and jaw that mars her otherwise extraordinarily beautiful face. Her pink and purple eyes have that faraway look in them that she seems to get from time to time.
After we left the Ice Palace, I thought for a while that she might have been faking her weirdness so that we would be less likely to suspect that she was actually a traitor. But she actually is this strange.
“Selena,” Isera calls from the room behind me. “I’m going to…”
She trails off, and I think she might be glancing through the doorway and into this room, but I can’t tell for certain because I don’t dare take my eyes off Lavendera.
Ice shoots through the air.
It speeds through it so fast that I barely have time to flinch.
Lavendera, however, sees it coming.
A massive tree shoots up from the ground in front of her. The ice slams into it with such force that the wood cracks and the tree topples halfway forward. It suddenly sinks into the ground again.
Behind it, Lavendera blinks hard a few times, her eyes still unfocused.
Then her gaze at last seems to lock on me. It takes another moment for recognition to spark in her eyes. When it does, she heaves a deep sigh.
“I gave you a head start,” she says. “You should have used it.”
“I did.”
“Not well enough.”
“I thought you were my friend. I confided in you. I tried to help you. And you betrayed me.”
Her eyes show no emotion as she simply replies, “Yes, friends tend to do that.”
“No, they?—”
Branches shoot towards me.
I suck in a sharp breath and throw myself to the side. The branches slam into a block of ice while I roll across the floor and reach for my own magic. Shoving it forward, I aim for the peach-colored spark of confusion in Lavendera’s chest. With her erratic way of behaving, she must be feeling constantly confused.
A hiss rips from my lungs, and I lose the grip on my magic the moment it connects.
Scrambling backwards, I leap out of reach of another branch while Isera shoves a second block of ice at her.
My head is ringing, and a flicker of fear blows through me as I stare at Lavendera.
