Page 90 of Realm of Wind and Vines
I shove a massive burst of power down the magic connection, blowing his fear into an inferno.
Another broken whimper rips from his lips, and he cowers down further.
“Please, I’m begging you,” he blurts out, his voice shaking and his entire body trembling before my boots.
It gives me a sick sense of satisfaction to know that this man would never have begged and whimpered like this of his own free will. Nothing would make an elite soldier of his caliber break down like this. Nothing natural. But what is natural, and what is free will, when I can literally change the way he feels?
A desperate whine slips from his lips.
I pour more magic into him, increasing his fear until I can feel that his mind is about to break.
And then I push some more.
I can see the moment his mind breaks from fear. It’s in his eyes. Like a light suddenly going out, leaving only an empty shell. An empty,obedientshell.
After lowering his fear back down to make sure that he can still function enough to carry out my orders, I reluctantly cut off the flow of my magic.
That warm sparkling sense of pleasure immediately vanishes, and the cold black waves of pain and the searing flames of fury rush back into my soul. The contrast is so sharp that I forget what we’re doing for a second.
Then the plan flows back into my mind.
Alistair sets the fire and runs off. The soldiers chase him and search the houses. We ambush one of the soldiers when he steps inside. I break him with my magic.
My mind churns to catch up while also screaming at me tocreate another emotion so that I can feel that warm pleasure again.
What was the next part of the plan again?
Get Lavendera where we want her.
Right.
“You’re going to go out there and tell Lavendera that she needs to hide inside the thorn forest until you find the person responsible for the fire,” I order the soldier who is now sitting limply on the floor before me. “Tell her to follow the old road and wait for you just inside the tree line. And act normal. Then you come back here. Understood?”
He just stares up at me as if I’m the Queen of Hell herself who has come to claim his soul.
I kick him in the thigh to snap him out of it. “Understood?”
“Y-yes,” he stammers.
“Good.” I jerk my chin. “Get to it.”
Boots scuff against the floor as he scrambles up from the ground. He casts another terrified look at me, followed by one at Draven, and then hurries out the door. Draven and I walk up to the edges of the window so that we can peer out without being seen from the outside.
Out on the street, one of the other soldiers from the Silver Clan darts out of the building that Alistair escaped through earlier. But he has apparently not figured out that our little pyromaniac jumped out of a window at the back, because he just runs to the next building and kicks that door down before darting inside to search for a fae man who is long gone by now.
Lavendera is standing a little farther up the street, frozen in the place she was in when Alistair set the fire. Her pink and purple eyes are surprisingly clear and focused as she stares at the door that Alistair ran in through. If she saw that that was where he went, she hasn’t shared it with her guards.
The soldier that I broke runs up to Lavendera. Since people are still screaming and running around a short distance awaywhile trying to put out the fire in the wagon, I can’t hear what the guard says. But he points in the direction of North Gate and then makes a motion for her to hurry. She frowns at him but then starts in that direction.
My heart leaps into my throat when she takes off at a run instead of walking.
The others can technically handle the next part on their own. But I want to be there. I want to be the one who kills her. But to do that, we need to somehow get there before her.
Silver armor appears in front of me as the soldier runs back in through the door. His eyes, still a strange mix of terror and emptiness, are wide when he skids into the room.
I slam another wildfire of fear into his chest.
Pleasure washes over me again.
