Page 199 of The Eye of the Fifth
They came for Kyra first, attempting to pull her away from the sister she had lost.
She flung herself over Rosary and screamed.
Full of the deepest sorrow, that scream launched both Wielders from her as soon as it left her mouth. One of them hit a pillar, body broken.The other smashed against the wall behind the throne, her head splitting on impact before she crumpled to the ground.
Kyra cried out as the bolts in her shackles shot into her wrists. Streaks of blood dribbled down her arms.
Gedeon surged for her, but High Wielders yanked him back, their magic seeping through his skin, immobilising him.
‘Hold her!’Empress Azar screeched.
Kyra was on her knees, body hunched over, cradling her broken, bloody wrists. A circle of High Wielders and sentries formed around her, weapons raised as though she were a wild animal. Gedeon watched her body contract as the same disarming magic that held him tried to take hold of her too.
She writhed, fighting it.
Then she became utterly still. Her spiralling hair hung heavy from her bowed head.
‘It did not have to be this way, Kyraena,’ the Empress said softly, descending the steps toward her. ‘Dear Rosary did not have to die. I want you to remember that the next time I present you with a similar choice.’ Without taking her eyes from Kyra, she commanded Hossean over her shoulder, ‘Fortify their chains and lock them away in the same cell the girl was kept in. Let the woman’s lingering scent be a reminder of-’
Her voice trailed away as Kyra lifted her head. A stark, bone white gleamed where her pupils and iris’ should have been.
Sharply, the Empress said to the High Wielders, ‘Why are you not holding her?’
‘We’re… we’re trying,’ one of them bleated.
Kyra’s pearly gaze remained fixed on the Empress. She stood, and blood dripped to the floor from her open wrists. There was nothing of the female Gedeon had come to know in that blank face.
In a voice void of emotion, Kyra said, ‘Die.’
The Throne Room jolted.
Dust rained down from newly formed cracks in the ceiling. Another tremor, and Xusyn’s leering face was sliced through the centre.
The shackles at Kyra’s wrists began to glow. From red, to orange, to bright white, until they were deduced to scalding liquid at her feet. The sheer heat of it, even at a distance, licked over Gedeon’s skin.
Kyra inhaled deeply, then sighed the breath out.
‘Hold her!Hold her!’ The Empress screamed.
A band of High Wielders attempted to detain Kyra again, but as they drew close, a ring of refined sunlight sang from her heart, obliterating them where they stood. More came, whipping iron chains around her body. The moment they made contact with her shining skin, they melted.
‘Empress! We must get you to safety!’ Hossean cried. It was a shock to Gedeon that the arrogant fool had the good sense to flee.
Gedeon beheld his mother’s face, torn between horror and awe at the earthling whose power had become her.
Another tremor threw the High Wielders who held him off balance, and the magic holding him broke.
Splinters streaked up the pillars upholding the Old Gods. The thousand year old marble flooring began to split beneath their feet. Soon, the moat of lava surrounding the castle would surge through the cracks. Kyra was minutes away from destroying the entire castle. Along with everyone in it.
As the High Wielders still fumbled to regain their balance, Gedeon took his chance.
He ran to her, throwing his arms up to his face as she let another lethal band of sunlight attempt to destroy him. His darkness soared to meet it, and before his own shackles could penetrate his wrists as hers had, her light hit them. They melted to the ground.
At that moment, Kyra did not know him. Gedeon doubted if she even knew herself.
Screams pierced the air as the trembling ground rose and fell, as fissures of earth claimed mortals to the depths of its fiery belly. None could fight it. None could best the destruction that Kyra rained down upon them.
Everyone was fleeing her wrath. Desperately dodging the stony deluge that had already claimed the lives of helpless sentries.
