The Reckless Reign (Book 3, The Culled Crown Series)

Chapter 32

Reubinon Palace, Pellarmus.

We collapsed together against the whitewashed walls of the palace, blood smearing like paint everywhere we touched. Each breath rattled in my chest, my every inhale nearly a cough. Smoke filled the air, separating the palace and beach like a swirling, opaque curtain. Next to me, Heidi spat blood onto the cobblestone at our feet.

In the distance, people screamed.

For a moment, I couldn't seem to get control of myself. I was shaking, trembling violently as I watched the beach. My ability was like a rubber band, bouncing and snapping and cracking against every spark, every flame, every ember. I felt the flare of the explosives before I felt the ground shake. I tried to catch hold of something, anything, but I didn't know what was friend and what was foe. By the time my ability had latched onto a thread of fire, it was gone and there was some new flood of heat beckoning to me.

Somewhere in that chaos, Cohen and Leighton were lost.

A massive boat carrying the flag of Pellarmus had crested the horizon to our left and was shooting at the thing in the water. The thing firing at us. At my friends. At me.

As the Pellarmi shot at it, it sank below the waves, but I knew it wasn't gone. This metal beast—whatever the hell it was—was not meant to float. It rose up and dove down. This was not a ship, but it had explosives and guns just like the Pellarmi one approaching it.

A boat but not a boat.

A monster but not a monster.

I felt Heidi shift beside me, moving to stand closer. Her fingers were cold as they pressed to my side, a little above my right hip. "You—You're bleeding."

Her voice was soft, more childlike than I'd ever heard. When I looked at her, her face was covered in sand and blood. Tear tracks cut through the dirt like white roadways leading down to her blood-soaked shirt. The cloth was torn to pieces, shredded with miniscule cuts, just like the pale skin beneath it.

"So are you."

"I'm fine." Her voice broke over the words. "I'm okay." She spoke to herself that time, a reassurance.

I gave her hand a tight squeeze. "Yes, you are."

She shook her head, as if trying to shake away her own shock and confusion. "You were shot. They—That thing...Monroe, it shot at us."

I nodded.

"It had an Erydian flag on it. I sa—saw it."

"We're fine," I said.

Her throat bobbed as she fought for words. "Why? Why'd it shoot at us?"

A silly question. A quiet born of shock and fear and million other emotions.

I stared out at the beach. That machine had gone below the water and was gone. The boat was heading off too, in pursuit I hoped. The smoke and dust of the beach was beginning to clear and I could see soldiers kneeling over where Cohen and Leighton had been when the attack started. I couldn't see them, but I knew they must be there.

There and hurt.

There and possibly dead.

Without thinking I moved forward, prepared to go back to the beach and help my friends, but before I could take even a full step, my legs gave out and I stumbled forward. Heidi caught me, the weight of my body nearly knocking both of us to the ground. She caught hold of a sandstone pillar and pulled me up, using it to support us.

A group of soldiers ran past us, shouting orders to one another. Heidi darted forward, leaving me by the pillar as she grabbed the coat sleeve of one of the soldiers passing us. The man stopped, seeming surprised to find a young girl holding onto him. Heidi's voice was lost in the ensuing chaos, but I saw the soldier's eyes dart to us. And even though I wasn't sure he spoke our language; her panic was a physical thing and he understood it.