NOVEL NEXT Chapter 83: Enough
Rae flung herself between rooftops, the thrill of Fulminancy singing through her veins. She was part of the storm—a piece of power and energy separated from the clouds only through her corporeal form. Not for the first time, she marveled at the song of destruction and freedom thrumming in her veins. If anything, she was freer than ever without the Council's whims to attend to. It had been a bad deal to begin with—a bargain struck out of desperation for a sense of purpose after Reina's death.
Kess had been right to remind her what really mattered. She wouldn't honor Reina's memory by begging for scraps at the master's table. Perhaps she couldn't kill the entire Council alone, but with Kess's help and her own burst of power thanks to the Ashfall, Rae found herself more optimistic by the day.
Kess and her group were odd, but it was almost enjoyable to work with others again—particularly those she didn't loathe. Unfortunately, her alliance with Kess meant that she now had to pay more attention to average people than she had before. It was hard to go back to that uncaring, unfeeling creature from before the Archives, when Kess had offered her another chance at life. A true chance at freedom. So, instead of flying through the city to join the storm, Rae found herself worrying about the poor wretches below. The storm was beautiful, but the caravans crawling through the streets below soured her mood a bit.
Rae wasn't sure what they were being used for, but from her personal experience with the Council, it was nothing good. She landed with a wet thump on another rooftop, eying the caravan far below. The wagons were loaded with people, but oddly, they were Duds. Like most Fulminancers, Rae had a rudimentary idea of whether someone had powers or not. These people below thumped with the same energy that Rowan did as he strutted about the manor, pretending to be in charge and also pretending not to be in love with Kess.
Briefly, Rae wondered what that might be like—to love someone. She'd known nothing but her Fulminancy since losing Reina. Her tentative partnership with Kess was based primarily on mutual enemies, and even that could change at a moment's notice. She shared a home with these people, but were they really hers? Somehow she doubted it.
Her powers would have to be enough, as they always had been.
Rae wound her Fulminancy into her boots and leapt again, flying through the air with a flash that lit up the vapor around her.
Fifteen minutes later, the caravan drew to a stop at an odd place. Rae cocked her head, watching them from a nearby chimney. The palace loomed overhead, which was mostly used as a bureaucratic base these days. If there had once been a benevolent royal family on the throne, Rae had never known it. The Council had replaced them so long ago that few even remembered there was a royal family.
Spires and rods—ornate and yet not very well-maintained—climbed into the sky, where they tangled with the lightning in the tempest. During Lightstorm season, it was a beautiful sight, but here the effect was ruined by the rain and debris of the gale.
The caravan pulled up to one of the lower levels of the palace, passing multiple guards on the wall as it passed through a yawning entrance, wagons and all. Rae frowned, watching them. There might be a courtyard on the other side, but without knowledge of the palace grounds, she had no way of knowing. Most of her meetings with the Council had been in attached buildings, but she'd never been in the palace proper.
The guards would be easy enough to bypass, she figured. When the wagons were out of sight, she gathered her Fulminancy in her boots and leapt, landing silently in the shadows of the entrance. She'd missed clipping her own head on the wall by inches. Rae smiled. If the guards had noticed a flash through the air, they would assume it was the storm overhead. Maybe the storm wasn't so bad after all.
The wagons were emptied in a large, echoing chamber, and the prisoners were escorted down a series of hallways. Rae kept to the shadows, a lifetime of being on the run tempering her every step. It was foolish to be here, given that the Council itself wanted her powers, but what good were they if she couldn't use them?
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There was also something in her gut that told her she needed to get to the bottom of the wagon situation. Perhaps intuition, perhaps a series of observations made during months of rescuing the wagons when she could. Something wasn't right. The guards were uncomfortable, the people too normal for imprisonment. Gone were the criminals and Fulminancers of before, replaced by families, children, and average Downhill people. Whatever it was, it couldn't be good. Kess had mentioned Mariel herself claimed the Council was using them to bolster their powers. Rae didn't really believe in visions or anything so ephemeral, but certainly what she saw here so far was damning.
Rae followed the group until the prisoners were led into a smaller room. A holding cell, then? She stayed pressed against the alcove she'd found, ready to leap in case of errant guards. She expected them to remain there, guarding the prisoners, but after locking the door, they quickly left, walking away from Rae. She scowled. Why leave no guards on a room stuffed with prisoners?
Peeking around the corner, she spotted a solitary window that overlooked the prisoners, adorned with bars. It was too small for anyone to crawl through, but gave her enough of a view to see prisoners slumped on the floor or leaning against the wall with malaise. She fought her sense of disappointment. She'd come all this way and risked her own life for what? A bunch of prisoners stuffed in a holding cell? It was more pedestrian than what she'd expected.
Still, at least it was normal. Maybe the Uphill was just running low on workers, with the storm raging overhead. Inwardly, she sighed, turning to go.
That's when she felt it.
Her eyes snapped back to the prison, where Fulminancy gathered in the chamber—only it wasn't quite Fulminancy. It buffeted instead of crackled, was the blunt force to her own Fulminancy's sharp snap. It filled the room all the same, and the people began screaming.
Rae had seen a lot of less than pleasant things in her life, but even her stomach rebelled at what was taking place in the room. She stared, frozen, as the men, women, and children convulsed, their skin turning pale and sickly, their limbs twisting at odd angles.
It happened so fast, there was nothing she could do.
The Fulminancy stopped, and a pair of footsteps echoed down the hallway, their stride authoritative. A dark-haired man approached and inspected the room beyond, where people still convulsed and moaned, his flank protected by a pair of guards who shifted on their feet. A scribe huddled behind him, even more nervous.
"This batch is satisfactory," the man said to the scribe. "See that they—"
He was cut off as a pale limb reached across the entire room, through the bars, to snatch at his clothes. He leapt back with such grace that Rae was certain he was Fulminant, and the limb dangled outside of the bar, limp. The man kicked at it, and it snapped back through the bars.
"See to it that we have a larger room for the next batch," he said, and strode off down the hallway, his entourage in tow.
Rae pressed her back against the wall, fighting to control her breathing. Whatever this was, she wanted no part in it. She would tell Kess's group what she had found and wash her hands of the whole thing. It was the only—
Rae's thoughts were interrupted as a clammy touch brushed past her arm and snagged her leg—she stared in horror as a long arm stretched from the cell beyond, all the way down the hallway to where she stood huddled in the alcove. How did it—
Rae didn't think. She reached for her powers, pushed them through her limbs, and found them—
Missing.
Fulminancy crackled to life on her right side, but not her left, where the creature had touched her. She conjured her Fulminantic sword in her right hand anyway and sliced at the creature as it dragged her down the hallway by her ankle.
The sword cut nothing and fizzled out where it met flesh.
Panicking, Rae reached for steel. As the creature tugged harder, slamming her body into the stone, she fumbled her knife from her belt and rolled, slicing. A hiss erupted, and the arm snapped back into the room ahead, leaving Rae in a heap on the floor.
She scrambled to her feet and ran. Her flight left no room for subtlety, and seconds later, she faced a patrol of Witchblades. Limbs still dead from the creature, Rae had no chance to dart past them.
They raised their weapons, and one of them grew several feet.