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CHAPTER NINETY

Ellery

My fingers bit into my arms before I lowered them to my sides. “I don’t want the prisoners to suffer either. What happened today was… was….”

I had to swallow the lump in my throat as memories of the day overwhelmed me. It took a couple of seconds before I could speak again.

“It was vile ,” I whispered. “It should never be done to anyone, ever , but if you try to rescue them, you’re putting everything we’ve worked to achieve at risk for immortals you don’t know. Immortals who we might still be able to help if we follow our original plan. We can’t do that if you’re dead or in a dungeon.”

“And how many pieces of themselves will they lose before then?”

The lethal quietness of Ryker’s tone was more frightening than his thunderous wrath. I couldn’t look at him as tears burned my eyes.

“How could you help them if you don’t rescue them?” Callan asked.

Ryker and I didn’t acknowledge his question as Ryker continued speaking. “I don’t care if I know them or not; I’m not leaving them there to suffer.”

“You could be casting thousands upon thousands of other amsirah into permanent suffering if you are captured or killed.”

The increasing constriction in my chest made my voice take on a shrill pitch at the end. When I spoke again, my voice was calmer but barely more than a whisper.

“You could be risking everything. You’re always saying I’m too impulsive and reckless, but you’re being that way now.”

A vein throbbed to life in his temple. “We won’t do anything reckless. We will have a solid plan before attempting to free them.”

I resisted stomping my foot like a child over his inability to see reason.

“Thousands upon thousands are already suffering,” Luna remarked.

My gaze shot to her as my irritation mounted. “Stay out of this. You don’t know what’s happening.”

Her eyes widened, then narrowed on me. Before she could say anything, Ryker growled at her, “Don’t.”

She took a small step back from the fury he emanated as she stared at us. “How the fuck did the two of you happen?”

Ryker and I both glared at her until she clamped her mouth shut. Ianto stepped closer to the siblings as he spoke. “It’s best for you both to stay out of this.”

As if afraid he might break them, they edged a little away from Ianto. At this point, Luna had more to fear from me than him as she was dancing all over my last nerve. I didn’t recall her being such a bitch.

Things have changed a lot… for all of us. And things were really bad for her at the earl’s.

The reminder of this caused some of my annoyance with her to fade. I didn’t know what she’d endured at home, but I knew it was far from good if she was willing to die to break free of him.

Most of the man’s servants had tried to destroy him. That wouldn’t have happened if they were happy.

I didn’t know her well when we were younger, but she was far from the girl I once kind of knew, and I sympathized with her. However, if she didn’t stay out of this, I was going to shoot a lightning bolt up her ass, and consequences be damned.

When it was clear the siblings wouldn’t speak again, I shifted my attention back to Ryker. “It’s not worth the risk, especially when we’re working to help so many other doomed souls.”

“It is to me.”

“Ryker—”

“This isn’t up for debate, Ellery. We’ll figure out a way to free them, and it will happen.”

My teeth scraped together as I stepped so close our chests brushed each other. “If the roles were reversed, and it was me who had suggested doing this, you’d refuse it.”

“And you’d do it anyway.”

“No, I wouldn’t do this.”

“You offered up your hand in place of Mouse’s.”

“I had a whole lot less to lose then and not as many amsirah counting on me. It was just me when I did that; now, it’s all of Tempest. What happened today was atrocious, and I never want to see anyone endure that again, but I know they will.

“It breaks my heart, but we’re trying to do good in this realm. If that falls apart because we tried to rescue these amsirah and failed, then what we saw today will happen again and again over the coming years. Now that the aristocrats and king have done this once, they’ll keep doing it.”

“What happened today?” Callan asked.

Ryker and I didn’t acknowledge him.

“This isn’t up for debate, Ellery,” he said.

“Damn it, Ryker!” I exploded. “You’re letting your past rule you.”

“Then so be it.”

Feeling as if he’d punched me in the stomach, my breath rushed out as a hopeless feeling swamped me. I knew he was stubborn, we both were, but I hadn’t expected this level of unreasonableness from him. What he’d witnessed today had unleashed his past and destroyed his common sense.

“If you do this, you’re not keeping me shut out of it.” This was the last chance I had of making him change his mind. If I refused to sit this out, he might change his mind. “I’ll be there too.”

He folded his arms over his chest as he stared down at me with his face a mask of stone.

“I’ll be there for every second of it,” I continued. “You can fight me on it, but that’s not up for debate either.”

When I hurled his words back at him, black started filling his eyes, and a lightning bolt flashed through them. Ianto, Callan, Luna, and Tucker all stepped away, but this sign of his unraveling didn’t deter me.

Instead of moving away like the others, I resisted the urge to step closer as, from deep within me, my ability rose toward his. It swirled through me as it sought to break free and join with his power like it had before.

My skin tingled with the impulse to finally set it completely free and reveal that two of us existed, but I dug my fingers into my palm to repress it. Tucker knew I was a lightning bearer, but outside of him and Ryker, no one else did… anymore.

My mother kept my secret until the day she died. The reminder of her loss was a sharp tug to my heart, but I couldn’t let my grief deter me from this.

Sorrow had no place here. Unfortunately, it had no place in my life at all right now as I hadn’t had the chance to sit down and mourn for all I’d lost.

My mother would never see me marry or meet her grandchildren. All the memories we would have made together had been eradicated by a spear, but she was gone, and I had to keep Ryker alive.