Page 82 of The Queen’s Shadow

Sofia was bringing her gavel down and shouting at Trenton to make her stop but the raging power was so loud, her words were torn apart by the storm that continued to grow around us.

I knew what happened to daemons who could not stop their energy from building. It would destroy her and tear her apart from the inside out. I launched myself over the banister and sprinted directly for Trenton. He was watching Nytara self-destruct before his very eyes, with a sadistic, satisfied look on his face. I realized suddenly that he had no intention of telling her to stop.

This was the demonstration. It was to show that through the slavery bonds, we had the power to fight this perceived enemy with their own power.

My hand fell to my waist instinctively, looking for my rapier, but I cursed, to find my hip empty. Weapons were not allowed in the Summit of Justice. My shadowstone rapier was no exception.

Fine. Time for plan B. I slid across the icy floor before Trenton, raising arms as I moved. I ripped the sheets of ice off the walls, forcing them into a liquid state.

The water wrapped around me in violent, thrashing, rings. Trenton met my gaze, and his expression soured.

“Let me speak in a language you understand.” I snarled, feigning an American accent, so there could be no room for confusion. “Tell her to stop now, or I will drown you where you stand.”

Trenton regarded me coolly, as if he were considering seeing if I would try.

Sofia herself had left her podium and rushed forward, along with Dossidian. Trenton glanced at Sofia, then back and me, before slipping back into his pompous mask, and shrugging.

“Nytara, stop.” He said simply.

With an excruciatingly painful wail that made my very bones ache, the storm around us abruptly stopped.

The sudden silence was echoing, and Nytara fell to her hands and knees. I watched her cough up blood, before falling even closer to the ground, resting her head on the icy floor.

The rest of the congregation had more or less scattered. Many had taken shelter beneath their tables or cowered in the back of the room.

It was not possible to exit a meeting once it had begun. There were wards that prevented it, for security reasons. After that little demonstration, I suddenly realized just how dangerous that was. If I had not been able to put a stop to this, and Nytara had self-destructed, there almost certainly would have been casualties.

They must see that? I looked out at the terrified congregation, expecting them to look at Blackwood with anger and fear. But they weren’t. They were looking at Nytara, their faces slack with terror and shock.

Several of them were looking out the windows. I followed their gaze and shuddered. The previously vibrant green mountainscape around us was now grey and white. So much snow piled around us that drifts climbed halfway up the cathedral windows. We were most certainly snowed in.

All of that had come from Nytara.

“Honorable Members of The Board,” Trenton continued, in an infuriatingly calm voice. He behaved as if he had not just ordered a daemon to nearly bury us in an avalanche of snow and ice. “If this is what one daemon is capable of, how can we trust them to wield this power wisely? In the three hundred years of Ash Nevra’s reign, we have lived in peace, and I personally believe, it is because she has managed to keep beings like Nytara here, under control with the bond that Mr. Brown would have you so hastily condemn.

“There are daemons with even more formidable powers than the one you see before you. The Prince of Pride can control shadows, a power he seems to share with The Origin’s Daughter, who seeks to free these violent creatures from the safeguards the Queen has placed around them. Safeguards that have kept us in a state of peace, and security.

“So I challenge you. Honorable Members of The Board, to decline Mr. Brown’s requisition on both fronts. Join me, in my effort to neutralize the threat against the Queen’s reign, so that we might resume the state of peace that we have been enjoying for the last three hundred years.”

Looking around the room, I knew that Blackwood had been successful in his demonstration. There was one emotion, even more dangerous than anger, my grandmother had told me.

Fear.

If Blackwood could keep the members of The Board afraid of daemons, they were unlikely to have a problem with the idea of keeping them under lock and key.

Hell, from the way everyone was looking at The Siren, I wondered if they might even demand it.

Amon

Ihad been in a constant state of pain since being separated from Raven. There was a dull ache in my chest that was so deep, it felt as if I were missing a limb. Each time I was reminded of her absence, it felt as if razor blades sliced through my veins. I often would glance at the floor, half expecting blood to be pooling beneath my feet, before remembering that the pain I was experiencing was not physical.

Visiting her through the trace had helped, but between the frequent bouts of torture I was regularly forced to endure, I had been doing my best to stay away. I didn’t need her worrying about things outside her control, not when she had so much on her plate already.

In an effort to distract myself from the fact that I felt like I was literally dying from the forced separation, I found myself reading the excruciatingly dull material that had been made available to me in my cell. When the door opened, I knew it would be Kieran before he entered. Despite my frequent fantasies, which entailed increasingly creative ways I might remove the wizard’s bones, a small part of me was grateful it was him. He was the lesser of the several flavors of evil that could have come to visit.

“Hello, Kieran,” I drawled, without looking up from my book. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Get up.” He ordered, and I sighed. The slavery bond roared to life, forcing me to stand up from my seat. I tossed the book on the small table by the bookshelf and gave him a bored look.