Chapter 52

Ryker

Ellery hoveredat my side while we watched the troops sweeping through the town. Samael led a contingent into the tavern; a few seconds later, shouts erupted, and amsirah fled the building.

Debris littered the street, and while some of it—like a couple of busted lightning rods, roof tiles, thatching, and windowpanes—was probably because of that wall of air, much of it was also from the troops.

Chairs, ribbons, clothes, and other assorted wares littered the streets. They could also be from the windstorm, but the soldiers weren't shy about heaving the merchants' wares into the dirt or tossing furniture from the buildings.

"What are they doing?" Ellery breathed, seeming to have gotten over her annoyance at me for not taking her straight to her manor.

"I don't know."

After a few minutes inside the tavern, some soldiers emerged; they dragged two patrons between them. The men yelled and kicked against their captors, but their efforts proved futile as the soldiers pulled them toward the center of town and threw them into a carriage with bars on the windows and doors.

More bars created the back and side doors. Five men and two women were clinging to those bars as they stared out.

"What could they have possibly done to deserve this?" Ellery whispered.

I didn't have an answer for her because I didn't know. More screams sounded as residents raced out of their homes and other establishments. As customers and guards shouted, tables and chairs flew out of the inn's doorway.

More soldiers kicked open the doors of the homes. Some of the residents fled into the trees, and while I would have liked to question them about what was happening, none of them came near us.

I decided against tracking them down. There was always later if it became necessary, but I suspected I'd get most of my answers from my father.

One of the men the guards chased stopped in the street. His hands moved as if he were trying to open a portal, but nothing happened.

The guard tackled him to the ground, burying his face in the dirt as he jerked the man's arms behind his back. Why didn't a portal open?

I was distracted from this question by a screaming woman who was kicking and punching at the guards carrying her out of the bordello. The guard held her back against his chest as she flailed to get free.

She didn't succeed, and they tossed her into another prison carriage I hadn't seen parked beside the blacksmith shop. More men and women filled the inside of it.

Another woman ran down the street; she stopped in the middle, planted her feet, and waved her hands. Again, no portal opened.

Are they even trying to open portals?

But why would they stop running if they weren't trying to open a portal to get away? It made no sense; I'd opened a portal to get to Nottingshire, so why weren't they succeeding in opening them?

By the time the guards finished searching the town, two more men and another woman filled the prison carriages. The guards retreated toward their horses on the far edge of Nottingshire while Samael stood in the street, surveying the wreckage.

The smile on his face made my upper lip curve into a sneer. What was going on here?

"We have to stop them from taking those people," Ellery whispered.

I grasped her arm before she could rush recklessly from the woods and get herself imprisoned in one of those carriages. I didn't think my intervention would save her from Samael's wrath this time.

"Your death won't help anyone, and neither will getting thrown into one of those carriages. I'm sure my father knows what's happening; I'll find out from him, but we'll get you to your mother first."

She bit her bottom lip as she looked from me to the town. Her torment was evident on her face, but in the end, concern for her mother and common sense won out.

"Open a portal," I told her.

Ellery slipped further into the woods as Samael strolled down the street, smiling at the cowering residents he passed. What happened to him?

He was never the kindest immortal, but he was never cruel, and I'd never seen him relish the suffering of others. I had no idea what changed him.

"Are you ready?"

I turned back to discover Ellery standing before the portal she'd opened. I frowned as I studied it while trying to understand what the amsirah in the town were trying to do when they stopped running and started moving their hands.

Why did they stop running and let themselves get caught?

"I am."

Together, we walked into the portal and emerged in the woods on the other side of her manor. Thankfully, no guards were raiding the place, but some thick thatching had blown off the roof, and a shutter hung at an angle.

The manor hadn't escaped the windstorm, but it hadn't been too badly damaged. Standing beside Ellery, I watched as she closed the portal.

What were they doing?

I couldn't get the image of the amsirah in Nottingshire stopping in the middle of the road out of my head. If Ellery and I could open portals, then why couldn't they?

Then, a sinking sensation settled in my stomach as a new possibility occurred to me. It can't be. There's no way.

But as I thought it, my hands started moving.