23. Jonas

Chapter 23

Jonas

Still Charming, Still a Djinn

I felt the magic within Alandra turn as well, and I grew concerned. The Aellei were more than magic users. They were magic itself. Alandra's power rivaled anyone's in this room, to include the conspicuously absent Arim.

"They killed her. Our mother . A loving, giving woman who never hurt anyone. She was so good, so pure. She accepted me. Truly loved me, and now she's gone." Alandra made a shriek that sounded inhuman, and reminded me she was Shadren, a cousin to those awful Nocumat I hated.

"Alandra, try to relax," Aerolus said calmly. "We all love and miss her, purie. But there is nothing we can do to bring her back. We can only serve her people now, as she'd want us to."

He drew her into his arms and let her weep, and the other women started sobbing. The Storm Lords were far from unaffected. I felt their pain, though they each tried to battle through it.

Though I tried not to overindulge, I began feeling the effects of so much negative emotion. Before, I'd been unsteady due to a lack of blood. Now, I felt woozy from imbibing too much power. Magically weakened from my altercation with the Netharat, I was having a tough time shielding myself from absorbing so much pain.

"I'm sorry. I have to get out of here for a minute. Too much energy…" I flashed out of the room and into the courtyard outside the walls of the western keep. A mistake I immediately realized.

A throng of angry and grief-stricken Light Bringers mustered around several Church brethren spitting Light Bringer doctrine. The large group was intent on their holy gathering — that I'd interrupted.

Silence settled while everyone's eyes narrowed on me .

"There, see?" One of the Light Bringers sneered and pointed a finger at me. The thin, gangly older man wore a long brown robe and sported a staff affixed with a large, milky-white stone. The stone glowed brighter, likely protesting my presence.

Fucking Light Bringer opal.

The churchman continued, "It is as Ordinary Nohjen proclaims. ‘The Light shall ferret the evil Darkness from our world and send it back where it belongs. Holy is the soul that cleanses the impure from its pores.'" He pointed at me. "His kind killed our queen. It is our bound duty as Light Bringers to send this spawn back to hell whence he came. Death to the Darklings and Shadren of our world. Death to all who would welcome them. Down with the Storm Lords. The time has come for a new regime to lead us back into the Light."

All they needed were pitchforks and torches, I thought with amused dismay. I knew I shouldn't have thought of this rebellion as humorous, but the overindulgence of energy I'd consumed couldn't stop my shit-eating grin.

Mistake number two.

The Light Bringers found nothing funny about me and roared their disapproval as they tore past the churchmen toward me. Brother Pain In the Ass turned the opal on me on full blast, stifling my ability to teleport.

Sharp nails and bony fingers prodded my already tender flesh, barely healed courtesy of Ellie, while I fought for sobriety and escape.

"What, by the Light's Mark, is going on here?" Arim's voice sounded heaven-sent as I fought the press of bodies suffocatingly close. "Brother Forde?"

The lead churchman pointed to me. "This creature lives and breathes while our overqueen is dead," he spat, his now silent companions nodding like thoughtless drones. Brother Forde's eyes narrowed, and he sneered with a savagery that reminded me of Sin Garu. "And you, oh great Guardian of Storm, bring with you a king of Shadow and a Dark Lord spawn. Our enemy stands freely by your side. What incredible hypocrisy!

"Your friends are the reason Tanselm is no longer safe. They kill our children, feasting on innocent flesh. Yet they walk beside you as equals." Forde's face turned beet-red, and spittle flew from his mouth as he screamed, "Did you conspire to kill our beloved queen? Are you in league with Sin Garu, as surely as you are with this Dark slut?" Forde glared at Lexa.

The crowd quieted in shock. As the silence settled, Brother Forde darted furtive looks around him. Probably looking for an escape route, I thought with contempt. Even Forde must have realized he'd gone too far.

I squirmed to be released and looked for Arim and the others. What I saw made me shiver. Arim's brewing fury stirred my Djinn soul to respond.

Unfathomable Darkness in one so full of Light.

I watched the spectacle unfold in awe, aware I watched Light Bringer history in the making. Sava, I noted absently, looked none the worse for wear. While I had been fighting Netharat and teleporting into Dark strongholds all over the known worlds looking for signs of Sin Garu, Sava looked as if he'd been frequenting expensive salons.

The Aellein king's long, white-blond hair lay perfectly straight and shiny over his shoulders. Long now when I could have sworn it had been shorter not long ago. His pristine — again white — overtunic and trousers didn't have a smudge or wrinkle to mar their silken perfection, and his skin glowed with vigor as he stared at Arim, waiting with everyone else to see the sorcerer's reaction.

But the sight of Lexa shocked the hell out of me. She looked like Arim's other half in similar Light Bringer battle garb. Her skin glowed, a pale cream that shone under the moon's ambient light, and the inky swell of her hair framed a face too beautiful to be real.

Her light-blue eyes whitened with anger as she stared at the masses glaring back at her, and I could feel her readying to blow them all to hell. A sentiment I supported.

Arim focused on the mouthy churchman, his eyes turning a rainbow of color that, I had learned, promised nothing remotely pleasant. With a flick of his wrist, Arim lifted Brother Forde from his small platform in the courtyard several feet above the crowd. The man clutched his throat and gasped, his face red and his eyes bulging as he struggled to breathe.

"You dare malign me to our people when we are at our most vulnerable? You would attack me , chosen protector of the Light Bringers, chosen by Tanselm herself?" Arim snarled, his eyes inhumanly bright. The crowd cowered yet remained transfixed, like me, at the wreck sure to follow. "My sister, your queen, lies dead. And you rally our people to war with themselves?"

Sava tried to interrupt. "Arim —"

Lexa shook her head. "No, Sava. Let me. These fools think to ally with the force that probably took the queen from us in the first place."

All eyes fixed on Lexa, who stared with seething hatred at Brother Forde and his followers.

"What? Cursing the Djinn and Aellei here isn't enough?" She glared at the crowd. "None of you, even those sorcerers in the back, can feel the Dark taint of Sin Garu in these ‘stalwart' Light Bringer churchmen?"

Arim growled and threw the floating churchman fifty feet through the air into a towering rilk tree. The man hit the thick trunk with a solid slam and slid to the ground, blood streaming from his ears. But Arim wasn't through. He turned on the crowd and expanded , literally grew into a giant as he addressed them, his size lending his voice an immense broadcast.

"You will not support any stance on insurrection and live, not in my presence. After all King Faustus and Queen Ravyn have done for you, after all their sons have sacrificed and worked to protect this land and her people — you miserable fucking Light Bringers — none of you will do anything to jeopardize our fight against Sin Garu, do you hear me?"

I wondered how any of them might not hear him, as loud as Arim shouted. The bodies pressing close scattered like the wind as the giant sorcerer stomped toward me and lifted me to my feet with the tip of his forefinger. Arim continued toward the castle, gradually diminishing in size until I jumped free, and he regained his natural bearing.

Several feet from the castle wall, he stopped, turned around, and glared at Lexa, Sava and me. "Well?"

Sava and I quickly joined him, but Lexa stared at him as if seeing him for the first time.

"Come on, Blue, I don't have all day," Arim muttered, sounding much more like himself. The rough tenderness in his tone completely floored me.

I glanced from Lexa to Arim and back again and grinned like an idiot. "It worked. Hot damn."

Arim glowered. "You're not out of the fire yet, Darkling."

Lexa added her displeasure with a blast of cold that had my teeth chattering before she turned on her heel to follow Arim. But Sava winked at me before he followed.

I couldn't believe our plan had worked to bring the stubborn couple together. Now we just had to settle the Storm Lords before they wiped the land of all creatures Dark and Shadow, and to finally find out what Sava might have learned about our enemy's whereabouts.