I tighten my hold on his throat and see fear enter his eyes. I"m not sure if Abaddon has ever felt true fear before this moment, but I know without a shadow of a doubt that he feels it now.
"Anna..." I hear Malcolm say beside me. "You"ve won and shown these people the coward that he is. It"s time to let him go."
"But I could end it so easily," I say.
"Not this way," Malcolm says. "You"re not a murderer, my love."
I hear the truth in Malcolm"s words, but I also know the line between leaving Lorcan alive and killing him is almost transparent.
"Anna..." Malcolm says, entreating me to do the honorable thing.
I release my hold on Lorcan"s throat and watch him fall to the floor onto his hands and knees, gasping for air. Two Stratus guards quickly come over to help lift their emperor to his feet.
"Free Kyna," I order.
Lorcan looks at me scathingly.
"As you wish," he says.
I watch as he brings up a set of holographic controls over the palm of his left hand and presses in a code. I hear Kyna scream as the cage she is in suddenly vanishes. She begins a swift freefall to the floor beneath her. Before I can react, I see Brutus phase in and catch her before she hits the floor.
I breathe a sigh of relief as Brutus sets her on her feet. Gently, he lifts the mesh veil covering her face, giving back her voice. I watch to see what her reaction will be as the two of them come face to face for the very first time in their lives.
Kyna looks at Brutus and smiles, but it"s simply a polite one as she says thank you. I guess I expected her expression to mirror the fact that her world suddenly felt like it shattered and was made whole again just by meeting her soulmate. Yet, she doesn"t look like that at all. There"s interest in her eyes as she continues to study Brutus, but not total recognition of who the man standing before her truly is.
"I don"t understand," I say to Malcolm as I continue to watch the interaction between Brutus and Kyna.
Malcolm looks over at them and seems to figure out what it is I"m confused about.
"I"ll explain it to you later," he tells me, walking over to where I dropped my sword and retrieving it for me before returning to my side. "Right now, we need to attend to your wound."
I look back at Lorcan, making sure he listens to what I have to tell him before I leave.
"We"ll be watching your every move," I warn him. "If we see anything we don"t like, you know what I"ll do to you."
"You have nothing to fear from me," Lorcan says, and I wish I could know for sure whether or not he"s lying to me. Simply by using my own judgment of his character, I a.s.sume he"s lying.
I notice Olivia watching our exchange and walk over to her.
"Thank you for your support in this matter," I tell her. "And I want you to know that I haven"t forgotten the promise I made to you. I do intend to keep it."
Olivia smiles wanly. "I know you will, Anna. Of that, I never had a doubt."
"You should probably leave now," I tell her. "I don"t think Lorcan will be in a very good mood for the rest of the evening."
Olivia laughs. "A very astute conclusion, my dear. I hope to see you again soon under better circ.u.mstances."
"So do I, Olivia."
Olivia teleports away, presumably back to Nacreous.
I turn to see Desmond and Jered are now standing by Brutus and know they will take care of Kyna for me. I briefly search the crowd to find the man I saw right before the fight, but he"s nowhere to be seen. Still, there is something about his presence that intrigues me, but I don"t know why.
"Let"s go home and see what we can do about your injury," Malcolm says, placing his hand on the small of my back and phasing us to his bedroom in New Orleans.
When we get there, Malcolm tosses my sword onto his bed then leads me to the bathroom. He makes me sit down on the small chair there while he fills the sink with warm water and dampens a washcloth.
"I suppose a healing wand won"t work on this wound," I say as I watch Malcolm carefully wash away the blood on my arm.
"No, it won"t," Malcolm confirms. "In fact, it might even leave a scar since it will have to heal naturally."
"That"s all right. I have a feeling it won"t be the last battle wound I get from this fight."
"It will be if I have anything to say about it," Malcolm declares determinedly.
"I guess I shouldn"t have taken the blindfold off so soon. But I wanted to see his face. I wanted to see him beaten. If you hadn"t stopped me, I probably would have killed him, Malcolm. I wanted to do it more than I would like to admit."
"But you didn"t," Malcolm reminds me.
"Only because you stopped me," I say, realizing it"s the truth.
I would have killed Lorcan if Malcolm hadn"t intervened when he did. My soul screamed for me to spill his blood while I had my hand around his throat and completely helpless to stop me. And...what would have been the harm in killing him? It probably would have saved us a lot of trouble later on. There wasn"t a doubt in my mind that I could have snuffed out his puny little life like I would a bug on the bottom of my shoe. He was nothing, and I could have turned him into that with just one thought. Perhaps I wasn"t supposed to take pride in my newly acquired powers, but how could I not? I was becoming the most powerful person on Earth and with each additional seal I retrieved, that power would grow exponentially.
"Anna..."
Malcolm"s simple calling of my name brings me out of my reverie. I look up at him and see the concern on his face.
"What were you just thinking about?" He asks me.
"I was thinking about how powerful I am," I admit. "And how powerful I will become."
"Being the most formidable person in the world means nothing if you don"t keep control of it," Malcolm tells me. "My greatest worry is that it will slowly take control of you without you even realizing it."
"I can handle it," I say with confidence. "I won"t let it manipulate me."
"I think it might already be testing you, Anna. Like you said, the only reason you didn"t kill Lorcan was because I stopped you."
"And why did you?" I ask. "You know as well as I do that it"s dangerous to have him in control of Stratus."
"And like you told him, we"ll be keeping an eye on him and what he does."
"But it would have saved us a lot of trouble if I had just killed him then and allowed Kyna to rule Stratus."
"That time may come in the future, but for the moment we need to concentrate on your mission. Abaddon understands how powerful you are now. He won"t try to go against you anytime soon. Right now, he isn"t a threat. If he becomes one, I won"t stop you from killing him."
I sigh heavily because I"m becoming tired of the conversation.
"I should go see Kyna," I say, changing the subject.
"Not until I st.i.tch up this gash," Malcolm says, pulling out a drawer in the vanity where a medical kit is stored.
It only takes Malcolm a few minutes to st.i.tch up my wound and bandage it. We both change into casual clothing before heading downstairs to find Kyna. If I know Millie at all, I suspect she has Kyna in the kitchen eating freshly baked cookies and drinking a gla.s.s full of cold milk. It was Millie"s idea of comfort food, and I have to admit it always worked on me.
We do indeed find Kyna and the others down in the kitchen enjoying milk and cookies. Kyna has taken off her gold feather jacket and veiled crown, allowing her wavy red hair to flow freely past her bare shoulders. Everyone is sitting with her at the table except for Brutus. For some reason, he"s keeping his distance from her as he stands leaned up against the doorframe.
As Malcolm and I reach him, I touch his shoulder to draw his attention.
"Thank you for catching her," I tell him. "I should have known Lorcan would try to ruin the moment."
"I didn"t keep my eyes off of her the entire fight," Brutus tells me. "With someone like him, you never know what he might do out of spite."
"Why aren"t you sitting with her?" I ask in a whisper.
"It"s too soon," he says with a small shake of his head. "She needs some time to get used to her new circ.u.mstances. I"m in no hurry."
"You angels and your self-restraint," I say with a smile of appreciation.
"Years of practice," Brutus replies with a grin.
I squeeze Brutus" arm for rea.s.surance before walking over to the table.
When Kyna sees me, I see tears cloud her sparkling emerald green eyes. She stands from her chair, walks over to me, and wraps her arms around me with a strength I wouldn"t have thought someone of her slight stature would possess.
"I don"t know how to thank you," she says, a small sob in her voice. "No one else had the gumption to stand up to him even though they knew what he was trying to do was wrong."
I hug Kyna back hoping the action will bring her some sense of security.
"There"s no way I would have just stood back and let him do that to you, Kyna."
Kyna pulls back from me, and I see that her tears are falling freely now.
"But you don"t even know me, Anna. We only met a couple of times in our lives. Why would you risk your life for me?"
"We could have never met before, and I would have acted the same way," I tell her. "Sometimes you just have to stand up for what you believe is right and fight those who would take advantage of their power over people. Lorcan was abusing his authority and had to be put into his place."
Kyna drops her arms from me and wipes away the tears on her face.
"I always knew you were strong," she says to me. "Even when we were children, you always held yourself in a way that made us all want to be around you."
"I did?" I ask. As an adult, I heard people mention the aura I had that naturally drew them to me, but I didn"t realize it was present while I was a child.
Kyna nods. "Yes, you did. Jered and Desmond were telling me about your plans to reform how the cloud cities rule the down-world. I want to do what I can to help you, if you"ll let me."
I smile. "Absolutely. We"ll need all the help we can get to make a difference. Though, it might take the rest of our lives to make it long lasting."
"I"m in it for a long haul," Kyna pledges. "I"ve never approved of the way we"ve treated them."
"I know," I tell her. "Desmond told me you tried to send down supplies to your own down-world when you could. Unfortunately, that can only do so much. We have to find a way to make sure they"re able to keep what they need to have a better life, but still provide the people in the cloud cities what they need to survive, not just what they want. I think we should to do away with the law that prevents down-worlders from having access to our technology. I don"t think it serves a purpose anymore. We need to help them learn how to use the technological advances we have to help improve their lives."
"I agree," Kyna says. "Just let me know what I can do to help."
"I will," I a.s.sure her.
I see Kyna"s eyes glance in Brutus" direction behind me before she leans in towards me and whispers, "Why does your friend keep staring at me? He hasn"t said much since he saved me from the fall."
"I think he might be a bit smitten with you," I whisper back.
I see a rosy hue dapple Kyna"s cheeks at my remark.
"Really?" She says, glancing briefly at Brutus with renewed interest. "There is something about him, isn"t there?"
"Yes, there is," I agree.
I still find it curious that Kyna simply acts interested in Brutus and not head over heels in love with him. I make a note to myself to ask Malcolm about the discrepancy between her reaction to her soulmate and mine.
"Do you happen to have some clothes I can borrow?" Kyna asks me. "I really don"t want to wear this stupid dress Lorcan made me wear any longer than I have to."
"I"m sure we can find something for you to put on," I say, wrapping one of my arms around hers. "Let"s go raid my wardrobe."
I begin to walk out of the room with Kyna by my side. When we pa.s.s Brutus, I see Kyna glance in his direction and bestow upon my friend a glorious smile. Brutus looks almost shy at her notice of him and lowers his eyes for a second as a pleased grin stretches his lips, and he looks back at her.
I give Kyna a brief tour of the house while we make our way up to my old bedroom.
"I"ll be moving my things into Malcolm"s room now that we"re married," I tell her. "So you can have this room for your own personal s.p.a.ce while you stay with us."
"I don"t want to be a burden," she begins to protest.
"Don"t even think of it that way," I tell her. "You"re our honored guest for as long as you want to be."
Kyna and I go through the clothes in my closet, and she settles on a dark blue V-neck sweater, a pair of dark grey slacks, and some comfortable slippers.
"We can get you some clothes of your own tomorrow," I tell her. "In the meantime, wear whatever you want of mine."
"Thank you," Kyna says, hugging me again before pulling back. "You know, this is the first time I"ve felt safe since my parents died."
"Were the rumors true?" I ask, curiosity getting the better of me. "Did Lorcan orchestrate their deaths? It seemed like a strange coincidence to all of us that they would die in a freak accident at the same exact time."
"I never found any definitive proof, but yes I believe he murdered them," Kyna says in disgust. "If I can prove it, I can pet.i.tion to have him imprisoned and take control of Stratus like my parents wanted."
I want to tell Kyna that her brother isn"t really her brother anymore, but I know now isn"t the time to bring her into the fold of secrecy that we live under. I"m not sure when we will, but I know it"s a decision we"ll all need to make together. Right now, she just needs to adjust to the new circ.u.mstances of her life.
"I"m sorry he killed your parents," I tell her. "I grew up without a mother and now Auggie has banished my father. So, I sort of know what you"re going through."
"I heard rumors that your mother died during childbirth here in the down-world. Is that true?"
I nod. "Yes. She did die giving birth to me."
"I"m so sorry," Kyna says. "My parents weren"t the best, but they were mine. I can"t imagine how different my life would have been without my mother"s presence in my life. I"m sure if your mother could see you now she would be proud of the person you"ve become. You"re a natural born leader, Anna. You"ll do great things during your reign."