Page 90 of Burn Her They Said
“Please!”
Dizziness, nausea, and panic infiltrate while the force of Fray’s power propels us higher and higher as he carries me—unwillingly—into the inky black depths of the sky.
“Godsdamnit, Fray! Say something!”
Wind whips over my ears, buffeting so loud I cannot make out any other sound. Tears stream down with the thought of how I must have missed the explosion going off.
Tendrils of panic form hearty vines, wrapping and constricting throughout my insides.
I need to see it. I need to hear it.
I need to know.
“If you do not stop, I will make you!”
Fray finally halts our ascension, holding onto me high above the Imperial Palace, while the light gray of his magical signature emanating from his form dissipates into the pitch-black sky. My heart hammers as I try to determine how long it’s been since we burst through the window. If there could still be time, or if it’s all too late now.
“Have you heard—” I falter, unable to ask him the question.
Though I need to know. I just don’t want any of this to be real.
“No,” he says, with a solemnity I recognize from the night Hendry died.
“Can you see any damage?” I ask, my tone coming out frantic.
He leans to the side, peering as far as he can over his shoulder.
“No, there’s too much cloud cover.”
“Then fly lower,” I demand.
“You know I can’t.” Resignation weighs every syllable.
“Godsdammit, Fray, please don’t make me manipulate you.”
“Tasch, please. I can’t. It’s not safe.”
“You think I care about what’s safe?” I scream into his chest, “Cirrin, Malin, Lars—” My voice breaks, and I can’t?—
I cannot say his name.
“I’m following Varic’s orders.” My heart lurches with his use of it. “He knows what he’s doing. They’re going to be okay. I promise.”
“Don’t.” I shake my head, and my heart constricts from behaving just the way he does anytime I make a promise about anything of which I have no way of controlling the outcome.
I press against his hand cradling the back of my neck. “How can you say that? Did you see the size of that thing?”
His chin bobs against my hair. “I haven’t heard it go off, meaning they either found a way to disarm it?—”
“It’s not possible.” I cut him off, body trembling. “Malin could have tossed it out to sea. But we would have heard the blast from under the water, which is shallow enough it would have wrecked the port.”
He nods again in encouragement.
“Cirrin’s healing isn’t capable of doing anything to diffuse or dispose of it, and while Lars could have run with the bomb, he couldn’t have made it so far we wouldn’t have heard it.
Force magic can shield from attack, either in or out, but it cannot contain the blast of a bomb—our Army has tried everything. A force-shield may protect them from the blast, but they would have had to be at a much farther distance, while the bomb would have detonated either way, and we would have heard it regardless.
Whoever shot it through the window would have calculated for each of these contingencies, ensuring it killed at least some of my Guards, weakening my protection so they might finally have a chance to assassinate me.”
