War of the Princes 03: Monarch (26 page)

Chapter 44: In the Ballroom and Falling

Emptiness surrounded me. I was utterly alone. There was no one to reach for. Nothing to hold. That's what it feels like to fall. The world around me moved like a series of still frames. I existed for an eternity in each moment. Some part of my consciousness read the weight of the trouble I was in, gauged the distance from the balcony to the tawny, marbled ballroom floor, and knew that I was going to die.

My eyes saw the Empty who threw me take another step, grounding himself from following after me. His burned torso twisted and he turned back to face the ruined blue room. I saw the few paintings that remained hanging, the space where Dylan's body dented the wall, and the giant chair that Kyle had been staring at. The railing that I'd been flung over was low, and made of twisting, silvery gold metal. The gilded green ballroom swallowed me, stealing my view of the blue room. I'd been plunged into a royal hall inspired by the most regal of forests. Insinuations of trees struck up the walls, tumbles of foliage inspired the decor, crystal chandeliers were like clouds of dewdrops, and the ceiling was painted like the night sky.

My eyes saw all of those things in remarkable detail, but my mind saw other events entirely. My dad sat in the old chair where our kitchen met the living room
–the one that was ripped and worn, but too comfortable to throw away. He held me and sang to me, and told me that he would always be with me. That was the night my mother had left us. The rare storm had thundered over us, but I felt safe.

There was the day I'd gone to school and found out that the new boy with the cast on his arm would be sitting beside me. He'd made a lot of jokes and told me that his name was Kyle Kiteman. I saw my step
-mom Kassey holding my little brother Kevin for the first time. I saw the day I'd met Ruby. Her hair was black before her parents began letting her color it red. I thought she might have been the only girl I'd ever known who wouldn't wrinkle her nose at me if I jumped in the mud.

Countless memories of my life in Haven poured like a waterfall through my mind and through my heart, with one resounding plea: Not yet. When my flashbacks caught up with Rune, they held still. He'd lost everyone who mattered to him. I wouldn't leave him alone in this world. My friends needed me, Rune needed me, Haven needed me, but most of all, I needed me. There was too much I wanted to see, too much I wanted to do. I would not allow half of my life's canvas to be blank. I would not haunt the world in search of lost dreams. I would live!

Air gusted around me, too thin to hold me up. The bottom of my stomach dropped. My lungs squeezed. My heart battered my ribcage. When my body reflexively sent pangs of warning through my nerves, telling me instinctively that I was not long before the pain, I used the Pull to reach for the Spark within me. The result was a clarity that I had never experienced before. I had literally found a part of me by tapping into the core of my own connection with myself.

I am Katelyn Kestrel and I
–will–not–die!

Summoned by my silent call, thunder boomed outside, rattling the foundations of the ballroom. Branches of lightning exploded from my arms, my legs, and my back, burying their points in the immaculate floor. Ropes of electricity scraped down the nearest wall like cat claws through tree bark, leaving dark scorch marks in their wake.

Each bolt of lightning bred smaller, thinner tendrils, until my back was bristling with angular quills. Electricity cracked and deafeningly, I answered the sky with thunder of my own making. The power of a thousand bolts of lightning cushioned my fall, a mere seven feet from impact.

I lost my breath, staring up at the falsely starry sky, the green and gold, and the chandeliers. Everything sparkled in the luminescence of my light. Was that really me?

I hung there for the shortest of moments, and felt a tingling sense of fatigue: something Rune had warned me about. Abilities are like any other physical activity. If you overdo it, you get tired. That was the idea, more or less. Aside from the day I'd defended myself from Commander Stakes, and lit up the night with an electric white tree, I'd never felt truly exhausted. I'd never met my limit. As the breath quickened through my lungs, I wondered if I'd found the edge of it.

Blue light glowed from the room beyond the balcony and my eyes narrowed. It was so high up. Too far. But when the blue light flashed, I didn't care. Pride filled me, as rich and strong as my own Spark. Headly, the Empty, Prince Raserion, none of them could stop me. I could not be beaten.

My lightning stretched, pushing me up with the strength of its energy until I was standing on the beams that bristled from my legs, waist and torso. A cloak of lightning draped long from my back, like a pair of downcast butterfly wings. Striking out in all directions, my electricity clawed up the walls, pushing, pulling, and elevating me to the foot of the balcony. It was strange, standing on nothing, but feeling the security of an energetic force holding me up. The ground pressed away from me at a dizzying rate, but I didn't distract myself with the threat of heights. When I reached the balcony, Hussar Prie was fighting for her life with the unburned Empty. Dylan was still lying where he'd fallen.

Headly
, himself, stood over Rune with a rifle in his hands. His guards, Hussars and infantry soldiers stood behind him, readily awaiting orders. Rune's wall of fire had retracted.

I didn't arrive in silence. I couldn't exactly pull off a sneak attack, but that didn't mean that no one was surprised to see me. My lightning cracked and burned, starting fires where it touched cloth or candle, or dry wood. Everything was hot and bright. I floated just outside the balcony. When the soldiers caught sight of me, their faces went slack and their jaws dropped open. Some of them armed themselves with sword or pistol, and many shielded their eyes from my piercing light. The charred Empty was face down, only a few steps from where he'd thrown me. Enough electricity could stop a heart whether a person could feel pain or not.

“Put the rifle down, Headly,” I told him.

Not even Headly was prepared to see me.
“What the hell
are
you?”

My nerves
prickled at the insult and a vine of electricity ran up my back, snapping out to sever a chandelier from its hangings. Sparks flew, and the many glass and crystal petals struck together like the music of a wind chime in a storm, before shattering upon the ground. “I'm Katelyn Kestrel. I'm a Lodestone from Haven. And I accept your surrender.”

“
Surrender?” Headly chuckled, squinting up at me. “To you? You are no Lodestone, you're not even human,” he said, moving the wide barrel of his flintlock rifle to face me.

“
Katelyn,” Rune said, pushing himself up onto one knee.

I reached out a hand to look at it. My skin and clothes were glowing white, cross-hatched with tendrils of lightning. My orange scarf and clothes snapped away from and against my body as though affected by a jagged wind. I touched my face and found it cushioned by the same electric padding. Only my eyes were free, electricity curling away like the absence of a mask. When had it covered me? My lungs sank, and I felt a moment of exhaustion sweep over me.

“Let's not make this about me.” My lightning lashed onto the railing, twining and squeezing it. I floated over the rail, and pulled the Spark away from my feet before I touched the ground. I wasn't about to charge the floor and kill everyone in the room. Coaxing the element back into hibernation proved to be more difficult than I'd ever imagined. Where I took the lightning away, more of the branches sprouted like barren wings from my back. I took in a deep breath and forced myself to subdue the power. My brightness dimmed, but only a little.

The Empty with the gaping wound in his stomach had battered Hussar Prie into the wall and hefted his barbed fist, ready to deliver her a killing blow. With my arrival in the corner of the room, the light even stole
his attention for a moment. Prie leaped to her feet like a cat, snatching up one of the metal, robotic flowers that lay on the ground. She spun, holding it like a sword. As she moved, a sheet of ice grew over the flower until it formed a thick and brutal blade of its own. Vaguely visible beneath the rippling blue and white surface, the flower remained like a bone beneath flesh.

Prie ducked his swinging blows and sent her blade straight into the Empty's heart, easily breaking the excess ice from her own arm, and leaving the weapon
embedded in its mark. The weakened Empty buckled over and fell to the ground.

Rune shot to his feet, jamming his shoulder into Headly's stomach. The Lord of Caraway buckled over and Rune quickly disarmed him. Favoring his side, he held the rifle in one arm, his finger resting on the trigger. Rune gripped Headly's shoulder with his free hand and kicked the man's legs out from under him.
“Drop your weapons or I fire.”

“
Shoot him!” Headly snapped at his soldiers.

“
I wouldn't listen to him,” I said in a singsong voice. I let the electricity drip free from my face, and my hair tumbled down my back, moving in the static as though tousled by the slightest draft.

Some of the soldiers clearly wanted to attack me. They were afraid and struggling to decide who the greater threat was: the Dragoon holding their leader hostage, or the lightning
-charged she-beast.

“
This is your final warning,” Rune said.

“
Fire, damn you!” Headly spat.

I curled my hands together, pressing my lightning into a series of compact forms. When I opened my palms, a sea bird made of electricity burst free. Nearly as fast as light, I guided the bird to meet the weapons of the Hussars. Pushing a creation of the Spark through the air, unattached to myself wasn't only difficult
– it hurt. Just below the surface, my skin prickled and burned, but the bird struck true. Like a wave hitting the rocks, it collided with the line of guns and swords, steel and silver, one after the other, in a burst of sparks and light.

It would have
been easy to let the energy disperse into the metal targets. I could have let the electricity drive wholly into the steel, reaching its searing fingers up the length of the metalwork and into the soft, grounded flesh of their hands. That's what wild lightning would do. I could clear the room of enemies.

I could give all of them reason to fear me. I could blast them all, Headly too, and save my friends.

My own ruthlessness horrified me. I wouldn’t kill anyone. It wasn’t me.

Biting down hard, I focused on withholding the bird's energy. Each soldier was shocked and dropped their weapon. One gun misfired, its bullet striking the floor before the Hussar could let the electrically charged weapon go. Some grabbed their wrists or pulled their hands back, but all remained standing.

I staggered backward, relenting control of my electric bird. It slammed like a cannon into the far wall, burning through wallpaper and wood, and surged the electric lamps until they went out cold. Rune and Headly both jumped in reaction to the explosion.

The room dimmed only a little, and I cast eerie, jumping white light on the soldiers as they prepared to retaliate. One of them set their hands ablaze with orange flames in defense. Others used their Abilities to manifest weapons of gold, or bone, or ice. The pain beneath my skin receded, but
not completely.

Any moment now, the Hussars would obey their leader and overwhelm us.

A deep and booming voice consumed all other sounds in the room. “Lower the rifle.” It was Prince Varion... or his bodyguard at the very least. He filled the gap in the wall with his impressive bulk and stared at us through the slats of his helm.

Rune didn't remove the weapon from his target, but I saw him flinch against the power of the
bodyguard’s words. He tucked his arm against his side where he'd been struck with the Empty's barbed fist, stopping the blood from trickling down his waist.

“
What are you doing?” Kyle stepped out from the corner of the room. His hands were shaking, and though he hadn't fought, he appeared haggard. The thick black blood of an Empty was splashed across his shirt. “I thought you were on our side.”

The bodyguard looked down at him with a posture that suggested regret.
“I cannot take sides.”

“
You see?” Headly's voice was shrill and sharp as a knife. “Even the prince does not support you traitors!”

Wounded as she was, Prie limped forward and pointed at Headly as though she wielded a weapon.
“He obeys your command because he cannot do otherwise. Your rank is all that keeps him from standing with us at this very moment!”

“
How dare you speak such words before your prince!” Headly spat. “This is treason!”

“
Stay down!” Rune shouted at him.

My skin burned, and the heat pouring over me was unbearable. Half of the soldiers watched me, waiting to see what I would do. I took a slow step toward Rune, but was stopped short. Anything could set off the fighting, and I needed to be careful that it wasn't me.

The prince's bodyguard, who Headly insisted was the prince himself, strode forward. The ranks of Hussars parted, allowing him a generous berth as he joined us in the room. “Put down the weapon. I will not say it again.”