going to my mouth as men cried out in half-heard pain and fell to the floor in the sudden firestorm.
Bullets embedded themselves in the wall. Glass shelves shattered to spill priceless elven artifacts in a mix of jewels, glass shards, and wood splinters. And then it was over and all I could hear were Trent’s and Zack’s harsh breaths. The cries of the downed men were muted and the air was getting stuffy. Under the influence of Hodin’s curse, a circle would hold the baku. If I cared to catch it.
I slowly stood. Trent had never ducked, never flinched, ramrod straight with his eyes fixed on Landon across the dusty room. The leader of the dewar had put himself in a circle, too, but his men were dead or dying.
“Let me out,” Zack said, his face ashen. “I never meant to hurt anyone.” He turned to Trent, his young face pinched in agony. “I never meant to hurt anyone!”
My throat filled with a hard lump as I remembered realizing I could kill someone by just being stupid. “It happens,” I said, not knowing what else to say. “Go fix it.”
Trent touched the bubble, and it dropped. My gut twisted at the louder groans and pants of Landon’s security. As if in a war zone, the wounded dragged themselves to the dying, their own pain ignored as they tried to save one another’s lives.
Landon stayed where he was, safe in his circle.
Zack lurched to the first, his bandaged hand outstretched. Jenks was already flitting from huddle to huddle, dusting the bleeding to help stanch the flow.
“You know who I am,” Trent said to the one officer who had escaped with nothing more than a shoulder wound, and the man looked up from the person he was trying to save, pain in his eyes. “This is between me and the former head of the dewar. I’m speaking now for the current head of the dewar, Zachariah Oborna. Agree to cease your actions against us, and there will be no repercussions. We’ll get you medical attention as soon as we can.”
But Zack was already among them, tears spilling from him as he murmured powerful word after powerful word. Landon watched in jealous disgust as his underling healed and mended with a skill and finesse that was so smooth and sure, it had to be from a lifetime of experience, a lifetime that Zack hadn’t lived, but his predecessor had.
I stood straighter as Jenks came back to me, weary but satisfied. By his confident nod, I knew they would all live. Better, Zack would likely never act out of fear again. Pride filled me when Zack stood, slim and untidy in his jeans and T-shirt, his hands bloodied and a smear of red under his eye where he had wiped his youth away and become a man.
“What say you?” Trent said, his voice holding an unfamiliar formal cadence as Zack stood heartsick at what he had done.
One by one, the men looked among themselves. One by one, they set their weapons down. And one by one, they all inclined their heads to the new leader of the dewar.
Landon shook with anger as he hid in his circle. “I am the dewar! Me! She’s a demon whore who tricked the strength of the Sa’han from him and destroyed his name. Bankrupted him! She will do the same to us. To you!”
“Why does everyone think I don’t have any money?” Trent muttered, annoyed.
“Take them, or I swear your names will be struck from the rolls and you will be shunned!”
I coughed at the settling dust, then squinted up the stairway. The pounding had stopped, but I doubted the guards had given up. “We can’t walk out of here and leave him,” I said, and Trent sighed, clearly agreeing though it would have been easier. “Sure, these guys like Zack, but there’s an entire building of angry elves up there.”
“Fine,” Trent almost grumped. “Try not to knock him unconscious.”
“I got just the thing.” I could still feel Trent’s strength in me through Hodin’s curse. I took my time, pacing forward as I readied a spell that Al had tormented me with for months until I figured out how to block it. It was almost a joke curse—unless you didn’t know how to break it. Taking down the circle Landon was hiding in would be easy, seeing as the Goddess wasn’t speaking to her so-called favorite children at the moment.
“Corrumpo,” I said, whispering so I wouldn’t blow a