House of Dragons (Royal Houses #1) - K.A. Linde Page 0,140
that Kerrigan had cleared for him, and before Basem could get another shot off, Tieran slammed his bulk into Basem. He flew backward twenty feet and landed on his back with a crunch, continuing to roll a few times. The gray orb shot from his hand and skittered harmlessly against the cobblestones.
“The orb,” she shouted at Fordham as she jumped up and ran for Basem.
Fordham was already on his feet, running to grab the weapon Basem had been wielding. Kerrigan dashed for the man who had done so much damage in her life. She scooped him off the ground with a burst of air magic, cocooning him in a tight cyclone as she wrenched his arms back.
Basem’s mask had fallen off in Tieran’s attack, and a cut at his eyebrow was dripping blood into his eye. “This… isn’t… over!”
“I think it is,” she spat at him as Society members flooded the street. “I think it’s finally over.”
“We can take it from here,” a guard said, stepping up to her and putting a hand on her shoulder. “You can let him go.”
Kerrigan hadn’t realized how tightly she’d been holding on to her magic until she was told she could release it. She set Basem back down onto the ground and took a step backward. A pair of Society members rushed forward, shackling him with magic-dampening cuffs.
“That was great work,” said Mistress Corinna, chief of the Guard. She inclined her head, and the dying rays of sunlight caught against her red-clay brown skin. “When you go through Society training, come find me. I think you have a real future in law enforcement.”
Kerrigan blinked in surprise. When she went through Society training. She’d said it as if it were a certainty. Which Kerrigan did not think it was. Not if Lorian had anything to say about it.
“Thank you, Mistress Corinna,” Kerrigan said with a small bow.
“We’re going to take the Red Mask here to the dungeons under the mountain, where he can’t do anyone harm ever again.” Corinna easily towered over Kerrigan, but when she held her hand out to shake, she did it as equals. “You and I are going to have a talk with the council about what happened here tonight.”
53
The Ruling
Kerrigan’s hair had slipped free of its ribbon. Her pale skin was covered in ash. Her eyes and lungs ached from inhaling the smoke that every inch of her smelled like. Her knees protested her harsh landing. Still, she held her head high as Tieran dropped her off into the arena, and she walked toward the waiting group of council members.
She counted seventeen out of the twenty in total. But even better, behind them stood her friends. Darby waved excitedly. Hadrian bit his lip, clearly anxious about what was to come. Clover was smoking a loch cigarette, brazen as ever. Valia stood next to Bastian. Her eyes wide with concern. Kerrigan felt a twinge of regret. She nodded her head at Valia in apology, who nodded back in acceptance, and then Kerrigan focused her attention back to the council.
Fordham, Audria, and Mistress Corinna dropped off their dragons and fell into step beside her. Almost a team—at least united in their cause.
Kerrigan was nervous, but she couldn’t show it. She came to a stop before Lorian and Helly and Bastian and the fourteen other members who sat on the high council.
“Before you begin,” Mistress Corinna said, “I would like to speak freely, if that is all right.”
“Go ahead, Corinna,” Helly said.
“Most of the Society members responded to the call for aid by flying to put out the fires rampaging the streets. My guards were in the streets, rescuing others from the burning buildings and trying to put down the riot, which had been engineered by a group of Red Masks. Unfortunately, most of them escaped. But Kerrigan entered the riot ring and went up against their leader, unprompted. She could have been injured or even killed, but she showed determination and fearlessness in the face of adversity. She stopped the leader, recovered the illegal magical artifact he had been using to generate lightning-bolt levels of destruction, and apprehended him. We are taking him to the dungeons, currently as a war criminal, and it is thanks to Kerrigan that we are able to do this,” Corinna said, point-blank. “She proved herself today, and I would be proud to call her a Society member.”
The council members began to whisper back and forth to each other, and Lorian coughed.