you killed if you went on a murder spree?”
Did he think murdering Haldam was . . . was akin to being chivalrous? Dear gods, he had lost his mind.
“That didn’t mean I wanted you to kill him,” I began, only to stop as Ian held up a hand.
“Trust me, luv. I do know what I’m doing. Now, can you release the others’ heads alone, or not?”
I already felt like a door being hammered by a battering ram since the power I’d sent out kept crashing back into me before reverberating out to envelop the amphitheater again. Freeing the council members’ heads while keeping the rest of their bodies in time-suspended animation? That would hurt so much worse.
Trust me, luv.
“Bring the pain,” I muttered, and did what he asked.
Awareness returned to the council members’ expressions. Then, fear followed as they realized they were completely immobilized from the neck down. Shock was next when they looked around and saw the rest of the amphitheater in the same freeze-frame state, right down to the dust particles suspended in the air next to them. When their gazes finally settled on me, I schooled my features while I inwardly braced.
It still didn’t take away the sting of being looked at as though I were pure evil.
“See what she can do?” Ian’s clear voice broke the silence. “Despite all your power, your many protectors, and your bloody inflexible laws, she could slaughter the lot of you if she wanted, and you couldn’t even lift a finger to stop her.”
“Ian!” This was hardly the way to open things!
“No, they need to know,” he continued in a cruelly cheerful tone. “They created laws to oppress people out of fear that one day, they’d be the ones oppressed. You have all the power they feared and more when they outlawed magic and blending the races, yet did you oppress them? No. You served under them for centuries despite being worlds more powerful than all of them. Even when they arrested you, you didn’t strike out to defend yourself. No, instead you’re still trying to save them even while they’re meeting to put a bounty on your head.”
“Haldam’s death and our current immobility hardly seems proof that she is here to save us,” Hekima said, with an emphatic glance down at her time-frozen body.
She’d long been the council member I was friendliest with, but Hekima’s hard stare my way reminded me that she was also a formidable opponent. As a vampire, she was the council’s first female judge. As a human, she’d been Japan’s first empress regnant back when she went by a different name.
“I’m sure Ian is building to a point,” I said, while thinking, Please, let him be building to a point instead of this being a sign that the cursed fruit that is slowly killing his body has overtaken his mind.
“I am. Release Haldam’s entire body, Veritas.”
I hesitated for a moment, and then again chose to trust that he did have a logical reason for all of this. With a painful burst of power, I freed Haldam while keeping everything else frozen in the same previous moment in time.
At once, Haldam’s body slumped forward, and he fell off his throne to sprawl onto the floor.
I concealed my shudder as I absorbed the power that slammed back into me from what I’d done. This ability was one of my most dangerous ones, and it was also my most draining. Unfreezing parts of people while keeping the rest of them in suspended animation only made it worse, as did encompassing the entire amphitheater and the immediate space around it. I wouldn’t be good for much after this, and I doubted I could hold it for more than another twenty minutes—
Haldam groaned.
My shock almost caused me to drop the entire room from suspended animation. Dead vampires didn’t groan. They also didn’t sit up, snatch the knife from their chest, and hurl it aside, but that’s exactly what Haldam did.
My gasp was echoed by the other council members. Even if Ian hadn’t twisted that blade in him—and he had, we’d all seen it—no vampire whose heart had been pieced with silver would have had the strength to do that. Haldam should be shriveling into a vampire’s state of true death, not looking at the time-suspended room around him with amazement.
“Behold.” Ian’s voice rang out in the stunned silence. “Your real traitor.”
Chapter 28
Haldam immediately tried to run. Ian teleported over and caught him before he made it one step.
“Not so fast, mate.