Bright Blaze of Magic
Page 29
The sight of the bodies was horrific enough to freeze us all in place, but I signaled to the others that we needed to keep moving. They nodded back, and still being quiet, the four of us tiptoed down the hallway and headed toward the dining hall. I was hoping that some folks might still be alive in here, but it was just as big a mess as everything else was.
Broken tables and chairs littered the area, along with trampled platters of food. Puddles of water, lemonade, iced tea, and more covered the marble floor from where folks had dropped their drinks and the glasses had shattered. But the weirdest thing of all were the knives and forks stuck into the tables, walls, and even the ceiling, as if people had gotten so desperate for weapons that they’d started chucking silverware at their attackers.
Dinner must have been under way when the attack had started because the majority of the bodies were clustered in here. Guards, workers, even pixies, their tiny, crumpled bodies looking like small, sad butterflies compared to the larger humans. I’d hoped that we’d find some of the Sinclairs still alive, but it didn’t look as though anyone had survived the attack.
Tears burned my eyes like acid, and I had to swallow down the screams and bile rising in my throat. This was . . . this was . . . horrible. One of the worst things I’d ever seen, right up there with the aftermath of my mom’s murder. But what made this truly heartbreaking was that I’d had a chance to stop it, and I’d failed miserably.
My mom would have been so disappointed in me.
Beside me, Felix sniffled and wiped away the tears streaming down his face. So did Deah. But Devon was as stone-faced as I was, although his grief, disgust, heartbreak, and rage made his green eyes burn as bright as stars in his face. His emotions matched my own perfectly.
As I looked out over the blood and bodies, I focused on the white-hot rage burning in my own heart, more intense than any magic I’d ever felt. In that moment, I made a silent vow to myself. Victor Draconi was more of a monster than any creature that lurked in the shadow-filled alleys of Cloudburst Falls, and he was going to pay for what he’d done to my friends, my Family.
Whatever it took.
“Come on,” Devon whispered in a rough, ragged voice. “There’s nothing we can do for them. Let’s check the rest of the house and see if there are any survivors.”
He whipped around and quickly strode out of the dining hall, as if he had to get out of the room before he broke down and just started screaming. Yeah, me too.
Felix, Deah, and I followed him. Together, the four of us checked every single room, every hallway, every broom closet, pantry, and cubbyhole where someone might have holed up during the attack. But we didn’t find anyone, not so much as a single pixie, so we moved up to the next level and then up and up through the rest of the mansion.
Almost all of the bodies were on the first floor, so the destruction wasn’t nearly as bad on the upper levels. But it was still easy to tell that the Draconi guards had been through here because of all the things they’d stolen.
Silver bookends, crystal keepsake boxes, wooden carvings. All of them were gone, and the Draconis had even used their swords and daggers to pry sapphires, rubies, and diamonds out of other expensive knickknacks. I spotted one gray stone statue of a Fenrir wolf that used to have amethysts for eyes, although the sockets were empty now. The creature almost seemed to be snarling, as if it wanted to track down and bite the person who’d stolen its eyes. I knew the feeling.
The more I looked around, the tighter my hand curled around my stolen sword, and the more white-hot rage surged through my body. It wasn’t bad enough that the Draconis had killed so many people tonight. Oh, no. They’d had to destroy the mansion and take everything that belonged to the Sinclairs too.
It wasn’t right—it just wasn’t right.
I might be a thief, but at least when I stole something, I didn’t hurt the person it belonged to, and I didn’t wreck the rest of their possessions just for fun. This . . . this level of gleeful cruelty disgusted me.
In that moment, I wanted to destroy every single Draconi the same way that they’d destroyed the mansion and all the people inside. Cut and stab and hack and slash until there was nothing left of the Draconi Family. No guards, no workers, no castle, not so much as a single paperweight with that stupid dragon crest on it.
We moved on. Still, the longer we searched, and the more rooms and floors we went through, the more a teeny, tiny bit of hope sparked to life in my heart. Because I didn’t see Oscar or Tiny anywhere among the bodies. Maybe Oscar had realized what was happening, that the Draconis were attacking, and had managed to get himself and his pet tortoise outside the mansion to safety. That was my hope anyway.
I didn’t want to think about the alternative.
Finally, we reached my bedroom. The door had been busted open, just like all the others, and the wood was splintered right down the middle like a tree that had been struck by lightning. So the Draconi guards had been in here too. Of course they had. I drew in a breath and slowly let it out, steeling myself for the destruction—and the two small bodies—that might be waiting inside.
Devon put a hand on my shoulder, his face somber. He knew how worried I was about Oscar and Tiny. I reached up and squeezed his hand with my own. Then I faced the door, slowly eased the part of it that was still clinging to the frame open with the point of my sword, and stepped inside.
My room didn’t have nearly as much damage as some of the others. Mainly because I didn’t have anything that was worth stealing. Someone had rifled through my closet and tossed my clothes all over the floor, along with my ratty sneakers. They’d also ripped into the couch cushions and had even dragged the comforter, pillows, and mattress off my bed and cut them all open, so that piles of white, fluffy stuffing covered the floor like snow drifts.
But my gaze quickly moved past the debris and locked on to Oscar’s trailer.
The ramshackle pixie house, corral, barn, and surrounding fences had all been knocked off their table, and splintered pieces of ebony littered the floor, as though someone had stomped on the wooden structures over and over again in order to smash them into as many pieces as possible.
Blake, I thought darkly. He was the one who’d done this. I was sure of it. He must have driven up to the Sinclair mansion after he’d left us at the lochness bridge. Blake would have come to my room looking for me, just to make sure that I wasn’t still alive and up here hiding. While he was here, he would have delighted in destroying Oscar’s pixie house and the rest of my things just because he could. Something else that he and Victor were going to pay for.
Broken tables and chairs littered the area, along with trampled platters of food. Puddles of water, lemonade, iced tea, and more covered the marble floor from where folks had dropped their drinks and the glasses had shattered. But the weirdest thing of all were the knives and forks stuck into the tables, walls, and even the ceiling, as if people had gotten so desperate for weapons that they’d started chucking silverware at their attackers.
Dinner must have been under way when the attack had started because the majority of the bodies were clustered in here. Guards, workers, even pixies, their tiny, crumpled bodies looking like small, sad butterflies compared to the larger humans. I’d hoped that we’d find some of the Sinclairs still alive, but it didn’t look as though anyone had survived the attack.
Tears burned my eyes like acid, and I had to swallow down the screams and bile rising in my throat. This was . . . this was . . . horrible. One of the worst things I’d ever seen, right up there with the aftermath of my mom’s murder. But what made this truly heartbreaking was that I’d had a chance to stop it, and I’d failed miserably.
My mom would have been so disappointed in me.
Beside me, Felix sniffled and wiped away the tears streaming down his face. So did Deah. But Devon was as stone-faced as I was, although his grief, disgust, heartbreak, and rage made his green eyes burn as bright as stars in his face. His emotions matched my own perfectly.
As I looked out over the blood and bodies, I focused on the white-hot rage burning in my own heart, more intense than any magic I’d ever felt. In that moment, I made a silent vow to myself. Victor Draconi was more of a monster than any creature that lurked in the shadow-filled alleys of Cloudburst Falls, and he was going to pay for what he’d done to my friends, my Family.
Whatever it took.
“Come on,” Devon whispered in a rough, ragged voice. “There’s nothing we can do for them. Let’s check the rest of the house and see if there are any survivors.”
He whipped around and quickly strode out of the dining hall, as if he had to get out of the room before he broke down and just started screaming. Yeah, me too.
Felix, Deah, and I followed him. Together, the four of us checked every single room, every hallway, every broom closet, pantry, and cubbyhole where someone might have holed up during the attack. But we didn’t find anyone, not so much as a single pixie, so we moved up to the next level and then up and up through the rest of the mansion.
Almost all of the bodies were on the first floor, so the destruction wasn’t nearly as bad on the upper levels. But it was still easy to tell that the Draconi guards had been through here because of all the things they’d stolen.
Silver bookends, crystal keepsake boxes, wooden carvings. All of them were gone, and the Draconis had even used their swords and daggers to pry sapphires, rubies, and diamonds out of other expensive knickknacks. I spotted one gray stone statue of a Fenrir wolf that used to have amethysts for eyes, although the sockets were empty now. The creature almost seemed to be snarling, as if it wanted to track down and bite the person who’d stolen its eyes. I knew the feeling.
The more I looked around, the tighter my hand curled around my stolen sword, and the more white-hot rage surged through my body. It wasn’t bad enough that the Draconis had killed so many people tonight. Oh, no. They’d had to destroy the mansion and take everything that belonged to the Sinclairs too.
It wasn’t right—it just wasn’t right.
I might be a thief, but at least when I stole something, I didn’t hurt the person it belonged to, and I didn’t wreck the rest of their possessions just for fun. This . . . this level of gleeful cruelty disgusted me.
In that moment, I wanted to destroy every single Draconi the same way that they’d destroyed the mansion and all the people inside. Cut and stab and hack and slash until there was nothing left of the Draconi Family. No guards, no workers, no castle, not so much as a single paperweight with that stupid dragon crest on it.
We moved on. Still, the longer we searched, and the more rooms and floors we went through, the more a teeny, tiny bit of hope sparked to life in my heart. Because I didn’t see Oscar or Tiny anywhere among the bodies. Maybe Oscar had realized what was happening, that the Draconis were attacking, and had managed to get himself and his pet tortoise outside the mansion to safety. That was my hope anyway.
I didn’t want to think about the alternative.
Finally, we reached my bedroom. The door had been busted open, just like all the others, and the wood was splintered right down the middle like a tree that had been struck by lightning. So the Draconi guards had been in here too. Of course they had. I drew in a breath and slowly let it out, steeling myself for the destruction—and the two small bodies—that might be waiting inside.
Devon put a hand on my shoulder, his face somber. He knew how worried I was about Oscar and Tiny. I reached up and squeezed his hand with my own. Then I faced the door, slowly eased the part of it that was still clinging to the frame open with the point of my sword, and stepped inside.
My room didn’t have nearly as much damage as some of the others. Mainly because I didn’t have anything that was worth stealing. Someone had rifled through my closet and tossed my clothes all over the floor, along with my ratty sneakers. They’d also ripped into the couch cushions and had even dragged the comforter, pillows, and mattress off my bed and cut them all open, so that piles of white, fluffy stuffing covered the floor like snow drifts.
But my gaze quickly moved past the debris and locked on to Oscar’s trailer.
The ramshackle pixie house, corral, barn, and surrounding fences had all been knocked off their table, and splintered pieces of ebony littered the floor, as though someone had stomped on the wooden structures over and over again in order to smash them into as many pieces as possible.
Blake, I thought darkly. He was the one who’d done this. I was sure of it. He must have driven up to the Sinclair mansion after he’d left us at the lochness bridge. Blake would have come to my room looking for me, just to make sure that I wasn’t still alive and up here hiding. While he was here, he would have delighted in destroying Oscar’s pixie house and the rest of my things just because he could. Something else that he and Victor were going to pay for.
