Rise or Burn

Chapter Eleven

The Valek was waiting for them when they reached Retok. They were surrounded the moment they got off the ferry.

"Annabel Echowood," Bedric Menlow said. He stood as menacing as the last time they'd met. Towering over them in black armour outfitted with a utility belt and a blaster strapped at the back. He smiled. His cruel sadistic smile. A smile that spoke of nothing but promised pain. Anna tried not to flinch. Instead she squared her jaw and took a step forward.

"Fancy seeing you here," she said. "If I didn't know any better I'd think you were following us."

"After the way you left, how could I not?"

"How did you find us?" Kol asked as he stepped next to Anna.

Bedric turned his icy blue eyes. "Prince Kolan." Kol flinched. "You didn't think you could you run from the Valek forever, did you?"

"Where's my brother?" Anna asked. A ringing had begun in her ears. Her head was pounding. She was close. The man who'd taken her brother away was right in front of her. She was close. She was so close. She needed to make him tell her.

"Don't worry about that," he said. "You'll see him soon." He turned to his soldiers. "Take them."

No. Anna thought. She wouldn't let them hurt them. She called to her magic. Pulled it from where it rested when she didn't need it. But before she could even say a spell someone hit the back of her head. The world around her went black.

>>>>>>>

Anna was standing in the palace gardens. It was snowing. She held her hand out to catch a snowflake in her palm. It melted in a twelfth of a second. She didn't know how she'd gotten back to the isle but right in that moment she didn't feel up to questioning it. She loved the snow. A calmness like she hadn't felt in days had taken her. That antsy feeling that had been consuming her appeared to have taken a brief respite. She took a deep breath, letting the chilled air fill her lungs and then let it out in an airy puff.

"You can't do this," A man said as he walked right past Anna, as if he couldn't see her.

"You can't stop me," Another man replied. He walked behind the first man. He too moved without taking notice of Anna.

"This is suicide, Tovel." Tovel? Tovel Echowood? Anna's curiosity was piqued. She inched forward, following them as they made their way to the fountain. At first she was trying to make sure they didn't see her but she quickly realized that they really couldn't see her.

"Not if I succeed." Tovel smiled. There was some familiarity with that smile. She'd seen it multiple times in the mirror and in old photos of herself. "Think of the glory. They'll praise our names till the dusk of time."

The first man shook his head. He was shorter than Tovel by a few inches. He had hair as dark as midnight, eyes the colour of freshly ground coffee beans and skin almost as pale the falling snow. "It is not worth it," he said.

"It is," Tovel argued. "You've had a brilliant idea my friend. Let me help you bring it into fruition. Omora will thank us for it. This is the kind of thing that starts revolutions. Think of the progress that will be achieved."

"And if it doesn't work. Think of the deaths. This will kill billions. Not just the people on Omora but—"

"You worry too much."

"And you don't worry at all."

Tovel smiled smugly. "It's a gift."

"It's stupidity."

"I call it valiance."

"I'm serious Tovel." He gripped Tovel by his shoulders. "What if you don't come back?"