A Web of Steam & Puppet Strings (Sevastyan #1)

Chapter Twenty-Seven

I limped my way back to Lazar, who stood nonchalant with his hands pocketed, seemingly basking in the sun as would a cat. I approached and he climbed from his catnap.

"All well and good?" he asked.

"I suppose we'll see." He joined my side and we headed for the door. "I'm not the charismatic one, after all."

"No, you're certainly not. I don't mind."

"Don't you?"

His gaze lifted to the manor beyond the Chambers, looming, an insurmountable fortress. A thought turned him somber, and while it wasn't the stone wall I usually saw in him, it still worried me.

What if I was wrong? What if this thing between us was all in my head?

What if he didn't feel the spark between our fingertips like I did?

I focused on the Playground door straight ahead so I wouldn't have to see his face. "Lazar, can I—"

"I don't."

My eyes jumped to his suddenly serious face and my stomach climbed up my throat until he added, "I don't mind."

A soft breath escaped me as I considered the real truth behind those words. I didn't have a chance to prod him any further when the door swung open, and there stood Katya with a look of panic.

"Something's happening outside the Doors."

I picked up my speed. "What sort of happening?"

"Violent happenings."

We moved quickly. A crowd had gathered at the Doors. Even from where I jogged, even with the static of many feet and voices, I could sense it through the concrete. Violent happenings.

Lazar raised his arms. "Out of the way."

Everyone parted to allow us passage. Katya placed her palms against the mangled Doors while I rested my ear. The metal was cold, rippled and shredded and ugly. But the once impenetrable Doors were thinner now, and I could make out muffled sounds from the other side. Violent happenings were very much taking place. The earth shook, fire raged, air vibrated, frost gathered, and light stung. The side of my face turned hot and cold with the metal. And underneath all that were voices, calls and shouts of battle.

I wasn't sure what to make of it, and then a hiss of steam set gears churning in the walls. The Doors budged. I shoved myself away, heart slamming my chest as a sliver of an opening began to widen. My voice cracked. "Shut the Doors! Quickly!"

Bodies crammed forward. Shoulders and hands and backs collided against the botched metal. The gears groaned from strain, grinding and digging in heels to combat the enemy force. The smell of hot grinding metal wafted in. Feet dragged against the cement, finding little purchase, even as the ground around the Tangibles' feet crinkled like folds in a rug.

We weren't winning.

Convinced that my two and a half legs weren't more powerful than two, I stayed back, watching as arms and legs shuddered and quaked, listening to their cries of struggle and teeth scraping together. Voices flooded in from the outside, the ongoing battle leaking between the Doors. One side sounded very much like it was losing.

Someone raced past me. Maksim. Of all creatures, it was Maksim, leading a few of the others, throwing their weight into the Doors and making a noticeable difference. The sliver of outside light stopped growing, but it took the power of half of our numbers to hold the Doors still, and that was just about all we could fit from one wall to the other, shoulder to shoulder.

"Sevastyan!" Rurik. He called in from the outside, and he was weary. "Sevastyan, shut the Doors with the earth! Do it now!"

He knew I was standing right here, and he knew I could do as he said. I didn't question the order, knew better than that. Instead, I dropped the cane and planted both feet on the floor, sucking in a deep breath through my nose. I left my body. The earth reclaimed me and shuddered as I did. In one sleek movement, I slid the foundation beneath everyone's feet back, removing them from the Doors. Some of them toppled and I cradled their falls. Then, rocking the foundation, I rolled a wave of concrete and earth against the Doors like ocean water against a cliff. I rocked again and climbed higher up the doors, throwing myself and all my weight and power into the steel, bending it to my will.

Somewhere far, far away, someone cried out from strain. But by then, I slammed the doors shut and sealed myself over every inch of it, curling back from the force, freezing like a tubular ocean wave.

Then I snapped back to my body. I had collapsed onto the ground, wheezing, patches of white fog flickering across my vision. A pair of arms supported me up off the fissured concrete, and I peered up at the rippled arch of concrete teeth and the clouds of dust that clogged the air.

Lazar's hand smoothed my curls from my sleek forehead as he let loose a breathy laugh. "Outshining all of us? I'm quite ashamed of myself now."

Still heaving hard enough to make my fingers and toes tingle, I couldn't help a grin. "Wait 'till...you see...what else I can do."

He couldn't hold back a matching grin.

"What do we do now?" came Katya's voice. I tilted my head to see her flexing the muscles in her arms. "They're right on our doorstep. It shouldn't take long for them to break their way in, should it?"

Maksim flicked out his hands to expel the dust and sentenced every floating particle of concrete in the air to the ground. "Or go round the other end." He hadn't lost his arse tone despite his act of valor. "The easier route, isn't it? Rather than being bottlenecked like this. Better at amassing an army."

Amassing an army.

It would have to take an army to destroy one. This was her next move. This was war.

Lazar helped me collect myself onto unsteady feet. Everyone had gathered. All twenty of us.

Our small army.

I took a moment to consider Isidora, and I was all too aware that many sets of eyes were on me, all too aware that my left fist had more charisma than I did.

Had we lost our edge of surprise? Did she expect us to amass so quickly?

Did she know Rurik would stand in her way?

How long would he stand at all against her?

After taking a deep breath to steady myself, I stood as tall as I could and said, "I think this was only her letting us know she's ready for us, but she's patient. She's more interested in the game than the time it takes. Let's finish our helmets quickly and get ready. We have a war to go to."

(Copyright © 2015 Sarah Godfrey. Please alert the author at keyboardsmashwriters@gmail.com if you are seeing this work posted in full outside of SarahandVictoria on Wattpad.)

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