The Missing Prophecy (pjo/kotlc) book 3

Chapter Seventeen

"You guys can stay right there!" Maruca shouted at Gisela's team. A searing white flash appeared in the darkness, blinding Ana.

"Ana!" Jewel hissed. "Remember, you were supposed to close your eyes?"

"Ugh." Ana muttered, rubbing her eyes.

She opened her eyes and saw Sophie cringe, eyes closed, waiting for something. But whatever she was waiting for, it didn't happen. Sophie relaxed slightly.

Lady Gisela clapped her hands and said, "Well! This is a surprise! And once again-bravo for your brilliant recruiting, Sophie. You found yourself a Psionipath-those are very hard to come by! I would know-I've been looking."

And testing your experiments on innocent humans, Ana thought.

"Maybe someday I'll take this one..." Gisela finished.

Maruca's smile glinted in the light of her force field as she told Lady Gisela, "Try it."

But Sophie and Wylie Endal locked eyes, and something that looked like dread passed between them. Wonderful, they knew what would happen next.

"Maybe I will," Lady Gisela told Maruca before she turned to the two cloaked figures trapped under the glowing dome with her. "Then again, you might be a little too inexperienced for me."

"Uh, I caught you, didn't I?" Maruca argued. Ana silently laughed.

"Did you? Am I trapped?" Lady Gisela wondered. "Or am I just enjoying some rather convenient protection from Sophie's inflicting?"

Princess Romhilda appeared over Sophie's shoulder, whispering to her. Sophie looked like she'd almost jumped out of her skin.

"Whatever you and the Ogre Princess are plotting over there, Sophie, I wouldn't recommend it. Clearly you haven't noticed how off your psionipath's aim was."

"Psh, my aim was perfect!" Maruca snapped back.

"It was," Lady Gisela agreed. "For me. You trapped us in here with some very handy hostages. Show them, Tam."

Sophie looked horrified of the word 'hostages'. Then her breathing sped up, her face went slightly pink, and she squeezed her hands tightly into tiny fists.

The figure on the left had a dagger pressed to King Enki's throat. And the figure on Gisela's right held a dagger to Flori. Ana couldn't tell which one was Tam and which one was Glimmer. But that didn't matter. All that mattered was that Gisela had Sophie and her crew caught. Soon, Ana and Jewel would have to get in on the action, but Ana had ADHD. She was soooooo, soooooo, soooooooooooooooooo bored watching Sophie and her friends be idiots.

"I think we all understand the situation a little better now, don't we?" Lady Gisela asked as Sophie paled and seemed to be fighting with herself.

"Ah ah ah," Lady Gisela said as Maruca raised her arms. "No unraveling my precious force field-unless you want the dwarves to be without their king, or Sophie to without her favourite little gnome. That's how hostages work-incase you didn't realize. Now you do exactly what I tell you, or..." she nodded at the cloaked figures, and they pressed their blades further into King Enki's and Flori's skin.

Maruca's hands curled into fists, and her eyes were so wild with panic and fury and regret. Ana noted the small change in how Sophie made eye contact with Maruca, showing she was transmitting.

Sophie stopped transmitting and looked up. Lady Gisela was telling Wylie, "No flasher tricks either. And don't look so devastated, Sophie-honestly, this is a good thing for everybody. I'd imagined we'd be stuck fighting a big annoying battle until all of you were sufficiently subdued. This was such a time-saver! And if you feel that rage of yours brewing, perhaps you should remind yourself that right now, no one's gotten hurt-and you can keep it that way if you cooperate."

"Cooperate how?" Sophie spat, making eye contact with Flori.

Lady Gisela clicked her tongue. "That doesn't sound like the tone of someone ready to play nice. So let's do a quick show and tell to make sure you fully understand the stakes-especially you three in the silver over there!" She waved at the councillors before stomping her foot in a very specific pattern.

Five dwarves burst out of holes near the grand hall's entrance. And when they stomped their feet, cracks snaked every direction until the room was a maze of deadly pits and ledges.

"Is that clear enough for you?" Lady Gisela asked, pointing to the deep gouge in front of Sophie, which had stopped more than inches from her toes. "Are we ready to have a nice, calm conversation about the fact that I gave you one very clear, very simple instruction and you thought that it would be fun to disobey me?"

"See, but there isn't much too say." Sophie retorted, and Ana could see her straighten her shoulders and lift her head. She was feeling confident again.

Lady Gisela sighed. "I don't understand on why you insist on being so afraid of my son's legacy, Sophie. I'm trying to give him the best life-the best world-I can possibly give him. We reach for the stars for our children."

Sophie snorted. "This isn't about Keefe-this is about you! You're so desperate to be right about whatever creepy thing you're planning that you'll do anything to keep it going. No matter how much it hurts your son-or how clear he makes it that he wants nothing to do with you."

"He doesn't know what he's resisting!" Lady Gisela argued.

"That's because you keep refusing to tell him!" Sophie snapped back. "It's almost like you know he'll still reject it-and reject you."

"What a strange conclusion for the moonlark to come too," Lady Gisela murmured. "You've never rejected your creators, have you? And they made you their experiment."

Sophie laughed at that. "You love to get all high and mighty about how you're not like the Black Swan. But at least the Black Swan lets me have a choice in what happens to me! Oh, and by the way-the treatment you did to yourself and Lord Cassius? That totally counts as an 'experiment'. And I'm pretty sure whatever you're planning to do next is even worse. So you can stop deluding yourself. You've been experimenting on your son his entire life."

Lady Gisela shook her head. "Trust me, there's no delusion. Project Moonlark twisted and tweaked your genetics until you became something other. And the Black Swan may be okay with that-but I would never do that to my child. All stellarlune does is use the natural forces of our world to bring out someone's full potential."

"Stellarlune?" Sophie repeated.

Lady Gisela smiled. "I see what you're doing, Sophie. Stalling. Keeping me talking. Hoping I'll say too much while you wait for the others in the marketplace to come save you. But I'll assure you, Vespera is keeping them very busy. Her plans are always so much more convoluted than mine."

"Right, because this isn't convulated," Wylie muttered, waving his arms around the room. "And I love the fact that you're totally ignoring the fact that your boy's not here."

"He's not." Lady Gisela turned to glare at Sophie. "And clearly you're very proud of the stand you've taken."

"I am." Sophie agreed.

"And yet, for all your bluster, you failed to consider that I might be stalling as well. And you forgot the most important truth." Lady Gisela stalked towards the edge of the force field before she added, "I know my son way better than you do. That's why I left him his own message."

Princess Romhilda groaned and muttered a string of words that seemed to cover every insult ever created. "I'll kill him."

"I'm sure you'll try," Lady Gisela told her, stomping her foot and making two more dwarves crawl out of the floor.

And with them was a sand-crusted, disheveled blonde guy who was very clearly not tied up or restrained in any way.

Keefe coughed a few times before he stole a quick glance at Sophie. And his smile looked even more sad than sheepish as he shrugged and told her, "Couldn't let you have all the fun without me."

A/N: heh i copied this all from Legacy except I changed it a bit to be from Ana's POV. i FORGOT how long shannon messenger's chapters are and this took me forever to type out lmao