A hundred paces. She drew steadily nearer. At any moment, the mercenaries could turn and catch sight of her.
Fifty paces. She could see them clearly now, moving much more slowly than she with the unconscious con man tied to a horse.
And they saw her.
They slowed their horses and rounded the edge of the trees, hands lingering near their swords. A cold wind stirred, rattling the dry winter leaves across dead grass. Shadows flickered across the men’s faces.
Ana gave her hood a tug. Her heart thudded painfully in her chest, and she found herself reaching out with her Affinity, keeping it poised as she would a blade. A sense of calm enveloped her as her Affinity settled over the blood pulsing through the mercenaries’ bodies. Hers to command, if she wished.
She grasped that thought, letting it fuel her courage. “Release that man. He is my charge,” she called.
The mercenary riding alone—the leader—spoke first. Even on his horse Ana could see that he was an impossibly tall man. He was the one with a black beard, the one she had watched hand the pouch of goldleaves to the bartender. She was close enough to hear his low growl. “You got some guts, lass, riding after us alone. Got a death wish, or what?”
“You must have heard by now,” Ana said, “what happened at the Vyntr’makt in Kyrov?”
“What? You lost your damashka doll?” Blackbeard and his companion rasped with laughter.
Ana kept her face blank. She knew from lessons with her brother that some negotiations required placidity. Others called for firmness. And finally, in the rarest of cases, you showed your power.
Slowly, Ana slid off her glove and stretched her fingers, lifting her hand high.
She summoned her Affinity.
The mockery on the mercenaries’ faces vanished, replaced by alternating horror and disgust, as the veins in her hand began to turn dark, from the tips of her fingers to her elbow.
“An Affinite,” sneered Blackbeard. “You think you can threaten us just because you’re one of those deimhovs? Oi, Stanys. Watch me cut this witch down.”
“Need help, boss?” his companion called.
“Take the quarry to a safer place.” Blackbeard turned to Ana with a malicious grin. “The witch is mine.”
Anger bottled at her throat, but she forced it down, down as she thought of Luka. Her bratika had always strived for peace where possible. Ana gave it one last try. “Hand him over now, and no one has to be hurt.”
Blackbeard’s expression darkened. “I’ll teach you all about hurting,” he snarled, and launched his horse toward her.
Her horse shrieked at the sudden assault, springing back. Ana had just enough time to feel the shift in balance before the saddle tilted beneath her and she tumbled off. By instinct, she latched on to Blackbeard’s blood and pulled.
His curse rang out, and she saw him fall just as her back jolted against the ground, knocking the wind from her. Nearby, there was a thud as Blackbeard broke his fall with a roll.
Ana sucked in a deep breath, willing her stunned limbs to work again. She heard the schick of Blackbeard’s dagger as he drew it from its sheath. “Damned deimhov,” he snarled, and sprang.
Through the haze in her mind, she grasped at her Affinity.
Blackbeard drove his blade down. A rumble of thunder muffled her scream as pain seared over her shoulder. Blood bloomed across her senses.
The mercenary’s smile sliced white. Pinning her down with his body, he brought his dagger to her cheek. In the dim light, she could make out the green-tinted liquid as it formed a drop at the tip of the blade. Terror filled her. “Recognize that, you witch?” Blackbeard’s tone was triumphant, mocking. “You think just because you’re an Affinite, that makes you more powerful than us?”
Slowly, she was regaining control of her body; the fog in her mind was dissipating. Ana twitched a finger.
“Think again. You made a dumb choice, revealing yourself to us, deimhov. I dominate monsters like you. I trade monsters like you.” Blackbeard brought his face close to hers. “You don’t scare me.”
With his other hand, he shoved a glass vial of Deys’voshk to her lips. Bitter liquid filled her mouth. She was back in the dungeons again, metal chains and straps holding her in place, the taste of the pungent poison flooding her senses. My little monster, Sadov whispered.
She choked now, her mind paralyzed with fear, her throat swallowing the Deys’voshk as she’d been conditioned.
Something splashed on her face. At first, Ana thought she was crying, but as another drop landed on her face, then another, she realized that it was raining.
The sky lit up with a streak of lightning, and thunder clapped as rain began to pour. A cold wind tore at her hair, urging her in angry whispers. She was not in a dungeon, this was not Sadov, and she was not the helpless, frightened girl she’d been.
And she had developed a tolerance to the Deys’voshk.
Blackbeard tossed his vial onto the grass. Lightning flashed, reflecting off the glass, an arm’s length from Ana. “Still feeling powerful, you witch?” he hissed in her ear. “I don’t have a particular preference for your type, but I know some people who do.” He gripped her chin hard enough to bruise. Ana forced her eyes to remain on Blackbeard as her hand snaked out along the grass. “Lots’ve things one could do to a pretty face like yours. Lots’ve goldleaves one could pay.” His grin widened, and his hand wandered to his belt. “But first, I’ll have to try it out for myself—”
Ana’s hand closed around the glass vial. With all her strength, she smashed it into his face.
The shards pierced her palm, sending sharp streaks of pain up her arm, but Ana only felt grim satisfaction as the man howled, clutching his face. Blood ran down his cheeks, and when he removed his hand, Ana saw that a shard of glass had lodged itself in his right eye.
She lashed out. Her Affinity was still there, still strong despite the mist of Deys’voshk that had started creeping across her senses. She locked on the blood dripping down Blackbeard’s face, seizing that and the bonds inside his body and giving it all a single, vicious tug.
It was like uncorking a bottle of wine; blood spilled from Blackbeard’s mouth at her coaxing, running through the grass in rivulets with rainwater.
Die, Ana thought, fury coiling around her, white-hot. What he had wanted to do to her, what he’d probably done to dozens of other powerless Affinites—she would make sure he was never able to do any of it again.
Die.
Lightning lit up Blackbeard’s bloodied face, and for a moment, Ana saw the face of the broker who had stolen May, his pale-ice eyes boring into hers.
Wrath burned through her veins; she gave a violent pull. There was the wet sound of flesh ripping. Blackbeard made a choking sound as his chest tore open; for a moment he hung suspended in time, mouth agape, eyes wide, droplets of his blood glistening like rubies in the rain.
Then his eyes shuttered, and he keeled over on the grass with a dead thud.
Exhaustion smothered Ana, so suddenly that her vision blurred around the edges. Her limbs were leaden; she felt as though she were sinking into the mud. She could no longer tell whether the dizziness was from the Deys’voshk working its poisonous effect in her system or from overexertion. Perhaps it was both.
“What the—”
Twenty paces away, the second mercenary—Stanys—had dismounted. He stared at his leader in disbelief before his eyes landed on Ana. “What the hell did you do, you deimhov?”
Her head swam as she pushed herself to her feet. Blackbeard’s dagger lay in the mud next to his body, discarded, but she didn’t think she’d have the strength to pick it up. “Leave, or I’ll kill you, too.” Her voice barely carried over the rushing sound of rain.
Stanys palmed his dagger. There was a challenge in his eyes as he took a step forward. Then another. And another.
> He was testing the waters, seeing how close he could get before she used her Affinity. Seeing if she still could.
Ana’s legs trembled with the effort of standing. The world swayed as she grasped for her Affinity. Please. She’d hated her Affinity, the thought of using it…but now she needed it. There was nothing else standing between her and the blade in Stanys’s hand.
Her head split with pain. Ana dropped to her knees. As she lifted her head to look at Stanys, she realized that her Affinity had reached its limit. She might as well have been trying to grasp empty air, the twisting wind.
No, she thought, shaking, her head pounding with each footfall of the approaching man.
Stanys’s shadow fell over her; she could see the fur of his boots from where she knelt, the curve of his blackstone-steel blade that parted the rain. Her hands shook. Was this it?
The mercenary’s dagger flashed. Lightning streaked across the sky, illuminating his blade…and the shadow behind.
Stanys swung his blade down.
And met metal. A shrill screech rang out in the night. A battle cry.
“Move!” Ramson shouted. With a last spurt of strength, Ana rolled away from them just as Ramson lunged forward.
Ana lifted her head and watched as Ramson Quicktongue, self-serving con man and egotistic bastard, fought for their lives.
The mercenary charged, dual daggers glinting like the eyes of a demon through the heavy rain. Ramson parried the blow head-on, grunting as he narrowly dodged the swipe of the second dagger. He twirled and slashed out. The tip of his sword swerved in a graceful arc—but nowhere close to the mercenary.
His opponent pounced again, twin blades unrelenting. Metal clanged as Ramson blocked one dagger. This time, the second bit him in a vicious slash across his forearm.
Grimacing, he pivoted out of the way, backing up as far as he could without drawing the man closer to the witch. Blood dripped from the wound in his arm, mingling with the rain. Shit, he thought, readjusting his slippery grip and shaking his head to clear the dizziness from Igor’s blow earlier. Shit. His opponent was taller and stronger.
And Ramson was rusty.
Think, he told himself desperately. He needed to buy time.
His enemy lunged. Ramson met the twin blades with a blow of his own, slashing downward. Metal screeched. He twisted his blade sharply, using a technique he’d learned from his swordmaster, momentarily locking the two daggers together. The bounty hunter looked up at him and bared his teeth.
“Just a reminder,” Ramson called over their entangled blades. “Lord Kerlan probably wants me in one piece, right?”
“I’ll bring you in one piece,” the mercenary snarled. “After I cut you up and stitch you back together again.”
It wasn’t a confirmation, but it was just as much: Kerlan was hunting him. Though Ramson would, ironically, bet his life that Kerlan wanted him back alive. If Kerlan wanted you dead, you’d wake with a dagger against your neck and your throat slit before you could even scream.
Most people, anyway. There was a reason Ramson had been Kerlan’s Deputy.
As long as Kerlan still wanted him alive, Ramson had a bargaining chip.
With a grunt, Ramson turned and twisted his blade free, pivoting full circle so that he was several paces back, sword raised. “No need to be so angry over your dead partner. With him gone, you’ll now have twice the reward.”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass about him.” The mercenary raised a dagger, pointing over Ramson’s shoulder. “Once I take care of you, I’ll make that witch feel living hell before she dies.”
Ramson’s blood turned stone-cold. He knew these types of men: cutthroats who’d known nothing but violence their entire lives. To Ramson, violence was a means to an end. To these men, violence had no end.
You could run, a voice inside him urged. Leave the girl to him and take the chance to escape.
He’d kill her. Do worse things to her.
You don’t care, the voice insisted. You made the mistake of caring before. And they ended up dead anyway.
Logic urged him that escape was the best course of action. Calculation told him that the mercenary was taller and stronger, and that his own odds of winning were narrower than a new moon.
Yet something more powerful than logic and more compelling than calculation roared in his veins as he angled his blade at the mercenary. Ramson dug his heels into the ground. “She’s mine,” he snarled. “And I don’t share.”
With a growl, his enemy rushed forward. Ramson darted back, dodging each whip-fast slash of the two alternating blades. Swerve, duck, twirl, parry, as though he were in a deadly dance, his moves light and fluid. The lessons of his youth were coming back to him and he felt as though he had been transported to another time and place, when his swordsmaster was bearing down on him beneath the brilliant blue of a Bregonian sky.
As fluid as the river, as strong as the sea.
This was just another lesson; just another dance.
Ramson leapt out of the way as the mercenary’s blades slashed at him, so fast that they were a silver-gray blur in the rain. Blow after blow, the mercenary bore down, his slashes growing faster and stronger. Ramson dodged. Face, throat, chest, legs—back and back, the song of their blades rising to a crescendo.
Ramson feinted left; his opponent lunged.
Ramson slashed right; his opponent dodged.
Bit by bit, Ramson’s exhaustion began to show. His limbs ached. Soon his weakness would cost him.
Ramson leapt back as the mercenary swung his blades down, but he felt the sharp sting of metal across his chest. Blood warmed his clothes. He barely had enough time to glance up when the mercenary’s fist collided with his face.
Pain exploded in his jaw. Black spots filled his vision and the world spun as he reeled off balance. He plunged backward into cold, wet mud.
Gasping, he rolled to his side, reaching for his sword.
A dark shape burst from the curtain of rain, and the mercenary was on him, landing one, two, three vicious punches in his abdomen. Ramson retched; stars erupted before him.
A flash of metal. Kneeling atop Ramson, the mercenary drove his blade down.
Ramson’s hands flew up. His arms screamed; his legs felt like cotton; his head was light from the breaths that he could not draw.
A savage grin split the mercenary’s face as he threw his body weight into pushing the dagger down, its steely edge glinting like a wicked promise. The man was going to sink the blade into Ramson’s heart. Slowly.
I’m going to die.
The tip of the dagger pressed into his rib cage, drawing blood. A strangled yell tore from Ramson’s throat as he gave one final push—
And suddenly, the pressure on his chest and on his arms was gone. The mercenary’s head flew back sharply, throat exposed. For a moment, he was frozen, outline rigid in the rain as though he was grappling with an invisible force. And then he toppled into the mud.
Ramson scrambled into a crouch. Even as he stumbled away, the mercenary began to rise.
But it was the figure ten paces behind the mercenary, barely an outline in the falling rain, that caught Ramson’s attention.
The witch was on her hands and knees, the crimson in her eyes receding as they shifted away from the mercenary. Blood dripped from her nose and mouth. For a moment, their gazes met. And then she collapsed.
Ramson had heard of Affinites surpassing their limits. Affinities drew energy from their bodies, and overexertion could lead to unconsciousness or, in the rarest of cases, death.
For a split second, staring at the witch’s still frame, he wondered whether she’d died, and how he would feel about that. She was a Trade and a valuable asset, so that would be a loss…but there was something more tugging at his conscience.
She’d saved him—again. For the second time, h
e owed the witch a blood debt.
Long ago, his father—the demon who called himself his father—had taught him the meaning of blood debts, of honor, and of courage. Ramson had made himself forget almost all memories of that man. But today, with the rain roaring all around him, phantom shapes rose from the ground, whispering to him in his father’s words.
Lightning flashed, outlining the mercenary’s towering form amid the slashing rain. His sword gleamed wet as he turned to Ana’s crumpled form.
Ramson’s head spun. The ground blurred, weaving in and out of focus.
Move. Ramson gouged his nails into the mud, struggling to regain control of his muscles. Something rough and hard dug into his palm. He lifted his hand. Half-buried in the muddy water beneath him was the coarse, wet rope that he’d easily shimmied out of while the mercenaries had been distracted by Ana.
Ramson’s hands closed around the rope, thick as a vessel’s anchor line.
Sudden inspiration struck.
He was weakened and exhausted, with no leverage over this mercenary in a sword fight. Yet outside of swordplay, Ramson did have one advantage.
Before he’d become a Cyrilian crime lord, Ramson had been a sailor. A blue-blooded Bregonian sailor.
He stood, gripping his sword and stretching the long coil of rope between his hands. Within a few seconds, his sailor’s hands had worked the end into a bowline with a loop large enough to fit a man’s head. As fluid as the river, he thought.
The rain fell so thickly now, it was difficult to see past a dozen paces. The roar of the deluge blocked out any other sound. He was on a ship again, in the middle of a storm, navigating with nothing but a broken compass and that boy with the thin, sharp voice by his side.
Ramson clenched his lasso, his muscles coiled tighter than a spring. “Hey, horseface!” he yelled. “Find your balls and take on someone your own size, won’t you?”
The mercenary turned. A snarl split his ugly face as he palmed his daggers. “I’ll snap you like a stick,” he growled, and hurtled toward him.
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