by Elise Kova
She had two more explosives on her, but she really didn’t want to waste them. It was likely that she wouldn’t have another opportunity for Florence to restock before they fled into the Underground. And using a bomb assumed it would damage the lock enough to crack it without injuring the prisoner within.
First things first, she had to get into the lock to disengage it. Fortunately for her, this wasn’t a job that required discretion. She ran the pads of her fingers along the seams, searching for a weak point in the welding. The prison’s inners had been exposed to the sea and salt air since its construction in the early days of Ter.4, and if there was one thing metal didn’t like, it was the combination of time, moisture, and salt.
Her nails fell into a hairline groove on the side—a fatigue failure. She went for her thinnest golden tool, driving it into the crack and twisting the flat head, widening the gap. Keeping one pin in place, she reached for a second, repeating the process hastily until the front was halfway off. Unfortunately, the top part of the weld proved to be much stronger.
She needed more leverage.
There was enough space now for her slimmer, sharper dagger to fit. Arianna inwardly winced at the idea of sacrificing the edge of her blade like this and made a mental note to sharpen it later. She twisted it, grunting with the strain. The cover bent just enough for her to get a look under.
It was as she suspected: several pins at different intervals, waiting to be lined up. That was the design flaw. Unlike a normal lock that required pressure on the pins throughout a turn to disengage, this only required the pins to be engaged correctly at the same time for the bolt to be pulled back. Ari could see why it was effective given the circumstances—mostly enclosed design, unique key to discourage people from trying to pick it, unconventionally shaped access to the pins. But once it was cracked, it put up no fight.
“What in the Five Guilds are you, lady?” Helen asked as Arianna pulled open the door.
“Someone who’s looking for a favor from you.”
“Get me out of here, I’ll do anything you want.” The girl grinned, taking Ari’s invitation and strolling out of the cell onto the landing. She took an instinctual breath of air. Though it was chemically no different than what she had been breathing through the bars for two years, Arianna could only suspect that it was a little bit sweeter in that moment.
“I need you to take me through the Underground.”
“Tall order,” the girl hummed.
Ari smirked, admiring her cheekiness. She was negotiating with the woman who had freed her as though it were nothing. “Florence is waiting for you now at its entrance.”
Helen froze. “Flor? She made it?”
Ari nodded. “Now, run down. Head for the tunnel out.”
The girl stared skeptically for one long moment, but she didn’t have many options—linger and be jailed again, or flee and trust Arianna at face value. Ari greatly appreciated that she was the sensible type. As Helen ran, Ari hooked herself into the bars and jumped over the ledge down to the landing below.
She ignored the calls of inmates pleading for their freedom. There were real criminals mixed among those who had been jailed for failing to follow the Dragon King’s mandates, and she had no record of who was who. For all she loathed the Dragons, Ari wouldn’t spite them at the risk of putting someone actually dangerous back on the streets of Loom.
Helen was slow, and by the time she had made it around the large loop of the walkway Ari had finished unlocking the door of Will’s cell, explaining the same overview of the situation in the process. They were just starting down when the explosion she’d been waiting for rattled the enclosed hall below, blowing out chunks of stone and cement. Dust plumed skyward and Ari looked for a certain blue shadow to emerge from its curtain.
Coughing, Cvareh didn’t disappoint her.
“Took you long enough!” she called over the increasing volume of shouts from the other prisoners.
“It’s not like you were waiting,” he noted as they reached the cement floor at the ground level.
“I can still judge you for taking that long to figure out a simple bomb.” The corner of her mouth twitched upward in what could dangerously be called a grin.
“Bent axles, what in the five is a Dragon doing here?” Will blubbered.
“He’s a friend,” she answered without a thought, stepping into the hall.
Cvareh’s golden eyes squinted at her. Arianna didn’t even need to turn her head to know his expression. She was just as shocked as he was. The word slipped out before she’d had time to think it through. He is nothing more than the Dragon who offered you a boon, Ari insisted privately.
A well-kept speedboat was docked in one of two open slots protected either side by rocky outcroppings. Arianna looked to her companions. “I trust one of you can captain this thing.”
Will and Helen’s heads snapped to face each other.
“Helm?” Will asked.
“You get engine.” Helen grinned in reply.
The two sprinted up the gangplank, assessing the ship as quickly as Ari did a clockwork machine. She had no doubt they already knew the top speed, drag, handling—everything about the vessel. Florence might not have been a born Raven, but from what she’d said of her friends, they were. And these were things that, once trained, were never forgotten.
“You sure it’s safe?” Cvareh followed her aboard. He took a step closer, adding softly, “To let them drive?”
“Safer than my doing it.” If there was one thing no one wanted, it was Arianna behind the wheel of any vessel that was more than a rowboat or paddle trike.
“If you insist, I’ll trust you.” He shrugged and situated himself against the railing.
The words turned over in her head. But before Arianna had a chance to dive into the depths of their implications, a distinct rainbow streak blazed a trail through the darkness over Ter.4.2.
22. LEONA
She had him.
It was faint and distant, but even a tiny spark of magic in this desolate industrial wasteland felt earth-shaking. This was more than a spark, though. This was magic she didn’t even know Cvareh had. This was as powerful as a Rider’s would be.
She bared her teeth in malicious glee, knowing she had him, and would soon kill him for Yveun Dono.
Leona sprinted to where she and her riders had landed their gliders on one of the flat rooftops of the port three days ago upon arriving to Ter.4.2. It had been three horrible days of waiting and debating that now came to a satisfying conclusion. They would take to the skies once more and she would hunt down Cvareh like the Xin dog he was.
Magic wrapped around her feet, holding them to the platform of her glider. She pushed power under the wings, drawing it upward, overflow glittering off like fireworks in the night sky. Andre and Camile were close behind, moving without need of instruction.
It didn’t matter if they were there or not; the Xin fool was hers anyway. Leona wanted to bathe herself in his blood. She wanted to return to Nova and have there be no doubt as to whose flesh had torn under her fingers.
Loom was darker than Nova. It lacked both starlight and moonlight due to the God’s Line that always obscured the sky. She pushed magic into her sight—not enough to blind her, but enough to pierce through the blackness, looking for the source of the magic.
A signal flare drew a line into the sky as if to point an arrow in the right direction. The prison? Leona didn’t waste thought on why Cvareh would head to such a place. She didn’t need to know the method to his madness. She only had to put a stop to it.
She was closing in and fast, close enough to hear the echo of an explosion over the water. Leona gripped the handles of her glider more tightly. It was an island, which meant there would be only one way off of it. Arcing around the prison, she scanned for a port of some kind. It wasn’t until her second loop that she saw it.
“There!” she screeched to Andre and Camile, directing their attention to her discovery. “You two kill any Fen and Chimera. Cvareh is m
ine.”
Her comrades bared their teeth in understanding, pitching their gliders forward. They shot down toward the boat as it raced out of the harbor. Leona laid her eyes on him for the first time.
His blood orange-colored hair tousled around pale Xin flesh, whipped by the wind off the sea and the speeding vessel. He was short for a Dragon, Leona noted, a pitiful looking thing that didn’t radiate half the power of his sister. The Fen in white standing next to him was nearly the same height.
A Fen in white.
No, no that wasn’t a Fen. That was a Chimera of a different variety. That was the source of the odd blood smell Leona had been tracking across two territories. The woman had a strange and cataclysmic sort of power about her. The madness and blood lust that surged through Leona’s veins seemed to cry out in recognition of an equal. An instinct that, even despite being faced with a Chimera, Leona heeded.
The White Wraith—a woman was the White Wraith—calmly loaded a small tube into the pistol at her hip. Andre sped toward her, claws out, ready to make a killing blow. The woman reached out her spare hand in a confident gesture and Cvareh took it. Chimera and Dragon, the strangest unified front she’d ever seen.
Magic surged over Leona, splitting her skull from ear to ear. The world blurred and she lost focus and seconds. She blinked rapidly, trying to ground herself once more by pushing aside the strange sensation of lost time. Her eyes scanned the boat in an attempt to pin down what had just occurred.
Andre was no longer on his glider, no longer boasting the upper hand. He was on the deck of the ship, a hole shot through his chest. Cvareh was doubled over, coughing blood as he stumbled toward the corpse of the felled Rider. The ship lurched as the empty glider crashed into the sea next to it.
That was how he’d gotten so far. Leona banked once more through the sky, circling like a bird of prey. The bastard could stop time. Only one in a hundred Dragons were born with that ability and Cvareh Xin was one of them. There was truly no justice in the world. She looked in disgust as he consumed Andre’s body. Talent worthlessly fed to the lowest House in Nova.
“Push, don’t stop,” the Wraith screamed to the helm of the boat.
They were halfway between the prison and the mainland. Leona scanned the horizon. Where were they headed?
The vessel was cutting a diagonal path through the water, away from the main port and the second boat of Fen attackers coming at them. The stretch of land at the end of their trajectory was dim and black, little waiting for them. Leona growled. Too much thinking, not enough doing.
“Camile, fly ahead, cut off the boat. When it dodges, I’ll flank.”
Her remaining Rider nodded affirmation. Camile’s focus remained steadfast in the wake of Andre’s death. They were the King’s Riders and that meant that, if they were lucky, they would die serving their sovereign. Andre had merely reached the logical conclusion of his duty.
The rush of the chase was beginning to get to Leona’s head. She wanted to run down her prey. There was no darker glee that lit up her heart than the notion of a well-earned kill. And now she had two, Wraith and Dragon.
Camile did exactly as Leona had instructed, charging the ship head on. The Wraith sprinted to the bow to meet her, gun drawn. She had a steady draw and sure aim, but with the moving of the waves and Camile’s evasive bobbing, her shot missed. Without time stopped, they were a lot more difficult to hit. Leona seized the opportunity, heading toward the rear side of the vessel where it banked, the deck tipping toward her as the driver turned wildly.
She found herself face-to-face with the second unexpected discovery of the evening. Cvareh was holding a gun. The born and bred Dragon noble was holding a crude Fenthri weapon. It looked awkward in his hands, but he tracked it on her anyway.
Glyphs on the exterior of the gun flared bright enough that it lit up the entire deck and surrounding sea. It fired at twice the size, speed, and power as any Chimera’s would, forcing Leona away. The weapon cracked and crumbled under the strain, falling to pieces in the Dragon’s hand.
So, Petra had been hiding this unpolished gem all along. Cvareh was rough, untrained, and generally timid. Underneath it all was true power. The closer they neared land, the more she realized her grave error in underestimating him. He was the younger brother of Petra’Oji and Houyui To, of course he had strength.
Camile rejoined her in the sky as Leona let out a cry of frustration. She was done toying with them. “We head to land,” she declared. “Cut them off there.”
Pushing her magic under her, Leona sped ahead of the boat, keeping in line with its course. She was done fighting over the salted sea and its dangerous depths. On land, she would have the upper hand. She wouldn’t underestimate them a third time.
The secondary boat was close enough to open fire, but Cvareh’s crew seemed uninterested in engaging. They pushed onward, ignoring all other distractions and opponents. Like a beam of sunlight, they penetrated the inky blackness with speed and certainty. But nothing was ahead of them. A wall of tall bars connecting the sea with the Underground canals and sewers blocked their path.
They were going in hot and fast on a straight collision course for the giant grate, suicidally determined to outrun their pursuers to their deaths. Leona pulled back, unwilling to follow to that watery grave. If Cvareh wanted to kill himself, she’d let him.
The White Wraith turned, watching Leona as she fell away. Leona could feel the woman’s eyes on her from underneath the gleam of her magically enhanced goggles. She raised an empty hand and gave a wave, as though bidding farewell to the world.
An explosion ripped the sea apart. The boat turned and zigged, fighting against the currents and waves that pushed against its bow—keeping on course in a display of driving mastery. The rusted iron bars of the grate shattered into pieces, hot molten metal glowing like the jagged teeth of a giant beast in the darkness.
The ship allowed itself to be swallowed whole by it.
“Where are they going?” Camile called. “What do they hope to find under the city?”
And then it hit her. Leona screamed as she realized she’d been thwarted again. This Chimera was making a fool of her. The woman was two steps ahead, preempting Leona’s every movement. Leona thought House Xin exhausted the depths of her hatred. But no, this was a rage unlike anything she’d ever felt. It was bitter and rough and raw, and coursed through her like swallowed rocks.
“The Underground,” she snarled, panting, worked into a frenzy. “We pursue!”
The moment they crossed into the back thresholds of the Underground, they would be lost. Leona knew better than to follow into that tumultuous blackness, a place where the sun had never shone and true wretches made their home. Even as a Rider, there were some things she had to admit bested her.
The tunnel was narrow and getting smaller by the second. The boat was forced to dock inelegantly, as half its side was smashed in against a narrow walk. Leona skidded her glider against the surface of the water, evading a shot from the Wraith.
“Go!” the Chimera called to her companions.
Leona’s eyes fell on a Fen girl with long black hair. She was just as the tiny man in Ter.5 had described. Tiny enough for Leona to pick her up and snap her in two as though she were a wooden doll.
She jumped onto the walk, letting her glider sink into the water. She’d recover it with magic later. Stable ground had never felt so good, and Leona wasted no time in launching herself for a deadly attack. The Wraith thought she’d be aiming for her, but Leona’s claws sought a different foe.
The woman in white was fast. She changed from bracing herself to charging forward in a mere instant. But she wasn’t fast enough. Leona’s claws sunk into the tiny Fen’s shoulder, ripping through muscle and sinew. They missed the lethal mark, but the message was clear as the Wraith threw her away with a cry of rage.
“Flor!”
Yes, yes that sound of anguish was what Leona lived for. It sent the previously calm Chimera into a frenzy. The woman char
ged Leona in a blind rage.
“Arianna!” Cvareh called after her, as he locked claws with Camile.
Leona dodged as the woman threw a golden dagger at her, then ducked when the Wraith pulled it back, hearing it whistle by the side of her head. This “Arianna” was a force unto her own. Like a thorny whip, a second dagger shot out from her hand, tethered to a golden line. Fearless, with complete disregard for her own well being, she launched at Leona headfirst.
“We have to go!” A man’s voice—not Cvareh—called from farther down the hall. “We can lose them in the Underground!”
The flurry of attacks didn’t stop.
“Arianna!” Cvareh kicked Camile in the chest, sending the other woman scrambling to avoid landing in the water.
Arianna ignored the Dragon. She continued, relentless. Leona grinned at her, and grabbed the dagger rather than dodging. Golden blood streamed down her wrist and elbow.
“If you don’t kill me now, I’ll hunt down your little pet. I’ll kill Florence,” Leona swore, wriggling as far as she could under the woman’s skin.
The Wraith inhaled sharply the instant she heard the name. The Chimera’s attacks were becoming sloppy, worked into a fever pitch. It was only a matter of time before—
Leona saw her opening. Her fingers tensed, and she jabbed her hand forward for the Chimera’s chest.
And they sunk into the side of Dragon flesh. Cvareh’s arms wrapped around the Fenthri woman as he grimaced aloud in pain. Arianna screamed at him in frustration and the sound was cut short as another piercing flare of magic assaulted her mind.
When the haze from magically stopped time cleared, Leona was left with nothing more than Cvareh’s blood on her hand, the echo of a collapsed wall, and the rage of an unfinished fight.
23. FLORENCE
The only thing that made Florence ignore the pain in her shoulder was losing sight of Arianna with the Dragon Rider still attacking. Will planted the charges as Ari had no doubt instructed, as Florence had been told was the plan from the start. She sagged against Helen, trying to hold in the crimson waterfall that poured relentlessly between her fingers on a march to drag her down the river of death.