by Taylor Hobbs
She turned to her brother, who still held the hammer in his shaking hands. “Henry,” she said, gently tugging at the weapon until he released his hold on it. “Go outside. Get as many people to clear the area as you can. Quickly and quietly. Don’t cause panic.”
“I’m not leaving you here with him!” Henry said.
She regarded him with a level gaze. “I can take care of him, Henry. But just in case I don’t, you need to save these people.” Tears filled his eyes. “Go, now,” she ordered. He must have sensed the iron will in her tone, because he turned and ran from the building. She hoped Henry would evacuate at least the part of the village closest to the coming explosion. That left Charlotte and Robin alone, facing off as he squirmed his way to the back corner of the smithy.
Charlotte tested the weight of the hammer, weighing it with her hands as she tossed it back and forth. It was not a graceful weapon, not like the precision of a knife edge. It was not a weapon of the shadows, a silent killer, and effective with a whisper of sound. No, the hammer was brutal. A weapon that needed its master to swing it with fury in order to deal a killing blow. It could crush a skull beyond recognition, a weapon that immersed the attacker in the smell and feel of the kill. It was as personal as an attack with bare hands, only fueled by more rage.
But rage that burned within Charlotte was controlled for the moment. It allowed her to assess her foe with razor-sharp precision, to focus on her training rather than let loose.
“Where is the powder, Robin?” Charlotte asked again, as she stalked toward the rebel with her weapon. Her prey pushed on a wood panel within the shop, and it opened to reveal an escape hatch. Of course, she thought bitterly. Robin loves his escape routes.
“I’ll be seeing you,” he said, as he crouched down to dart through, holding his dagger in front of him. “On the other hand, maybe not.”
Charlotte was torn, debating in a split second whether or not to chase the rebel or spend extra precious minutes looking for the powder in the blacksmith’s workshop. The decision was made for her, however, when Robin suddenly reappeared, backing away from a knife-point at his nose, his own weapon turned against him.
“Fawkes!” Charlotte shouted, when she saw the second figure come into view. “The powder is somewhere here. Robin hid all of it in here, the other barrels—”
“Were just decoys, yes,” Fawkes said. “I came to look for you as soon as I realized. Made it easy to find, with all the fleeing people.”
“Belaq is on his way, I’m sure of it. He wants the weapon,” Charlotte said. “You get Robin to talk; I’ll start looking.” She began overturning tables, testing the floors, and examining every nook and cranny in the shop.
“You’re never going to find it,” Robin said. “Give up and get out, otherwise we will all die.”
“So you are willing to let other people die for your cause, but not you?” Fawkes said, moving the knife over to Robin’s temple. “Coward,” he said, and sliced.
Hot blood and screams filled the air as Robin clutched his ear, or the gaping hole where his ear used to be. Fawkes grabbed him by the collar and hauled him back up to his feet. “Let’s try this again. Charlotte asked you a question.” The Cloaked Shadow had made a reappearance, even without the cloak itself. Cold, calm, collected—Fawkes allowed his alter-ego to take control of his body and get things done. Charlotte hoped he wouldn’t take it too far and lose himself, but she had to admit, she was relieved to see him.
Robin just whimpered, blood gushing through his fingers as he tried to stem the flow.
“How much time do we have, Charlotte?” Fawkes asked. “I need to know how slowly I can kill him.”
“I don’t know, I don’t know!” she said, frantic.
Fawkes turned his attention back to his captive. “Here is the thing, Robin. I do not mind dying. I do not mind killing you. But I will be damned if I let you kill that woman over there.” He turned back to Charlotte when Robin refused to react. “Charlotte,” he said, “get as far away from here as you can. Run.”
If she wasn’t so stressed, Charlotte would have rolled her eyes. “I’m not abandoning you, or my village. We can get him to talk.”
Fawkes slashed a vertical cut down Robin’s jaw in response, almost identical to the scar down his own neck. “Where is it?” he bellowed.
“Taking all of my fun, I see.” Duke Belaq appeared in the doorway, flanked on one side by the biggest soldier Charlotte had ever seen, who held Henry by the throat. “Look at my good fortune. Everyone I wanted to see, all together at once. I think because I started with the boy so many months ago, I should begin with him here, no?”
Henry thrashed in his captor’s grasp as the massive soldier raised him off the ground. Charlotte reacted viscerally, abandoning her search and launching herself at the men. “Charlotte!” Fawkes yelled, and all hell broke loose.
Charlotte’s hammer smashed down on the soldier’s arm, which released her brother at the sound of bones shattering. Belaq ignored her, making his move on Fawkes and Robin. Unconscious, Henry fell to the floor, but Charlotte had no time to check on him. The soldier was reaching for his sword with his good arm.
Charlotte ducked the first swing of the sword, dropping to the ground before retaliating with her hammer. Two quick blows to the knee caps and her aggressor was down, screaming in agony. She had disabled a man more than twice her size without a second’s hesitation. It wasn’t a conscious decision to use the minimum amount of force to achieve the maximum amount of debilitation without striking a killing blow. It was due to instinct, from the lessons that had been pounded into her over and over.
When the soldier hit the floor, Charlotte was already up on her feet and moving to help Fawkes. Her mentor faced off with the duke while trying to hold Robin captive between them.
Belaq could have come with an army, but instead he faces us alone. He wants to savor this moment, to have all the glory to himself. After the torture the duke had survived in Croantis, he would not give anyone else the pleasure of killing Robin and Henry. Belaq didn’t appear to be feeling any long-term effects from his injuries, and Charlotte wondered how he had healed so rapidly. Besides some discolored bruising on his face, it was impossible to see the ordeal that the Duke had suffered.
“The famous Cloaked Shadow, I presume,” the duke said, as they circled each other, sizing up their opponent.
Robin, whose face was pale with blood loss, swayed a little on his feet in the center, but that wasn’t going to stop him from trying to save his own skin. The rebel leader saw his opening as Duke Belaq distracted Fawkes, who seethed with barely contained fury at the man who destroyed his wife. Robin tried to make a break for the hidden passage only to find himself restrained by the duke this time.
“It appears we have the same objective with this one—pain,” Belaq told Fawkes, holding his own dagger to the rebel. “I’ve been thinking about this for a long time.” The duke’s face split into a gleeful smile, reveling in the thought of bloodshed rather than the ticking time bomb somewhere in the shop.
Duke Belaq ran his knife over Robin’s face, and Charlotte shuddered with the memory of his cold blade against her skin in Croantis. She stood at the ready next to Fawkes as Belaq held the rebel as a shield between them. Charlotte was certain that if Belaq wasn’t holding Robin, Fawkes would have been on him in an instant. The rebel was a reminder of their true purpose— finding the powder. Everything else was just a distraction.
Belaq, though, seemed to think he had all the time in the world. He started making small nicks in Robin’s already-bloody flesh. “You think you can threaten my home?” he murmured to Robin, almost lovingly as rivulets of red streamed down. “You do not get to decide who lives and who dies in my dukedom. That is up to me. Do you know what I have done to rebuild my family name? You will give me this weapon, and no one will dare speak ill of the Belaqs—past, present, or future. We are a strong and powerful house, and even the king will fear us.”
The powder was not goin
g to transfer from one madman to another if Charlotte had anything to say about it. Robin grew more frantic as he struggled against the duke’s grip. “Help me!” he begged Charlotte and Fawkes, deciding that they were the lesser of two evils.
“Then tell us where it is,” Charlotte said calmly.
“It is already activated. If we wait very much longer—”
“All the more reason to confess,” she said.
Robin grunted as another cut sliced his face. In that moment, he seemed to realize that no matter what happened, he wasn’t going to get out alive. For all of his bluster and talk of sacrifice for the revolution, Robin truly hadn’t planned on dying. After his years of careful planning, escapes, and successful attacks, he had started to believe he was truly invincible. But this final plan was going to be the death of him, whether at the hands of the duke, the bomb, or the Cloaked Shadow. He had gone too far this time, and no one was coming to save him, not even Henry.
Charlotte saw regret flash across Robin’s face as his eyes darted over to the lit forge. All at once, she knew where the powder was hidden, and exactly how much danger they were in.
Fawkes, so in tune with his partner’s presence, felt Charlotte tense. He followed her line of sight to the flames, and his jaw clenched in understanding.
Cannon powder was in Fawkes’ realm of expertise, and he would have to be the one to safely disable it without blowing them all up. That meant leaving Charlotte to take care of Belaq, the only man she had ever faced whose skills rivaled Fawkes’ own. The fight would be the greatest test of her skills, with the greatest repercussions. One wrong move, one bump into the forge, could send them all sky high.
Charlotte rose up on her toes, ready to bounce into action. Belaq narrowed his eyes at her, and she could see him scrambling to decipher what had just changed in their holding pattern. Charlotte and Fawkes’ silent link facilitated their countdown to action. At the same time, Fawkes moved with graceful purpose toward the forge, and Charlotte stepped in front of Belaq and Robin to take his place.
“It appears I do not need you after all,” the duke said to Robin, and with a practiced motion, slit the rebel’s throat. The dying man’s sputtering gasps as he clutched his throat sickened Charlotte, but she held her ground. The fresh spray of blood on her clothes didn’t make her woozy—it only sharpened her focus and her determination not to be the knife’s next victim.
In front of her stood the man who had driven Charlotte down this path, but she was not the same girl who trembled in fear at his mere presence anymore. As she stared at Belaq, the smiling faces of two beautiful women flanked him. Both had died at his hands, degraded and tossed away like they were nothing. The appearance of Charlotte’s mother and Josephine gave her strength for the fight to come. The sudden certainty that she was going to win fell over Charlotte like a blanket. Or a cloak.
Charlotte didn’t let herself turn around to see how Fawkes handled the cannon powder. Was it fair for her to take the revenge that Fawkes so desperately wanted, to take his place in this fight? But Fawkes had not killed anyone since Josephine told him his new path, and Charlotte was not about to let him start now. Fawkes’ mission was of broader scope than the one assigned to Charlotte, but her sacrifice would be just as poignant.
The duke smirked at her, Robin’s blood dripping from his fine clothes. He moved toward her as she stood frozen in place, as though he expected her to react the same as when he cornered her in Croantis. What Charlotte was really doing was preparing herself for the inevitable, for the shift in mentality that came when planning a killing blow versus a disabling blow. The one she landed would have to be the end of Belaq.
He lunged for her, dagger whistling past her ear as she nimbly dodged his thrust. She backed away, dancing on her toes like she and Fawkes had danced a hundred times before. He hardly saw the hammer in her hand as a worthwhile threat, especially considering he held the wicked-sharp blade. The longer Charlotte held his attention, though, the more time she gave Fawkes to finish his task.
“I remember you are quick,” the duke said, undeterred. “Unfortunately for you, I’m going to have to be quick as well, as much as I would love to savor this.” He rolled his eyes over her form, leering.
Her adversary readied for another assault, but Charlotte read the duke’s plans with easy clarity. In underestimating her, he fought lazily, and gave everything away a split second before he attacked. Charlotte was hardly out of breath after ducking and diving around four more attempts on her life. The duke appeared to be saving his energy for what he thought was his true opponent—the Cloaked Shadow.
The duke was never going to get that far, though. Charlotte was going to make sure that this ended here and now, with Belaq’s blood on her hands instead of on Fawkes’. In order to protect the man she loved, she would sacrifice her own innocence.
Belaq finally realized that he was not dealing with the same Charlotte from before, and he switched tactics. He flew at her in a whirling fury, his decades of fighting expertise apparent, and she didn’t move fast enough. Searing pain shot through her side as the dagger opened up a gaping wound on her torso. Ripping the breath from her lungs, it took all of her strength not to double over. Her torn blouse revealed jagged flesh on her left side, pulsing with heat.
Through the haze of her pain, she felt Fawkes’ eyes on her, distracted from his task at hand. No, she thought, I can do this. She straightened up, and took on her fighter’s stance, readying for another attack.
When he saw that she was not going to go down easily, Belaq let out a feral snarl. “I’d rather kill you with my bare hands anyway,” he said. He threw down his knife and charged at her.
Belaq bore down on Charlotte like a bear, trusting in their size difference to save him from any real damage. And if she did get in a lucky hit, well, Belaq was determined to take her down with him. Charlotte’s opponent was beyond rational thinking, his ferocity overwhelming any self-preservation instinct.
As Belaq closed in on her, Charlotte flashed back to training with Fawkes in the snow. He was yelling at her to flip him to the ground as they repeated the exercise over and over. Use my weight and my momentum against me, Fawkes chided.
Taking no heed of her abdominal injury, muscle memory took over and Charlotte forgot to fear for her life. She had faced this attack a hundred times before. She dropped her hammer to the floor.
The duke was in front of her one moment, and then he was soaring through the air behind her. Time slowed as Belaq hung in space, limbs flailing before he hit the ground. The earth shook with the force of the impact, knocking the air from his lungs and cracking his skull.
In a split second, Charlotte was on top of him, weapon in hand. But when she reached across the floor for her hammer, her fingertips closed over Duke Belaq’s knife instead, and now Belaq’s own knife was at his throat. His eyes widened in surprise. A girl who hardly weighed anything straddled him and had managed to get the upper hand. The dark eyes that bore into Charlotte’s were not her mentor’s blue ones. This gaze was not filled with approval and pride as she bested the man underneath her. These eyes were filled with loathing and rage, reminding Charlotte that this was not a training exercise.
Belaq had no breath to speak, but it didn’t stop him from reaching up and grabbing Charlotte by the throat. As his fingers began to tighten, Charlotte drove the knife into his neck, twisting the blade as a fountain of blood spurted over her hand and into the dirt. The duke’s lungs tried to work with a bubbling wheeze as he inhaled through the hole in his throat. He did not look afraid or in pain, just confused, like he had entered a new reality. He was trying to understand a world in which a woman could beat him.
His fingers loosened from Charlotte’s neck and limply grasped for purchase on his own throat. He tried to grip the hilt of the knife, but it was slick with blood. Belaq’s struggles grew weaker as he tried to comprehend his position.
Charlotte felt this all with cool detachment as she waited for the end, calm as his body buc
ked beneath her. Once the light left Duke Belaq’s eyes, the enormity of her actions hit her with full force. As much as she knew he deserved to die, the duke’s limp body didn’t bring her the sense of peace and closure she was hoping for. Instead, she just felt empty. It was over.
Blood would be forever on her hands, branding her soul. It wasn’t how she thought it would be, and the memory of the violent struggle would forever haunt her dreams. But Charlotte had made her decision; a decision to take Belaq’s death upon her own conscience instead of Fawkes’. Giving up his revenge against Belaq had put him on the path toward something greater and better. Charlotte loved him enough to give him this gift, even if it meant crossing an irreversible line in her own life.
She had sacrificed a part of her innocence she never realized she had until it was gone. Would she grow to resent Fawkes for putting her in this position? For leading her down this path? Would his love be enough for her to shoulder this burden for a lifetime?
All these thoughts crowded her mind as she stared at her bloodied hands. Then she looked up, and her gaze met a deep blue stare. Fawkes was waiting for her to move, to speak, to take any sort of action first. As soon as she tried to get off the duke’s body, all the adrenaline left her system.
Seeing Charlotte’s muscles fail her, Fawkes swooped down and pulled her into his arms. At the contact, Charlotte burst into tears of relief. She was alive, and so was Fawkes. Against all odds, they were still standing. Charlotte pulled her face away from where it was buried in his neck to look around the room. Robin and Belaq’s bodies lay near the previously lit forge, blood cooling in puddles on the floor. Near the doorway, Charlotte saw the soldier still writhing and groaning on the ground, unable to stand due to his crushed kneecaps. Her gaze fell on the last body, which had not moved.
“Henry!” she cried, and let go of Fawkes to run to her brother. She dropped to sit on the floor, pulling Henry’s head into her lap as she sobbed for him to wake up. Charlotte stroked his face while Fawkes hastily searched his body for signs of life.