Darkwind, p.42
Darkwind, page 42
Thorne shouted her name. Cistine looked up at the balcony, and there he was. Somehow, he’d found his way into the city of his disgrace, and he’d come for them, for her, just as he had in the pass: swords in hand, pale hair slanting into his eyes, and those eyes fixed on her as she dragged herself up on the arm of the couch.
Salvotor snatched the back of her dress, and Cistine bawled with frustration and fear. She kicked backward—her slipper sailed off—her bare heel connected with something that wasn’t hard like his face. The Chancellor released her, and Cistine flung herself toward the stairs.
She was halfway to the top when she collided with Julian. He thrust her behind him and charged the Chancellor, and Cistine tried to yell, but her aching jaw blocked her voice. She managed no more than a weak croak as Julian swung a stolen sword straight into the Chancellor’s ribs.
It rebounded as if he’d slammed it against stone.
Salvotor grabbed Julian by the throat and hurled him toward the steps, where he landed with a thud on his shoulder, cursing. Cistine crawled back down and propped him up with her hands under his arms, and he picked up his sword and bundled her up the steps to the balcony. Thorne stepped in front of them, facing Salvotor.
These two men…Tribune and Chancellor. Father and son. They matched one another for murderous glares.
“How did you manage to find your way back into Stornhaz?” Salvotor said. “I thought I sealed all your holes a decade ago.”
“It was never a matter of getting in, and you know that,” Thorne growled. “It was always about you coming out.”
“And you couldn’t even accomplish that. All those years you managed to mask your movements on the Vey, all those carts you robbed for nothing. You even had a princess in your hands, and you couldn’t use her properly! You only ever made it this far because I ordered the Vassora to stand down and let you pass. You truly are an unmitigated disgrace.”
Thorne sheathed one blade and gripped the railing, and Cistine knew he would leap down and go to war against Salvotor, here and now. But he would get no further than a fist to that man’s iron cheekbone.
“Thorne!” Cistine shouted. “You can’t kill him. You saw what happened—his skin!”
Salvotor’s eyes swung to her, and there was such hatred there, such an abundance of rage, Cistine saw who he truly was.
Not the diplomat. Not the leader of Kanslar Court, but the man who’d beaten his son and broken an old woman’s body. He stood unarmed below them, and yet Cistine could envision him perfectly with a whip in his hand. With a belt. With a cudgel aimed at Baba Kallah’s thigh.
The Chancellor reached into his pocket and withdrew a small, glittering emerald bottle. It reminded Cistine of the jars Tatiana had taken with her to Villmark.
“Boy,” Salvotor growled, and the word was a taunt flung at Thorne, who winced as if he’d been slapped. “I am going to add to those marks on your back.”
The Chancellor slammed the glass bottle against the side of his face.
And Cistine would never forget what happened next.
Serpent tongues of lightning spewed down the Chancellor’s sleeve and wrapped his fist in a glove. When he clapped his palms together, the lightning transferred between his fingers like confectioner’s taffy and raced up his other arm.
Thorne whirled, and there was fear in his eyes as he flung himself at them, pushing Julian to the floor, shoving Cistine’s head down.
The lightning ruptured and roared into the marble doorframe. Great chunks of it broke apart, hailing down on the floor, and Cistine heard them strike Thorne’s bruised back. His breath hitched against the side of her neck as he spread his arms, shielding them both.
When the tongues of lightning lashed out again, Thorne didn’t wait to be struck: he hauled Julian to his feet and drove him through the doorway. Then he snatched Cistine by her arm and pushed her ahead of him, out into the long hall. The arch collapsed behind them, sealing off Salvotor’s furious roar as his own incomprehensible power blocked off his route to them.
Rakel was gone, the hall riddled with Vassoran bodies. More were charging toward them already. Maleck, Tatiana, and Ariadne stood with swords in hand, ready to meet them.
Thorne shoved Cistine toward Julian. He caught her, holding his sleeve to the flow of blood from her ear. She still couldn’t hear anything through it, and the whole side of her head throbbed as they ran straight toward their enemies.
A strange calm stole through Cistine when her feet touched the hallway’s lower level. She knew what would happen next, and it made more sense than whatever had just happened in that room.
The cabal surged forward, slamming into the wave of Vassora. Their weapons gulped blood greedily and without mercy. Cistine saw they had no grace to spare for these people who rose in defense of a man who wore sleeves of lightning, a charlatan of blood and power who would be at the cabal’s heels any moment as they forced their way to the mezzanine that looked out over the market.
Chaos reigned below. More guards pushed their way between the confused, flighty people, running toward the same thing.
Toward Quill, who stood like a dark boulder in the bright stream of fleeing Valgardans, thumbs hooked casually in his belt.
Cistine tasted the bitterness of terror in the back of her throat, but Thorne was calm as he stepped forward—as he pulled a glass jar just like the Chancellor’s from a pocket on his armor.
Thorne whistled a familiar, two-beat note, and Faer’s answering call was unmistakable. The raven tucked away from the banners above and fell straight toward Quill, choosing his armored form from the crush of bodies. The moment the raven alighted on his shoulder, Quill planted one foot and skimmed the other, twisting toward the balcony, catching sight of them—of Thorne brandishing the jar. Quill’s chin jerked down in a swift nod, and he gripped the collar of his shirt, rolling it up over his nose and mouth like a mask.
For the second time that day, Cistine witnessed the impossible.
Thorne threw the jar. Quill leaped, caught it in one fist, and smashed it against his thigh as he landed. His armor started to glow; the inlaid threads lit up in a wash of silver-blue, illumining the reinforcements. They blazed with ephemeral radiance as Quill whirled back to face the guards.
Bright, hot flames scythed the air, catching the banners alight, clearing a crescent of space around Quill with the guards at the forefront. His armor smoldering, Quill launched through a series of spinning kicks, handstands, and blows that sent gout after gout of flame toward the Vassora. He punched through their defenses, rendered their steel useless, and sent them running like firelit foxes through sheaves of wheat, setting the potted plants, carts, and tables alight.
Thorne bolted toward the steps, and the cabal streamed after him down the stairs, where Faer landed on Cistine’s shoulder. Quill dealt with the last two guards before the fire whispered out of existence, turning to nothing but skeins of steam curling up from his back.
Tatiana reached him first. She wrapped an arm around him and hustled him toward the door, and Cistine didn’t know if she was imagining how Quill’s feet dragged on the marble.
The outer courtyard stormed with Vassora. Thorne cursed, and Julian swept Cistine behind him with one arm. “Tell us you have a way out of here!”
Before Thorne could answer, Cistine heard a whistle from the direction of Kanslar’s statue. The sound turned back half the guards who were moving toward the cabal.
Ashe perched on the conqueror’s shoulder. Knees cocked, elbows resting on them, wrists hanging loosely between her legs, she peered down at the Vassora like an oversized buzzard spotting carrion. “I take it you didn’t expect the likes of me.”
Maleck shot forward like an arrow, piling into the ranks of distracted guards. The others followed, and Ashe lunged down into the fray. Echelon rang against Vassoran steel, and as the guards scattered from its wicked edge, Cistine spotted the doors to the peristyle: shut and barred, trapping them inside.
Cistine pushed Julian’s shoulder. “Help them.”
“I’m not leaving you undefended, Princess!”
“If you want to save me, then help them clear us a path!” Cistine was already running toward the door. Julian chased after her and fell into the fight by sheer necessity as the Vassora swept in to intercept them. With Julian’s borrowed blade hacking at anyone who pursued her, Cistine stumbled to the door and grabbed the bar, pushing up against it.
Useless, like pressing on a mountain face and expecting it to move. Two men at least had to have lifted the bar over its hooks.
“Faer!” Cistine screamed—and whistled for good measure. When the raven alighted on her elbow, Cistine brought him on level with her eyes. “We need a way out!”
Faer revolved his head. Intelligent, beady eyes blinked slowly as he studied her face. Then he took wing toward the western edge of the courtyard, gliding over the chaos of combat where death-gods battled Vassoran guards in a whirl of blood and steel. Cistine ran after him, lungs burning, legs pumping. When a guard stepped into her path, she dropped and slid under the edge of his blade, shredding her dress on the cobblestones. She rolled to the base of the walkway that fringed the courtyard, where Faer had alighted, flapping and crowing.
There was a runoff grate fastened to the ground. If it joined the channel cutting through the heart of Stornhaz, then it would do.
Cistine grabbed the grate with her unbroken hand, heaving with all her might, but it didn’t budge. She pulled until her face broke out in sweat and the veins swelled in her forehead. Blood continued to snake down her neck, renewing its flow with the strain.
Hands suddenly joined hers over the slats. Thorne was grim and silent as they dragged the grate back together, exposing the dark plunge into the drain below. Thorne shouted for his cabal, and they came running—Ariadne in the lead, Tatiana and Quill and Julian behind her, Maleck and Ashe bringing up the rear with a last swipe at the guards.
Ariadne took the plunge into the sewer as if she’d done it countless times before. Tatiana sprang in after her, and Quill whistled Faer away before he took the leap. Julian skidded to a halt, grabbing Cistine’s hand. “You first, Princess.”
Cistine sucked in her breath as she stepped over the edge and dropped through a short, chilly cavern of open space, straight into Quill’s arms. He set her on her feet and nudged her aside as Julian leaped down to join them.
Cistine pressed herself to the wall, wincing at its slippery, mildewed texture as Thorne dropped down next, and then Maleck. And Ashe…
Ashe did not appear.
“Ashe?” Cistine pushed away from the wall, back into the light from the open grate. Maleck swiveled to look up as well.
The overcast daylight framed Ashe’s head as she stared down at them. “More guards will be here soon. Someone has to lay a trail away from this rancid hole.”
“Ashe.” Cistine’s voice cracked with frenzy this time as she grabbed Maleck’s arm for balance on the slippery slope. “Get down here!”
“You should’ve let me go first, Princess. You made me draw the short lot.”
Maleck snarled under his breath, grabbing the wall, preparing to hoist himself back up.
“Maleck. Stop.”
He hesitated, fingers digging into dark stone, head cast back to look at her, braids tumbling from his brow.
“You have to get them out of the city. You told me no one knows the way in or out better than you. Now prove it.” With her eyes still fixed on Maleck, Ashe added, “Julian, our princess is in your hands now. Take her home.”
“Ashe, don’t you dare!” Cistine screamed.
Ashe opened her fist and dropped Echelon into the sewer. Maleck reached up, catching the sword by its sheathed blade as Ashe fitted the grate back into place and ran.
“No!” Cistine jerked forward, and Julian caught her around the waist, cursing against the shell of her damaged ear.
“Asheila!” Maleck roared Ashe’s full name, slung Echelon over his back, and started up toward the grate.
“Maleck! Come back here!” Ariadne snapped.
Quill snared his friend by the leg. “Mal, we have to go!”
Maleck kicked free and started to climb again.
“Darkwind.”
Thorne’s voice boomed through the shaft—a quiet, deft command. Maleck stopped as if an invisible hand had flattened him against the wall.
Cistine stared through tear-stained eyes at Thorne. His own face was bloodstained and cut with lines of distress, but he was staring at Maleck, and only Maleck.
“Come back,” Thorne said. “This was her choice. As Cadre—as cabal.”
Maleck’s fingers loosened. He dropped back onto the slope, staring at Thorne with bruised, sunken eyes. Hating the decision. Hating the Name that had pulled him back.
And if he started climbing again, Cistine would be right behind him.
But Maleck didn’t climb. Feet braced, he pushed Quill, then Tatiana, down the slope into the water. Then he turned those deep, anguished, wild eyes onto Cistine.
She didn’t know how she’d ever believed they were cold, or without emotion, like twin graves in that wounded face. How she’d ever let herself think Maleck didn’t feel anything…didn’t feel everything. With Ashe’s sword strapped to his back, Ashe’s last command bearing on his shoulders and her full name still framing his lips—a name Cistine didn’t think anyone else in the world knew, except her family and Ashe’s—Cistine saw her own agony, her own shock, those same first blows of grief reflected in Maleck’s face.
So when he put out his hand to her, she took it. And she took the plunge with him into the filthy water.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
FIRE BURNED INSIDE the courthouse walls when the cabal swam down the channel and stowed away on a barge. That, Cistine assumed, was the only reason the orders hadn’t reached the gate yet to keep it from being opened. She didn’t know who to thank—God, or Ashe, or pure luck—for the distraction as they floated out from Stornhaz’s impregnable wall and rode the outgoing barge for miles downstream.
They followed Thorne’s cue to dismount when darkness suffocated the world. They slid through the black water to the shore, and then they ran east, into the arid, dry fringes of Kroaken territory.
Little flourished in Kroaken but scrub brush, hardy trees, and dirt mounds piling up and shifting down beneath their feet with every step. Cistine’s calves screamed by the time they’d climbed and descended two dozen of them. Her head throbbed, an earthquake of pain radiating from the drum of her ear. She was relieved Julian walked on that side, keeping anything from startling her. She was afraid if she was jarred, if her emotions were prodded even the slightest bit, she would start crying and never stop.
Numb. That was the word she repeated to herself in time with the plod of her feet on the dirt. Numb. Unfeeling. Composed.
The night was deep when Thorne finally called for a halt, and the cabal quietly set about making a small fire and tending their wounds. Cistine stared at Quill through the flames as Tatiana examined a slit in his armor.
“Dangerous,” Tatiana muttered. “If this had been there before you used that flagon…”
“I know.” Quill shot a swift glance toward Cistine.
Flagon. The carts. The Chancellor’s carts…
“Don’t do that again,” Tatiana warned. “Not until I fix your threads.”
Quill’s face softened slightly as he focused on her again. “I won’t.”
Maleck knelt before Cistine, interrupting her view. He still wore Echelon across his shoulders. His fingers, surprisingly gentle, took Cistine’s chin.
“Get your hands off her,” Julian spat.
“Unless you know battlefield triage,” Ariadne said, “I suggest you be quiet.”
Julian opened his mouth but gave no retort. Cistine stared into Maleck’s eyes, and he stared back. Then he turned her head and examined the blood on her neck. He brushed his thumb just below her ear, pressing the skin until she winced and groaned.
Across the fire, Thorne looked up. A deep divot appeared between his brows.
Maleck let go of Cistine’s face and took her hand instead. He examined her knuckles, splaying her fingers with his and examining the swelling and the stippled skin. He brushed away the hair above her ear and tested the tender skin over her skull.
“Your eardrum is ruptured,” he said at last. “Your knuckles are fractured, and you have a concussion. Nothing fatal.”
Ariadne tilted her head, and a strange expression crossed her face. “He struck you.”
“And threw me.” Cistine hated how small the words emerged. How feeble.
“What about your hand?” Quill asked.
Cistine cleared her parched throat. “I punched him in the face.”
Quill burst out laughing. It didn’t sound amused. “You punched Salvotor in the face?”
“Yes, and his skin was like adamant. There was something wrong with it. The women in the Court warned me about that.”
Quill’s laughter cut off sharply. The cabal all looked at Thorne. He continued to watch Cistine across the fire.
Cistine knew it was coming. She knew they had to have this conversation, even if she longed for nothing more than to curl up in the sand and dream Ashe was with them again. Her Warden—her brilliant, clever, and powerful protector. The closest friend she’d ever had.
Gone. Because of Cistine’s choices. And because of Thorne’s.
“All of you should go hunting,” she said, “or patrolling.”
Tatiana frowned, but Thorne said, “She’s right. Quill especially needs to eat. Maleck and Ariadne, on patrol. Quill, Tatiana—”
“And Julian,” Cistine added. “You’ve hunted plenty of pheasants.”
“Not tonight, Princess. I’m not leaving your side.”
“I’m telling you to go as your friend, Julian,” Cistine said flatly. “Don’t make me order you as your princess. Please.”
