“CAD, FIGHT IT. HE TAUNTS YOU TO CONTROL YOU.”
“Best lay I ever had, Jensa.”
The walls around her soul crumbled in an instant.
A sigh from the Strix.
She lunged, her body a blur as her Void Form burned, the runic scars on her chest flamed as blood oozed from the cicatrice. She grabbed Lu Har by the throat, the Strix flew from the sheath on her bed and pressed its blackened steel just below his jaw, seven other blades swirling over her head in a tornado of anger. They slammed into the stone wall above the Fallen’s head. Red welled at the elfir’s neck from under black metal sharpness.
There was no fear in the Fallen, only mild amusement. “This is why you were chosen,” he said in a calm voice. “Because of your natural gifts. But also because you are special beyond your limited understanding. It comes from your Nightingale blood.”
Confusion settled around her shoulders, she tried to blink it away. “Lies!”
“LET ME ENJOY HIS SOUL. TOY WITH IT, I CAN. I’VE WAITED FOR NINE HUNDRED YEARS TO SAMPLE HIS SOUL.”
All-onyx eyes grew large as the dark of the void filled her master. A pressure crushed down on her. She winced under the onslaught of his aetheurgy. Cadrianna struggled to hold him. Gods, he was so strong. Unyielding. Undaunted by her puny fight.
“I can see it, Cadrianna Nightingale.” Aetheurgy pulsed, his aether fought hers. The Strix blade wavered, dropping inches. “You have a gift none else have. You have lived where others would have failed. The truth of things kept hidden for centuries. It is in your blood.”
“Fuck you.” Her arm tingled and her veins swelled as if they would explode.
He chuckled, the apple in his throat kissed the trembling blade. O Nocturne, his face was gorgeous, even now. The pressure loosened.
“You’re mad. A liar and a killer.” She recalled the blade from his neck and tossed the Strix onto her bed, the other blades still stuck in the wall. Her heart hammered at her ribs. Why did she love him so? “But so am I. Trained to be the hand of death in your name. I fulfilled the contract on Richtel and of Thestile.”
“The contract isn’t complete to my needs.”
“Find someone else.”
“It doesn’t matter what you want, my Cadrianna. You were born to kill. It is in your Nightingale blood. Of the mist. Godsblood. Flesh of the void must take its ilk. Do this and Brynn is freed.”
Brynn…
“I DON’T TRUST HIM, CAD.”
She didn’t trust Lu Har either. But she imagined the blade jabbed deep into his heart. That baleful heart spilling baleful blood, her revenge complete. Brynn freed; her own soul released from the torn loves of her life. Emre, the betrayer and beloved. Lu Har, the forbidden evil and desirer.
Both tore at her soul, at her heart. “Never trust the gods… who do I have to kill?” Her hand rose toward Lu Har’s cheek, his soft beard tickled her palm. O Zenith… Nocturne… why?
“It’s time to end the Gutter King. Bring me his head, free Drenth. Free Brynn.”
For Brynn.
Then she surged forward, her lips met the elfir’s in rancorous desire. Giving in, as always. Gods, she was more monster than he.
XII
Lojen
“WAIT, RU.”
Lojen grabbed his sister by the arm and dragged her back into the doorway of a red-bricked haberdashery.
“By the Arbiter,” Ruane growled as he squashed her against the inlaid window.
Lojen shushed her like she was a clod fumbling about in the dark trying not to wake the hatchlings. She was like a keg of aethecite, ready to explode. “I can’t tell if those are rebels or Imperium soldiers ‘round the corner. They look dangerous either way.”
They’d spent the better part of the day heading toward the rebel safehouse. The ruckus caused by the rebels at nightturn had long since ended, but the war for the city still waged tense as Imperium soldiers did an organized sweep. The drakken siblings had to hide for long hours in alleys and abandoned doorways or crouched with stinky vagrants. It was nearing evenfall when they’d come upon this alley in Marketside.
And it appeared they weren’t alone.
By the obvious broken front window and dead bodies amongst the haberdashery, they weren’t the only ones searching for the Gutter King and his rebels. In the alley next to the haberdashery were four people. The alley was darkened, nary an aethecite lamp or neon of Aere. Shadows within shadows. All he could make out was the four skulking in the dark. A proper place to hide the entrance of the rebellion.
“What are we waiting for?” Ruane breathed into his earhole, hot and vapid.
“I can’t tell wh—”
Just then, a camera drone zipped into the alley, dipping between the tall buildings. A bright ray of light gleamed down upon the four. It whirred above for the briefest of seconds and then zoomed away. But in that moment, in the barest of light given off by the drone, Lojen saw what he needed to see.
Imperium soldiers. And worse, a scourge.
This one’s wary, Lojen thought. The scourge’s head swiveled toward the mouth of the alley, almost as if hearing his inner thoughts. Lojen sucked in his breath and crushed Ruane further into the doorway.
“Who are they?”
“Humir we want nothing to do with.”
