by Elise Kova
“I will not sort it out as the Xin’Ryu.”
“I’m your Oji.” Finnyr looked around at all of them now, as if to search for someone to affirm the fact. “I’m your Oji!”
“Finnyr Xin’Oji To.” It was the one time Cvareh didn’t mind saying his brother’s name in association with Petra’s title. It was something that must be done if he was going to take it. “I challenge you.”
“On what grounds?” Finnyr squeaked.
Where should he start? “Neglecting House Xin.”
Everyone’s eyes volleyed from brother to brother. The outcome would affect each of them in a way that would be forever irreversible. Cvareh’s victory would mean war, but his defeat would mean centuries of oppression under House Rok.
“I-I have not—”
“Finnyr, do you accept my duel?” Cvareh pressed.
“Of course I do not!” Finnyr began laughing. “Do you think I’d let you duel me on such unsubstantiated grounds?”
“On what grounds did you duel Petra?” His sister’s name was forced out as a snarl. When his brother said nothing, Cvareh asked again, “What grounds, Finnyr? What did you charge her with? Did she cower even though it was a fool’s challenge? Or did she stand for it?”
“She challenged me.” There was truth in Finnyr’s affirmation.
Cvareh took a step forward. “She challenged you? And you killed her?”
“It was a duel!”
“Did you have help?” Cvareh continued his advance. He didn’t know what he was going to do yet, but that first step had crossed him over the point of no return. This would end now. One way or another, there would be only one Xin sibling standing when the next morning came.
“N-no.”
“Did Rok help you bring down Petra?” Cvareh’s claws shot from his hand. “Did you see our sister die a coward’s death?”
“Someone stop him!” Finnyr pointed. “He’s threatening your Oji.”
No one moved.
“Did you kill her?”
“I killed her!”
“Was the fight fair?” Cvareh’s voice rose. More people continued to arrive, no doubt drawn by the shouting.
“It was a rightly charged duel,” Finnyr insisted.
Cvareh sheathed his claws and reached out for his brother’s neck, drawing the man to him with both hands. Had Finnyr always been so weak?
“Don’t lie to me,” Cvareh growled, pressing his fingertips into Finnyr’s squishy flesh. At any moment, his claws could extend right into his brother’s pale blue skin. “Don’t lie to us.”
“I—” Finnyr gasped.
“The eyes of Xin are upon you. Did you kill Petra fairly? Are you the Oji of this house?”
“Help me!” Finnyr’s eyes lolled about, looking for salvation. But no one moved. “Fae, help me!”
“She’s not coming.” Cvareh didn’t know what Cain was doing to distract the woman, but it seemed to be working so far.
“What will you do? Kill me without a proper duel?” Finnyr hissed. It only made Cvareh want to squeeze tighter. “Will you be Oji then? No.”
“Are you Oji now?” He returned to his earlier line of questioning.
“House Rok recognizes me as such, and they’re all that matters in this world.”
Cvareh threw his brother aside. Finnyr rolled, scrambling to stop himself before he tumbled dangerously close to the ledge.
“House Rok is all that matters? Your cheek is unmarked, but you are one of them, aren’t you?”
Finnyr clambered to his feet, shifting his rumpled clothing back into place. He smoothed his vest over his narrow chest. “House Xin, I command you to slay Cvareh, for assaulting your Oji.”
No one moved.
“That’s an order!”
“Are you our Oji?” a woman asked.
“Did you kill Petra in a fair duel?” another chimed in.
“W-What?” Finnyr looked around in confusion. “Don’t question me. I’m your Oji!”
“Finnyr, you don’t understand, do you, what it really means to hold that title?” Cvareh stepped forward.
“Take another step and I-I’ll attack you myself.”
Cvareh opened his arms, welcoming the first blow. “That’s what I wanted from the beginning. If you are our Oji, defend your title. Lord Xin should be on your side.”
Finnyr’s claws shot out.
It was the final mistake in a lifetime of poor decisions.
Cvareh lunged.
Finnyr tried to guard himself, but the movement was slow and telegraphed. Cvareh swatted the defense away with one hand and plunged the other into his brother’s chest. He would waste no time. He would not draw out the fight. As satisfying as the act would be, he had more important things to focus on than bloodlust. It served all of them, even Arianna, for his brother to stop existing as quickly as possible.
Finnyr coughed in shock. “Y-you really did it,” he wheezed.
“Salvage her memory.” Cvareh’s fingers closed around Finnyr’s heart. “Did you kill Petra?”
“I did . . . but she was already poisoned.” His brother leaned forward, whispering in his ear. “You will never beat her. She is stronger than you all.”
“Coletta?” Cvareh asked. It had to be.
Finnyr grinned, grabbed Cvareh’s shoulders, and pushed himself away. Cvareh had never seen a Dragon take their own life, but it was a coward’s death befitting his brother’s existence. Finnyr stumbled backward. One foot had nothing to fall on, and he tumbled lifelessly into the empty air beyond the edge of the balcony.
Cvareh brought his brother’s heart to his lips, taking a bite out of it. It was stringy and tough. Even though he knew Arianna had Finnyr’s organs, he couldn’t find the taste of her in the man himself. It was a relief, and Cvareh cast the unwanted scrap of meat after its owner.
He turned to those gathered, wondering what they thought, what they felt. It was an anticlimactic end that put the title of Oji on a man who had never wanted it and hadn’t been trained for it. Were he one of them, he wouldn’t feel very confident.
“What now, Cvareh’Oji?” a woman was bold enough to ask.
“Now, we fight.” Cvareh took a deep breath. “We fight to end Rok’s tyranny.”
“How are we to stand against them?” The question wasn’t asked to undermine him, but as a genuine concern—a warranted one, Cvareh understood.
“As Xin, we have always placed the end before our ideals. Our patron teaches us that the end is all that matters, for all things march toward the ultimate end—death.” Cvareh hoped they would understand, and that his first action as Oji wasn’t about to be defending his plan for saving their house from annihilation. “We shall rely on Lord Xin’s guidance. We shall set aside our ideals, the pride as Dragons that blinds us from what we must do to gain our victory. We will ally ourselves with the Fenthri on Loom, and we will achieve victory.”
The long silence that followed did not encourage him in the slightest.
ARIANNA
She hated that Dragon.
She loved him, too.
Cvareh was nothing but raw emotion and conflict that gnawed at her fresh lungs from the inside out. Arianna flew the glider with reckless abandon, plunging into the God’s Line and speeding for Garre as though nothing else in the world mattered.
Nothing else did.
She was going to lose the chance to kill Finnyr. She was going to lose the chance to kill Yveun, too, for Cvareh to become Dono. And when he did assume that title, she was going to lose him as well.
Arianna had never wanted to want him in the first place, but now that she did, it was hard to even breathe, thinking about him marching down a path with more conviction than she had ever seen—a path that would ultimately separate them. Just as Florence had found her place in the world, so would Cvareh. And neither of them required a Wraith.
It was night by the time she landed the glider in the far hangar. The room was still, icy with winter, and her breath curled in the air as she r
elaxed her magic from the glider.
“Good to see our wayward inventor return,” a weathered voice spoke, as cold as the darkness itself.
Arianna turned in the direction of the sound. Magic pooled in her eyes and goggles until she could make out the living skeleton lurking in the shadows.
“Garre needs to work on its welcoming committee.” Arianna stepped down and started in his direction. Louie stood in front of the entrance to the guild, and there was little else she could do. He didn’t budge as she approached. Goggles of his own covered his beady little eyes; Arianna could only assume he stared up at her. She sighed heavily. “What do you want?”
“You don’t seem pleased to see me.”
“I will never be pleased to see you and am not in the mood for your games.” The single sentence used up all the patience she could muster for the man. “Now, step aside.”
“We need to speak.”
“We have done so. Step aside.” Arianna wondered if he was heavier than the tube-filled satchel at her side. She could just lift him up and move him.
“No.”
“Do you have a death wish?”
“Not in the slightest. Quite the opposite, actually. The question is, Arianna, do you?”
“Do not threaten me.” One warning—that was all he would get.
“The vicars may consider you a threat.”
“What?”
“Since your little experiment as a weaponsmith blew up in the Vicar Revolver’s face.” Arianna was instantly reminded of her prototype on Nova. She’d sent the schematics to Florence and—
“I heard Florence was there, too. Fighting Dragons with faulty weapons . . . it’s so sad, the outcome.”
“Is she alive?” Arianna snapped. She was going to lose Cvareh and Florence; she had accepted that. But she would lose them to their choices and watch them thrive from her place in the shadows. She pushed the small-framed Fenthri against the door. His head banged dully against the metal. “Louie, do not play games with me.”
“Then do not play games with me,” he growled. “You went to Nova. You conspired to cut me out of the equation. You have yet to produce the schematics for the box . . . And after all I’ve done for you? After all I am willing to risk to secure your flowers, when Dragons would see them systematically destroyed?”
There was a moment of clarity that cut through the confusion and anger. “What did you say?”
“I will gladly secure the flowers for you.” Louie smiled his wretched little grin, thinking he had a leg up on her, not knowing what she carried in her bag.
Arianna’s hands loosened their hold, smoothing over the wrinkles thoughtfully, almost gently. She had not told him, or anyone on Loom, about the flowers being destroyed. “How far does your influence reach?”
“Straight to the Dragon Queen.”
Those five words sent her into a blind rage. Coletta’Ryu, the woman who had drugged Arianna with her dagger, who had put her under the claws of Yveun—this was who Louie had been in bed with. Leave it to worthless slime like him to deal with such a revolting creature.
With a shout, Arianna swung the frail man to the ground, hoping she broke him. Her ears twitched eagerly at the sound of his body breaking and tearing. Arianna was on him, her knees pinning down his arms—as if he needed to be pinned. Louie couldn’t put up a fight even if he tried. She felt his bones snap like twigs under her weight.
But Louie didn’t cry. He didn’t beg for mercy. He didn’t even grimace. Instead he grinned like a fool, his crooked yellow teeth winking up at her like dying stars.
“Yes, yes, White Wraith, show me your claws,” he urged. “Kill me, go ahead, and never know what I have told her.”
“How dare you!” Arianna was glad they were far from the guild, because she was screaming now. There was no reason not to let the dam break, because the only person who could see this jagged, destroyed side of her would be a dead man. “I always knew you were the worst of the worst but this, this? You have sold out our world for profit!”
“Indeed,” he replied with equal fervor, managing to keep his voice strong despite his position. “And I will do it again, time after time. I’m loyal to the highest bidder. So, you better make your offering more appealing, Arianna, for all of Loom.”
“How long?” She couldn’t even look at him straight. “How long have you been working with her?”
“Years.” It made so much sense. The king of the underworld, the man who could seemingly get anything, who always happened to have organs to trade. Of course he did! He had sold his soul to a queen of death for them. “She trusts me, Arianna, and we can use this to our advantage. We can use this to save Loom if—”
“If what?”
“If you do not dare undercut me again,” Louie finished.
Arianna reeled back, rolling from the balls of her feet to standing.
“I offered you an opportunity to work together. You went back on that deal.”
“We make a new deal, right now. I don’t kill you—”
His laughter interrupted her. “You think I care about death? You think I have people I love whom you can threaten? Arianna, you are the most idealistic fool of them all.” Arianna watched with disdain as the man continued to lay there, his magic slowly re-growing his muscles and bones, popping his sagging flesh back into place. “If you kill me, you won’t have the organs the Alchemists need for the Perfect Chimera. You won’t have a means to get those precious flowers off Nova.”
Arianna tilted her head to the side. How the tides shifted . . .
“Oh, Louie, that’s your bargaining chip?” She drew her dagger. She didn’t want to do this with Dragon claws. She wanted the tool that took Louie’s life to be Fenthri-made. “That queen you so adore has betrayed you. She failed to inform you that her plans have been thwarted and her minions have been killed. That Xin has saved some of the flowers for themselves.” Arianna crouched down as Louie’s eyes widened with surprise. “Yes, my sweet King of Mercury Town. My friends have not sold me out, unlike yours. And they just so happen to be able to provide organs as well as any other Dragon.”
Arianna pointed her dagger at his throat again, thinking back to Cvareh. She wondered if he had killed Finnyr yet. “You know, for most of my life, I’ve wanted to kill a king. You weren’t the man I had in mind, but I think your death may be just as satisfying. Let’s find out, shall we?”
“Wait, Arianna, let’s not be hasty, I can still—”
“Still what?” She nearly purred with delight. He’d really come alone, thinking his contacts could protect him. He was an old knife, one that would snap if she even tried to put it to whetstone. Only one solution for such a worthless thing. “Be useful? I think there are a few Ravens who have just as much use as you, and they happen to know most of your network.”
Arianna leaned forward, sliding a hand around his shoulder. It was an odd sort of embrace. She could feel the pistol he carried in his vest, but he didn’t reach for it. He must’ve known it’d do nothing against her. Even if it alerted someone, he’d be dead before they arrived.
“Did you know it would end like this for you?”
“I couldn’t imagine a better death than at the hands of the best thief and killer I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with.” Louie spoke softly, as if to a lover. Arianna wondered if it was the first time the terrible man had been touched by a woman. “Eat my heart, after you cut it out.”
“No,” she whispered against his ear. “I know it’ll taste rotten.”
Arianna plunged the dagger between his ribs. She twisted it, the chorus of shattering bones and ripping tissue harmonizing with his final breath. Louie spit black blood that oozed down her shoulder—a stain on her white coat that she’d wear as a badge of honor.
Arianna plunged her hand into his chest, ripped out his heart, and cast it aside.
She stood, leaving the body of the King of Mercury Town oozing black onto the cold floor of the hangar. She left it as a clear warning to any who
found it that the White Wraith had returned to Loom.
She slammed open the door Louie had been blocking with a bang, not caring who heard. The passage back to the guild was a blur that ended with her yanking another door open without warning. Will and Helen jumped to attention, wide-eyed and startled. Arianna leaned against the doorframe, flipping her knife, blood on her shoulder.
“All of Louie’s men—bring them here, now,” she demanded cheerfully. “Try to run and I’ll flay you alive.”
“What?” Helen stuttered.
“We need to do as she says.” Will grabbed Helen’s arm and dragged her from the room. The boy gave Arianna a sidelong look that she reciprocated. She hadn’t forgotten his attempt to warn her on the airship. It may not be enough to save him, but it was enough to keep him alive for the time being.
They returned with three men in tow. Arianna closed the door behind them, appreciating the looks of apprehension each of them wore. She leaned against it, making it clear that no one was getting out without her blessing.
“So, let’s talk about loyalty.” Arianna pointed her dagger to the man with the red ears. “You first.”
“My name is Adam.”
“Fantastic Rok ears, those are. They’re a whisper link, right?”
“To a woman named Topann.”
Continued cooperation would earn him minutes, maybe even hours of life. “And that woman is in the employ of Coletta Rok, the Dragon Queen?”
“Yes.”
“Would you sever the whisper link now if I demanded?”
“Yes.”
“What’s going on?” Helen demanded. “Where’s Louie?”
The child wouldn’t let herself see the obvious. “I killed him for crimes against Loom.”
“You can’t do that!” The girl seemed genuinely distraught.
“Occupational hazard for operating outside the law. Louie knew what he was about.” There were few laws on Loom—Fenthri laws anyway. Most were unspoken, at that. “Don’t commit treason” was a fairly obvious one. Louie’s protégé seemed stunned still, so Arianna pressed the point home. “Helen, I am not the Master Raven and will never turn a blind eye to treason against Loom. As loathe as I am to kill talent, I dislike those who work against Loom much more.”
