“Bravo!” The silver-eyed man stepped into view. “I would have thought this obstacle enough to end this, but you are a resilient little band, aren’t you?”
“Jacob, how could you?” Eriane said from behind Samuel’s shoulder.
Jacob’s look of heartbreak only angered Samuel more. “Now wait, just hear me out.”
“We don’t have to listen to a damned thing you have to say,” Samuel interjected. His was not a tone of disappointment; he let his anger shine through. “You brought them right to us.”
“It wasn’t—”
“Oh, don’t be so modest,” The silver-eyed man cut in. “We would never have found them if it hadn’t been for you two.” It was only then Samuel noticed Sorrell cowering behind the two of them.
“Fuck you, Colton,” Jacob said, never taking his eyes off of Samuel. “Remember what I said before, Samuel, about why I stuck with you? Well, it hasn’t gotten boring yet.”
Jacob turned suddenly toward Colton, his hand extended and dark threads of khet trailing from his fingers. Colton stopped him in mid-motion with an open palm. Jacob stood frozen in place, his hand only inches from its target. His face and muscles strained against the hold, but his eyes told Samuel he couldn’t move.
Colton tutted. “Now, now, you filthy little slip,” he said. “Did you really think I wouldn’t see this coming?” Colton closed his outstretched hand and Jacob let out a groan as something in his chest made an audible crack. His eyes slid off of Colton and looked past Samuel toward Eriane before his face went blank and his eyes rolled back.
Colton opened his hand. There was a sound like a stomping foot and Jacob’s body was flung violently into the air. He smashed hard into the high stone ceiling of the cave and disappeared over the roof of one of the taller buildings. Confusion delayed the dawning of Samuel’s realization as he watched the spot where Jacob’s limp form had vanished, hoping for any sign of life. Nothing moved.
Sorrell let out a strangled cry and made a break back through the open lane. Colton took a deep breath and the crowd closed down on the merchant, pulling and tearing as they bore him to the ground. There was one last blood curdling wail, and then silence.
“Good” Colton said. “Now we can talk in peace.” A drip of crimson fell from his nostril.
“You really are a bastard,” Eriane said.
“Is speaking the truth meant to hurt me?” Colton replied, pulling a handkerchief to wipe his bloodied nose. “Hm,” he said, examining the result. “You know, you had your chance in the pass. If you’d just let the canner go, none of you would be here right now.”
“Yeah, well, we don’t leave our friends behind,” Eriane said.
“You’ve only known your ‘friend’ for a few weeks,” Colton replied. “Your ‘friend’ knows something he’s not supposed to know, and it’s my job to tie up that loose end.”
Samuel stepped forward. “All of this, just so you could cover up that your partner killed the Queen Consort.”
Colton looked at him, and then nodded. “Oh, that’s only the tip of the iceberg,” he said, a smug grin turning the corners of his mouth. “We have a vested interest in the continued and widespread mistrust of constructs. Bales’s mistake wasn’t in the killing, it was that he let the city guardsman destroy the Chronicler before I got there. I could’ve prevented those memories from ever being transferred, but the guardsmen used those mafi-sticks one too many times.”
Beside and behind him, Samuel could feel Pare and Eriane tensing for a conflict. The very air around him tingled with energy.
“If you’re so good at preventing the transfer,” Samuel continued, hoping to buy them a little more time, “then why have I seen the destruction of so many at your hands?”
Colton’s grin vanished. “Because I wanted you to see. I wanted all of you to know I was coming for you,” he said through gritted teeth. “That message performed its task to perfection. Chroniclers have receded even further into hiding, and as long as they remain hidden, their knowledge remains hidden with them. The cowardice of Chroniclers allows for a, shall we say, leisurely pace to my assignment.”
“Then why continue at all?” Samuel stalled. “If the knowledge stays hidden, then why the hunt?”
The smug smile was back. “Oh, I’d think the answer to that question would be obvious.” Colton hesitated, placing his hand onto the dome, taking a deep breath and pressing inward. The edge of the field rippled and skewed, and Colton’s hand—followed closely by the rest of him—passed through the barrier to stand inside. “Because I enjoy it.”
A deafening crack of power struck the air, driving Samuel to one knee. Something wasn’t quite right about the sound, though, and when he turned Pare and Eriane were no longer over his shoulder. Instead, both of them lay in a heap at the edge of the circle to his right. Eriane lay unconscious, or worse, and he could see blood pooling around Pare’s face.
“No!” Samuel said, and tried to bolt, but a flash of white in his vision held him firm, and his body failed to react. Something seized his core, his limbs no longer his to control. Paralyzed, he could only look upon the downed children in terror as the realization of what had happened dawned and a familiar voice slinked over his shoulder.
“Big mistake, canner,” the voice said. “After everything you’ve been through, and such a simple distraction is what proves to be your end.”
Colton’s partner released his grip and Samuel slumped to the ground on his side, his field of view filled by Colton’s well-kept boots approaching where he had fallen. Colton knelt before him, pushing his shoulder so that his view turned upward. He tilted his head to look into Samuel’s helpless face.
“I have to give you credit, Samuel,” he said. “You provided me more entertainment on this hunt than I’ve seen in…I don’t know how long.” After what he’d seen, he wasn’t sure if Colton’s little speech was for his own benefit, or for all the Chroniclers that would soon be seeing what Samuel saw. “Hiding yourself so Bales here couldn’t track you. However you pulled that off was a stroke of genius.”
Colton pressed his fingers into Samuel’s chest, and a numbing cold crept into his torso. “My friend over there,” he nodded toward Bales, “wants to know how you did it. But you know what?” Colton leaned in close, his cold, silver eyes boring into Samuel’s, so close he could see nothing else. “I just don’t care.”
The numbness started at the tips of his extremities and coursed inward. Colton had full control, and was drawing out every last second of Samuel’s destruction, flooding him with the terror Samuel knew every Chronicler would feel. Confronting Chroniclers with that emotion—perhaps the first they would ever feel—would only serve to drive them deeper into hiding from this pair of madmen, and Samuel couldn’t drive it back. As he lay helpless under Colton’s draining grip, wondering if Pare or Eriane or even Jacob were still alive, the only thought on his mind was that he didn’t want to die.
The dull cold stripped him of his senses as it crept into his core. His feeling was the first to go, filling him with the sensation he was floating. Hearing went next, then smell, smothering his perception of the world around him, as though he were sinking into an abyss. His sight began to fade, sparkling at its edges with an almost incandescent fog, but just before he was completely blind, Colton was gone.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
* * *
Eriane stood behind Samuel’s shoulder, listening to Colton ramble. She concealed her hands under her cloak, reaching to the holsters at the small of her back, and wrapped the fingers of both hands around the grips of her pistols.
“Are you ready, Eri,” Pare whispered, trying not to move his mouth, and never taking his eyes off of the silver-eyed man. Samuel had Colton engaged, his attention focused away from the two of them and solely on the construct.
She felt her heartbeat pounding against her throat. Her vision tunneled. A thousand scenarios had run through her mind since their encounter in the pass, and all of them ended the same way. Colton and
Bales were too strong for them, too focused on their goal. No matter what Pare said or thought, this was the only way they were going to escape from them. It was the only way they would be free; the only way to save Samuel from these killers. She only hoped she could make Pare understand.
Samuel dragged out the conversation, giving Pare and Eriane the time they needed to ready whatever offense they could muster. The hair on Eriane’s neck stood on end, feeling the power Pare gathered. She pulled in as much khet as she could, focusing all her thoughts. She would only have one shot at this, and it had to find its mark.
“Then why the hunt?” Samuel said. The stalling tactic was working, then Colton did something unexpected. Between Pare and Samuel’s shoulders, she saw him warp her bump field and step through like it was no more than a bead curtain. The most powerful construction she’d ever conceived, and he waved it off like it was nothing. Any doubt in her mind faded away and her resolve crystallized the moment she heard Colton say:
“Because I enjoy it.”
Pare’s muscles tensed and hers followed suit, but before she could move, the air beside them ruptured with a deafening thunderclap and she was blown off her feet. She rose to meet the edge of her own bump field, slamming hard into it and falling to the ground. With no time to free her arms or protect her head, the impact left her dazed. She hit the cobblestones at an awkward angle and her left leg snapped beneath her. Sudden, searing pain flooded through her, stealing her breath. She couldn’t even scream before she passed out.
• • • • •
Eriane wasn’t sure how long she’d been unconscious. Light filtered into her vision as her eyes fluttered open, a shimmering wall of blue that wavered before her. As her disorientation lifted, throbbing pain in her twisted leg made itself known. Tears flooded her eyes as she gritted her teeth, determined not to cry out.
Pare was regaining consciousness too, if he had ever lost it in the first place. The lower half of his face was crimson, blanketed by the steady stream from his broken nose. He shook his head as if to clear it, scratching behind his ear and wiping away some phantom annoyance, then pushed himself up to his hands and knees. Flecks of blood and spit splattered the cobblestones before him as he exhaled sharply, his face a mask of rage as all-consuming as the mindless mob outside the dome. Was he a victim now, too? Had the silver-eyed man—Colton—finally gotten to him? No, there was something else there, a sense of purpose the others lacked.
Pare was coiled like a spring, readying himself to move. “Pare?” Eriane said, her voice weak as a wave of nausea struck her, spurred on by the ache in her leg and her head. Pare didn’t respond; didn’t even acknowledge her presence. Eriane shifted her head to see the target of his focus, and saw Colton and Bales kneeling down, leaned over Samuel, who lay unmoving on his side. She brought her attention back to Pare, who had arched his back forward and planted his feet into a runner’s stance.
When she tried to speak she coughed, the words caught in the dryness of her throat. “Pare…don’t,” was all she could get out, but before he could even register her words, he had sprung from his stance and bolted for Colton.
• • • • •
Samuel lay on his side before Colton, the long chase ended. Others in Colton’s position would’ve been angry at the chase this canner had led them on, but Colton reveled in the hunt, and most of their quarries had, of late, been a bit too easy. There was a satisfaction to this victory Colton hadn’t felt in quite some time, and he intended to savor it.
He spoke to the canner as he pressed his fingers into the metal of his chest. “My partner over there,” he nodded toward Bales, “wants to know how you did it. But you know what?” He said, leaning in close, “I just don’t care.” Colton could feel the flow of khet around the construct’s core, a flow very different from the other Chroniclers he’d encountered. There was power there, beyond any normal construct, tinged with a flavor he’d never tasted. As he siphoned the construct’s energy away, he basked in the anticipation of watching this one dissipate. A glass vial from his belt was already in his hand, the blue nectar of distilled khet flowing through the glass to fill the stoppered vessel.
A crushing blow struck Colton low in the side, lifting him up before slamming him onto the floor of the Grotto some ten feet from the construct. The vial of collected energy skittered away over the stones as his attacker forced him onto his back, landing a khet-augmented punch to the side of his face that cracked his cheekbone and bounced his skull off of the stones. “Stretched yourself a little thin, huh?” the boy screamed. The power of it was raw and unfocused, driven by hatred, but stronger than almost any Colton had ever seen. This boy had talent.
As Pare hauled back for another blow, Colton unleashed his own brand of raw power, a quick blast of gathered khet from the palms of his hands that rocketed the boy upward, slamming his prostrate form into the dome overhead. The dazed boy came down in a heap next to him but was already recovering. Colton unleashed another blast, sliding the boy across the ground to come to rest at the edge of the circle, giving him enough time to recover himself. Bales stepped over the construct and drew a knife from a sheath at his thigh, stalking past Colton and toward the boy.
“No,” Colton said, righting himself. Bales stopped and shot him a frustrated look. “Go take care of the girl.” The look of frustration faded into an ugly grin as Bales changed direction.
Colton was unsteady, the vision in his left eye still blurry from the punch, but he regained his feet as Pare struggled to crawl. Shaking away as much of the stupor as he could, Colton strolled over to the edge of the circle and bent to pick up his lost treasure. A crack ran down the side of the container, the last threads of his precious Drift dissipating through it. With a frustrated grunt, he threw the vial to the ground where it shattered on the cobblestones. Colton pulled another vial from his pouch, yanking the stopper out with his teeth and spitting it to the ground. He placed the vial to his lips and inhaled.
The fugue from being struck cleared, burned away by the Drift like morning fog on a sunny day. It swept away the pain in his side and crystallized his vision. Muscles shuddered as they were given new life, and Colton stared at the still paralyzed construct that lay in the middle of the circle.
With Samuel down and Bales on a mission, Colton was free to narrow his focus. The boy was still on his hands and knees, scratching at something on the back of his head and trying to focus through blurry eyes. Colton wouldn’t even need to use his power this time, and took a moment of pleasure to land a healthy kick to the boy’s midsection.
“Do you feel that? Got an itch?” Colton said, leaning down. “Bales is the best breaker I know. I’m surprised you didn’t notice he’d already broken your little slip friend’s barrier the moment we arrived.” Colton moved to a crouch, glaring at Pare as he struggled to breathe. “You’ve got some power in you, boy; I’ll give you that. Your adeptitude may even rival mine. It’s a shame,” he said, standing once again, “you could’ve been something great.” Colton’s lips bent into a snarl. “Get up.”
There was hesitation, a vibrating shudder that ran the length of Pare’s body before he rolled back up on to his hands and knees. His teeth ground together as he held that position, his arms shaking and the muscles of his neck drawn tight into his shoulders.
“Even now you manage some resistance, huh?” Colton said, pushing just a little harder. The effort to hold this one was taxing, but the second wind from the Drift gave Colton the extra push he needed to maintain his grip. “Get. Up.”
The boy let out a grunting cry as he struggled against his own body, lifting himself into a kneeling position. His jaw strained against the control and his cheeks were wet with tears. Sweat poured down his flushed face. His body struggled with the effort of breathing. Without placing a hand on the boy, Colton forced him to turn his head.
“Look over there,” Colton said. Bales was on his knees with his back to them, straddling Eriane on the cobblestones. “Everything you know is lost to y
ou. Everything you’ve done was for naught. She’ll die, as will you, but not before I make you see the consequences of involving yourself in matters that don’t concern you. Matters that are above you.”
• • • • •
Eriane shifted to see, but every movement screamed in pain. When she tried to sit up she fell onto her back, overcome by dizziness and nausea. She rolled to lay on her side and tried to will herself back to lucidity. Colton had thrown Pare into the barrier after he’d been tackled, and was recovering while Pare still lay prone. Even though the blow had taken Colton away from Samuel, Samuel was still on his side unmoving, and now the other killer was coming her way, the blade of a short knife flashing in his hand.
She rolled for a better position, reaching for the pistols in her belt. She fumbled for them as he approached, but they weren’t where she expected them to be. He was on her faster than she could draw, shoving her down onto her back and straddling her.
Her hips and one of her arms were pinned under his weight. As he leaned over, strands of his hair felt coarse and unwashed against her face. His hot breath bore a combination of unfamiliar and nauseating smells. “Is it cliché to tell you I’m going to enjoy this?” Bales said.
Tears rolled away from her eyes as she struggled under him, rolling her shoulders to unpin her arm. Her broken leg allowed her no leverage with her hips, and her struggling had little effect. She struck at his face with her free hand but he almost seemed not to notice, grabbing her wrist and holding it against her chest. His knife dipped down to point at her abdomen, and he leaned his weight into it.
“No!” she screamed, wrenching her pinned hand around just in time to stop the knife’s blade an inch from her skin, her bump field crackling with light. All her thought and effort was bent into the field, held up by her upturned palm like a shield as the killer’s weight bore down on top of her.
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