Blood Heir

37

Ramson was going to die.

The ground rumbled beneath his feet as he dove out of the way of another crashing marble pillar, slamming against the opposite wall. His breaths were coming in ragged gasps, and blood trickled down the side of his face.

He shook his head, clearing the double vision. Focus. Ana was still in there. She needed him to hold Kerlan and his cronies here.

He’d held the yaeger at bay so far—when the tall man with those glacial eyes had taken off after Ana, Ramson had jumped in front of him to stop him. He’d been fighting a losing battle even before the marble Affinite joined the party.

Ramson gripped his daggers, pushing himself to his feet and swiping a hand across his nose. It came back bloody.

Three to one. Kerlan’s big bodyguard wasn’t an issue. That brute was made for throwing around his weight and bullying chained victims in confined spaces, not for actual freestyle sparring. And his prerogative, judging from the way he hovered near his master, was to protect Kerlan. It was the other two he had to watch out for.

He glanced at the yaeger, whose swords were out. Ramson was about to spring at him when he caught a sharp movement to his right.

The marble Affinite flung his hand out, and two fist-sized balls of marble shot from the ground. Ramson ducked behind a nearby pillar, feeling it shudder as the two projectiles smashed into it.

A sudden coldness touched his arm. A piece of marble debris snapped around his wrist. Within the blink of an eye, it twisted and closed over itself like a handcuff, and the ground jerked from beneath him. Ramson was flung bodily across the hall—or rather, the marble around his wrist hurtled so fast that his arm felt like it was going to be ripped from its socket—and the world blurred around him.

Ramson crashed against the wall. Pain flared through his body, but Kerlan was keeping him alive, torturing him. Panting, Ramson tried to heave himself up. It was just like Kerlan, to know that he had Ramson outnumbered and overpowered, and to savor his victory by quashing Ramson’s hope bit by bit.

The marble on his wrist was moving again. It dragged him along the ground, toward where Kerlan and his bodyguard stood. Ramson reached out for anything to grab onto, but his traitorous, marble-manacled wrist persisted.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the body of the female Affinite he’d struck earlier, crumpled in the hall. The yaeger stood on the other side of the corridor. His eyes narrowed briefly before he turned and took off down the hallway.

No, not toward Ana, Ramson thought. He strained against the manacle, but it was no use.

“Well, my son.” Kerlan’s eyes twinkled pleasantly as he looked down at Ramson from beneath the shadow of his huge bodyguard. “Had enough yet?”

Ramson coughed up blood. He was curled on the floor, every fiber of his body throbbing in pain, his manacled wrist dangling from the marble Affinite’s control. He forced a smile to his cracked lips. “That the best you’ve got?” he croaked. “You’ve become soft, Kerlan.”

Kerlan’s smile did not waver, but his eyes promised death. He motioned at the marble Affinite. A second piece of debris sculpted itself around Ramson’s unshackled wrist, dragging his other arm into the air, lifting him so that he knelt before Kerlan. His dagger clattered to the ground, the sound reverberating across the empty hall.

Tap… tap… tap.

It took Ramson a moment to realize where the noise was coming from. Kerlan watched him with an amused smile, his gold fountain pen rapping against his ring.

Tap… tap… tap.

The sound sent a shiver through Ramson.

“I don’t know how you define ‘soft,’ ” Kerlan said, raising his pen so that it caught the light of the chandelier overhead. He pressed the end with his finger. With a click, a ring of tiny, sharp blades shot out from the tip, glinting like teeth. “Perhaps you’ll let me know how this feels.”

He slammed the pen into Ramson’s chest, right where he’d seared the Order of the Lily insignia.

Ramson screamed. Kerlan laughed and twisted the pen, the razor-sharp blades burrowing into Ramson’s flesh. And then he tore it out.

Ramson fought to stay conscious. It felt as though his flesh were on fire, and the pain sent fuzzy edges of darkness shooting through his vision.

He was shaking as he threw up, his tears mingling with sweat. Kerlan’s maniacal laughter rang in his ears.

I’m going to die, Ramson thought.

But even as his body began to slump, he scanned the area around him, his brain working frantically to find anything that could help him.

A shadow flitted in the hallway behind Kerlan.

There was a soft whoosh and a whisper of a thud. The marble Affinite staggered forward. Blood poured from his mouth.

The Affinite crashed to the floor, eyes still open, the metal hilt of a dagger protruding from his back. The marble cuffs around Ramson’s wrists, cracked and crumbled away.

Kerlan and his bodyguard turned. Seizing his opportunity, Ramson grabbed his dagger from where it had fallen and slashed at Kerlan.

His vision was blurred with tears, blood, and sweat, and his aim was weak; his blade bit into Kerlan’s flesh, leaving only a shallow scratch. Kerlan stumbled back, his face contorting in a snarl.

The bodyguard roared, leaping and raising both fists. Ramson threw himself forward. Pain exploded in his chest as he rolled beneath the man, springing to a crouch by the wall behind him.

The bodyguard raised his fists again. This time, Ramson had nowhere to go.

A surge of wind blasted at him, so strong that even the huge bodyguard staggered, raising his hands to shield himself. A small dark blur shot at Ramson. He felt an arm lock around his abdomen, and then they were sliding across the debris-cluttered floor, propelled by the gale.

Hands gently laid him on the floor, and a face came into view. Slender and sharp, with short black hair and midnight eyes. He’d seen this face only across a crowded arena, and then in the murky shadows of a bar in Novo Mynsk, when he’d bought her contract afterward.

“Windwraith,” Ramson croaked. “Linn.”

“Ana,” Linn said. “Have you seen her?”

He had so many questions—had the Windwraith held her end of the Trade? But his head swam. “The Coronation ceremony,” he managed. “I told her I’d hold off these Affinites.”

She cast him a doubtful look. “You?” she intoned, and with the suppleness of a professional acrobat, she sprang to her feet. Daggers flashed in her hands. A leather belt strapped across her waist held a wicked assortment of throwing knives.

Wind exploded before Linn, knocking Kerlan back, screaming, against the bodyguard. The bodyguard raised a hand again, turning his face from the gale.

Linn flicked her wrist.

The bodyguard howled in pain. Blood seeped from his midriff, where a small knife had embedded itself in his flesh.

Suddenly, the wind died and a terrible silence fell upon the hallway.

Linn made a noise, like a small animal in pain. Ramson saw the white flash of a cloak against the wreckage of the hall. The yaeger had returned. He was blocking Linn’s Affinity. He strode out from behind a pillar, his eyes pinned to Linn.

Linn flung two knives at the man. He blocked them easily with his swords.

Beyond the pain of his bleeding wounds, hope fluttered in Ramson’s chest. He realized that none of Kerlan’s Affinites were trained fighters like Linn.

Over twenty paces from them, Kerlan clutched his expensive doublet, his face pale as a sheet. Interesting, Ramson thought, that a man who aimed to inflict so much pain could bear so little. Kerlan motioned to his bodyguard, who was bleeding profusely from his own wounds. The bodyguard stooped and wrapped a giant arm around Kerlan’s waist.

Abruptly, they turned and hobbled away.

Linn’s hands went to her thighs, and two more knives appeared in her fists. She crouched by where Ramson lay, her eyes trained on the yaeger. The man waited across the hall by a broken marble pillar.

Kerlan and his bodyguard’s fading footsteps were smothered by another sound: a rhythmic rumbling that echoed across the domed ceilings and broken marble façades. Ramson recognized these—he had heard them many, many years ago, at the Blue Fort. These were the footsteps of an army. He racked his brain for the security protocols of the Salskoff Palace. In the case of an attack, the Palace guards held the first line of defense until the reinforcements came. And the reinforcements were not just any ordinary guards. These were the Empire’s elite fighters and strongest warriors.

The Whitecloaks were coming.

“Can you move?” It took Ramson a moment to realize Linn was addressing him.

He pushed himself up, and his chest felt like it was on fire. A groan escaped from deep in his throat. “Yes.”

Linn plucked something from her waist: a small leather pouch, camouflaged among all the weapons. The contents inside clinked gently as she slipped it into Ramson’s hands. “Bring these to Ana. They are the evidence she needs.”

“You don’t expect me to leave you to fight alone?”

“Go,” she replied, without looking back at him. The yaeger advanced on them, swords held at his sides, reflecting the light from the chandelier above.

Ramson climbed to his feet, the broken pieces of marble and crushed flooring crunching beneath him as he stood. His chest bled where Kerlan had stabbed him, but the wound wasn’t deep enough to kill him.

He would live—at least until he reached Ana.

He glanced back. Linn remained in the same defensive stance, her knives steady in her hands, her gaze focused with sharp intent on the approaching yaeger.

It was a fight between a sparrow and an eagle.

For a moment, Ramson thought of calling back to Linn with a Kemeiran blessing. But blessings and prayers were for the fainthearted, and Ramson had never believed in leaving your fate to the gods.

Besides, he would thank her in person after all of this.

Ramson turned and sprinted down the ruins of the Hall of Deities.