“Good,” said Xu, when all twenty prisoners had been drugged. “Let’s get this over with.”
She didn’t sound like she thought she was preparing for a sacred rite, but Juliet doubted the subcaptain had any real guilt. She was clearly Old Viyaran through and through; she probably just hated Lord Ineo’s meddling.
“What are your orders?” she asked, under her breath.
Xu looked her up and down. “Guard the sacrifice and don’t run mad.”
Juliet had been to the Great Offering twice a year as long as she could remember. It was required of all who held rank in the three high houses—Mahyanai, Catresou, and Old Viyaran. They came, and they took turns bringing the victim for sacrifice.
The Great Offering was a festival. It was held in the grand court at the center of the Upper City; it was begun with songs and dancing, attended by vast crowds. Many held feasts afterward, though the Catresou never did.
This sacrifice was still held in the grand court, where the vast obsidian face of the god Ihom grew out of the wall, looming over a dais of white stone. There was still a crowd that had gathered to watch.
But it was no festival. There was no singing, no dancing, no ranks of white-robed Sisters of Thorn. Only three Sisters had come, with red bands on their sleeves and knives in their hands. The Exalted was not there, and neither was Lord Ineo; and of course, there were no Catresou at all.
Except Juliet.
And the prisoners.
Amando was first in line, and Juliet walked beside him. He stumbled as they led him forward, and nearly fell; the guards had to hold him up. His eyes were still wide and sightless with the drugs. Juliet tried to comfort herself that at least he wouldn’t suffer.
It was no comfort.
Go swiftly and in gladness.
She breathed the words, barely moving her lips, barely more than thinking them. Amando wouldn’t hear the prayer anyway; the important thing was that it be said. That in the middle of this obscene ritual, one thing be done right.
Forget not thy name, in all the dark places.
The altar was ten steps away. Then nine. The prisoners were not afraid, but Juliet was: with every step, the cold dread hung heavier in her stomach, and her heart pounded with the need to run, run, run—
But Runajo’s orders sang coldly in her blood, driving her toward the altar.
Forget not those who have walked before thee.
Eight steps away.
She could see sunlight glinting on the knife.
Seven. Six. Five.
Heed not the nameless, who crawl and weep—
And that was when the Catresou attacked.
She would have seen it earlier if she hadn’t been staring at the Sister’s knife. Instead, she didn’t notice until they burst out of the crowd, swords glinting. And she felt one heartbeat of hope as she thought both, That’s a bad strategy and Maybe they can do it anyway.
Then the whole world narrowed down to Runajo’s order: Protect the sacrifice.
Juliet seized Amando by the arm, hauled him the last few steps, four-three-two-one, and flung him onto the altar all in one motion, before vaulting it to stand sword out on the other side.
“Kill him now!” she yelled at the Sisters, and then two of the Catresou were upon her with swords. They were both tall, well-muscled men, and they moved with the grace and confidence of those who had survived serious duels.
But they weren’t the Juliet.
It took her only moments to drop them.
She heard shouts, and at the edge of her vision she saw bright white lines flare across the ground. She knew that meant the Sister had managed to cut Amando’s throat, but there was no time to think about it. She was already turning to meet the next opponent.
There was blood on his sword, but she didn’t feel the awful drive to kill him; if his last opponent had been one of the Mahyanai guards, he hadn’t killed him.
But her heart still pounded against her ribs. Because it was the boy she had fought on the night of the Catresou raid. She knew him instantly from the line of his jaw, the way he held his sword, and her heart wrenched within her because here in the sunlight, he looked so like Romeo, who was dead and never returning to her.
It felt like a mockery of the dead.
She had to unmask him.
This time when she attacked, she was actually trying to win. But he was just as good as she remembered, maybe even better, and though she drove him back, he was still countering all her strokes. He didn’t have her strength or speed, but he had a terrifying intuition for how she would move.
As if he knew her, as Romeo had known her.
Traceries of light flared along the ground again—another successful sacrifice—but Juliet didn’t care about anything now except stopping this treacherous boy. With a snarl, she lunged forward, and this time she got inside his defense, pressed her sword to his throat.
He went still. She was close enough, she could see his eyes widen through the slits in his mask.
Then she ripped the mask from his face.
The world seemed to stop.
Romeo looked back at her. Romeo, who was dead, who was not Catresou, who had no desire to fight, who was dead.
And could not possibly be standing before her.
“Juliet,” he said, and it was his voice. She would know that voice, though they had been parted a thousand years.
“You were dead,” she whispered, and for one instant, one horrible instant, she thought that perhaps he was like Paris, raised again as a mindless slave—
But Romeo’s eyes were too alive and too haunted as he whispered, “I nearly was. I thought you were, and then—when I found out what my people had done, that you wouldn’t forgive me—”
“You fool,” she said. “You utter and absolute fool.”
She lowered her sword from his throat, and one-handed, dragged him into a kiss.
This was the truth at the heart of the world: Romeo was hers and she was his. Even now, with battle around them and blood on their swords, both of them exhausted and panting for breath—when their lips touched, the world melted and reformed around them. There were no clans and no feud. She wasn’t a weapon, bloody and guilty. He wasn’t her enemy. She was nothing except his, every part of her, and this boy, this dizzying delight, was all hers.
For one moment.
Then she tasted blood on his tongue.
Smelled it.
Fire seared through her veins, and it wasn’t desire, it was the need to kill, kill, kill.
She shoved him back. She was gasping and shaking and she didn’t understand, because he hadn’t been guilty a moment ago—
Then she saw the Mahyanai guard lying too still on the ground. The blood on Romeo’s sword.
He had already dealt the stroke when he kissed her.
Romeo met her eyes.
“Run,” she whispered, and then her throat closed up as she fought against the power inside her, fought as she never had before, not even when it had been driving her to kill her own father.
But she was losing. In another heartbeat, she knew that she would move, she would hunt Romeo down and kill him, and she could not, she would not survive it—
A blow to her face sent her staggering back. She blinked, saw Subcaptain Xu, and the next moment Xu was behind her, arms wrapping her neck in a choke hold.
Juliet only had time to think, She knows how to use a blood choke, and then the world was dark.
Part II
How with This Rage
15
TWICE NOW JULIET HAD KNELT before Lord Ineo, listening to his fury. But this time, his fury was not directed only at her.
“Do I understand what you are telling me?” His voice was cold and remote. “Rather than subdue these rioters, you subdued one of the guards who might have stopped them?”
“You gave me a guard who was going to run mad at the sight of blood,” said Xu. She stood at attention, her back perfectly straight, her voice clipped and contemptuously polite. “Yes. I choked her out. I don’t allow any of my guards to disobey orders.”
Juliet could still feel Romeo’s lips against hers, could still taste the blood that stained him now. If she’d attacked him sooner, before he could hurt that guard—if she’d realized who he was the night of the raid—if he had only told her that he was alive—