The White Wraith turned, watching Leona as she fell away. Leona could feel the woman’s eyes on her from underneath the gleam of her magically enhanced goggles. She raised an empty hand and gave a wave, as though bidding farewell to the world.
An explosion ripped the sea apart. The boat turned and zigged, fighting against the currents and waves that pushed against its bow—keeping on course in a display of driving mastery. The rusted iron bars of the grate shattered into pieces, hot molten metal glowing like the jagged teeth of a giant beast in the darkness.
The ship allowed itself to be swallowed whole by it.
“Where are they going?” Camile called. “What do they hope to find under the city?”
And then it hit her. Leona screamed as she realized she’d been thwarted again. This Chimera was making a fool of her. The woman was two steps ahead, preempting Leona’s every movement. Leona thought House Xin exhausted the depths of her hatred. But no, this was a rage unlike anything she’d ever felt. It was bitter and rough and raw, and coursed through her like swallowed rocks.
“The Underground,” she snarled, panting, worked into a frenzy. “We pursue!”
The moment they crossed into the back thresholds of the Underground, they would be lost. Leona knew better than to follow into that tumultuous blackness, a place where the sun had never shone and true wretches made their home. Even as a Rider, there were some things she had to admit bested her.
The tunnel was narrow and getting smaller by the second. The boat was forced to dock inelegantly, as half its side was smashed in against a narrow walk. Leona skidded her glider against the surface of the water, evading a shot from the Wraith.
“Go!” the Chimera called to her companions.
Leona’s eyes fell on a Fen girl with long black hair. She was just as the tiny man in Ter.5 had described. Tiny enough for Leona to pick her up and snap her in two as though she were a wooden doll.
She jumped onto the walk, letting her glider sink into the water. She’d recover it with magic later. Stable ground had never felt so good, and Leona wasted no time in launching herself for a deadly attack. The Wraith thought she’d be aiming for her, but Leona’s claws sought a different foe.
The woman in white was fast. She changed from bracing herself to charging forward in a mere instant. But she wasn’t fast enough. Leona’s claws sunk into the tiny Fen’s shoulder, ripping through muscle and sinew. They missed the lethal mark, but the message was clear as the Wraith threw her away with a cry of rage.
“Flor!”
Yes, yes that sound of anguish was what Leona lived for. It sent the previously calm Chimera into a frenzy. The woman charged Leona in a blind rage.
“Arianna!” Cvareh called after her, as he locked claws with Camile.
Leona dodged as the woman threw a golden dagger at her, then ducked when the Wraith pulled it back, hearing it whistle by the side of her head. This “Arianna” was a force unto her own. Like a thorny whip, a second dagger shot out from her hand, tethered to a golden line. Fearless, with complete disregard for her own well being, she launched at Leona headfirst.
“We have to go!” A man’s voice—not Cvareh—called from farther down the hall. “We can lose them in the Underground!”
The flurry of attacks didn’t stop.
“Arianna!” Cvareh kicked Camile in the chest, sending the other woman scrambling to avoid landing in the water.
Arianna ignored the Dragon. She continued, relentless. Leona grinned at her, and grabbed the dagger rather than dodging. Golden blood streamed down her wrist and elbow.
“If you don’t kill me now, I’ll hunt down your little pet. I’ll kill Florence,” Leona swore, wriggling as far as she could under the woman’s skin.
The Wraith inhaled sharply the instant she heard the name. The Chimera’s attacks were becoming sloppy, worked into a fever pitch. It was only a matter of time before—
Leona saw her opening. Her fingers tensed, and she jabbed her hand forward for the Chimera’s chest.
And they sunk into the side of Dragon flesh. Cvareh’s arms wrapped around the Fenthri woman as he grimaced aloud in pain. Arianna screamed at him in frustration and the sound was cut short as another piercing flare of magic assaulted her mind.
When the haze from magically stopped time cleared, Leona was left with nothing more than Cvareh’s blood on her hand, the echo of a collapsed wall, and the rage of an unfinished fight.
23. Florence
The only thing that made Florence ignore the pain in her shoulder was losing sight of Arianna with the Dragon Rider still attacking. Will planted the charges as Ari had no doubt instructed, as Florence had been told was the plan from the start. She sagged against Helen, trying to hold in the crimson waterfall that poured relentlessly between her fingers on a march to drag her down the river of death.
“We can’t—Ari—we have to go back for her.” The panic of seeing her friends again was replaced by a greater, more pressing fear of her teacher, her friend, being trapped on the other side of the wall. It pushed aside all reason and logic surrounding Ari’s competence.
“The Riders are distracted with them,” Will shot back. “We can lose them here.”