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 relaxed 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.