Wind gusted over her ears, and Arianna knew she had mere breaths before they would both be plastered on the next metal cropping. Live to fight the next battle, instinct cried. Arianna relinquished the Rider to the sound of the crashing glider behind her.
She unclipped the golden clip from her harness. The Dragon snarled in rage and flailed his arms, attempting to strike her, or cling to her—whichever he could manage. Her gold line was impervious to his strikes, so she cast it without hesitation. Her stomach was in her throat and shot back down to her lower abdomen as the line snapped to tension.
The Dragon’s claws sunk into her calf and Arianna swiped at him with a snarl. She shredded the tendons in his wrist, his hand going lax, and he continued to fall without her. His body met the refinery’s rocky foundation with a calamitous clang.
Arianna tapped her winch box.
She slowed her descent to nonlethal speeds, keeping the line loose enough that the cabling spun freely off its spools and her stomach shot back into her throat. When she was two pecas from the ground, she pulled the lynchpin on the box and fell the rest of the way.
Dazed and barely conscious, the Dragon Rider blinked up at her. Fools hesitated and sympathizers died. Arianna plunged her claws into the man’s chest, perforating his lungs and surrounding his heart. She twisted, ripped, and ended the Dragon’s life.
The door to her right burst open.
Arianna sunk her teeth into the soft tissue of the Rider’s heart. Blood exploded in her mouth—the taste of blackberries, tart yet sweet. With that sweetness was something all the more savory. Magic flooded her senses. It pulsed within her, bolstered her own. Her wounds healed, her skin regained its strength, and, with a snap of her fingers, her line returned itself to its coil as she turned to face the next enemy.
The Dragon levied a gun against her—one of the reasons she was here to begin with. Arianna dropped into a crouch, ready to dodge the shot. The Dragon snarled and pulled the trigger at the same time as she lunged.
He tried to anticipate her movements; his gun swung right as Arianna pushed forward. He thought she’d move to the side. But Arianna went straight for the jugular.
He swung back. The Dragon pulled the trigger again and Arianna heard a familiar click. She drew her dagger and plunged it into his throat.
“With that style rifle, you need to reload a canister with every shot,” she chided softly.
The Dragon threw aside the empty weapon with a shout of frustration. He had fight in him as he gripped her shoulders, making a play for her throat. Arianna tumbled, slid into a crouch, and prepared to lunge anew.
“Witch!” he shouted at her before swiping with his claws.
“Scientist!” Arianna corrected, dodging his slash. She thrust with one dagger and the Dragon moved left, completely ignoring the second blade attached to a golden line at his back.
He fell, and another appeared.
The Dragons here were bleary from sleep, shocked into sluggishness, out of their element in narrow industrial halls. There wasn’t a true combatant among them—at least not by the standards of the Queen of Wraiths.
She tore through them, one after the next. Golden daggers floated at the ends of her lines like barbed tentacles shooting from her hips, carving out the hearts of all who dared to oppose her. Arianna killed without question. Man, woman, young or old—if they stood before her, they would be struck down.
Dawn broke over the horizon to find her bathed in slowly evaporating gold. Arianna’s chest heaved and her eyes were blurry from exhaustion. She ran on the magic of her conquests, shoving hearts into her mouth in the same unreserved way Florence would indulge herself on an unattended plate of cookies.
Magic from deep below prickled at her senses. Arianna knew what she’d find before she arrived at the heavy, bolted door. Still, when she pulled it open and looked at the squalor within—the men and women blinking nervously at her—her chest felt heavier than all the metal and stone of the refinery that surrounded her.
“I can’t save you all.” It was where she had to start. “But I can try to give you each the power to save yourselves.”
“Who are you?” a woman stammered.
“The Wh—The Queen of Wraiths.” Arianna sheathed her daggers. “And I come from the rebellion on Loom.”
Shocked rumors rose among the Fenthri slaves.
“House Xin is standing with us, and together we will overthrow the Dragon King and save Loom.” For all she believed in Florence and Cvareh, uttering the words was hard. How many times in her lifetime alone would she espouse the end of Yveun’s rule? “Help me dismantle this refinery, then flee, hide. Stay out of sight and stay alive until Rok has fallen.”
They looked nervously at each other. No one moved. She wondered if Florence would have been able to inspire them to action. Arianna was not meant for rousing speeches or motivating the masses. She was the hired blade in the dark.
“I can take one of you with me,” she continued anyway. “Loom needs knowledge of the weaponry and whatever else they’re having you make here. I will let you decide who it will be. This is the Fenthri way.”
The slaves looked among themselves, and still, no one moved. Then murmurs, speaking, a consensus. Arianna watched them use their minds for themselves for the first time in what may have been decades. They selected one man with the circled symbol of a Rivet on his cheek. He was young enough that Arianna didn’t recognize him from her time in the guild, but old enough that she had no doubt he’d spent most of his life on Nova.
“I’ll bring the information back to Loom.”
“Good.” Arianna gave a curt nod. “Now that that’s settled, let’s get to work making Rok’s life as difficult as possible.”
Coletta
Even when the world was at war, Lysip was a beauty to behold. The brown winter grasses against the brilliant reds of the estate created an ethereal elegance that was capped with a bright sky, its blue almost washed into a soft off-white. It was not uncommon for the clouds above the God’s Line to deposit rain or snow onto their island. But the winter had been dry so far.
Coletta preferred it this way. She didn’t like getting the hems of her clothes muddy, and the only damp she ever wanted to feel on her hands was the blood of her enemies.
As much as Tam flaunted their island’s perpetual jewel tones as some kind of superiority, Coletta found the world in stasis several times more stunning than the lushest of gardens—with the exception of her own garden, of course.