But the smell of blood was stronger than hope, and more real than any dream. It lured her back to the old addiction known as revenge. Arianna gripped the pen tightly, as if it was a lifeline in the rip current she was about to be pulled into.
The scent grew and Arianna stood. The Dragon named Rafansi was nearby. He was bleeding. Arianna didn’t know why, but she felt the immediate tug in her gut that meant if she was not the one to kill him, she would harbor nothing but resentment for the rest of her years. This man had taken her life; she would not also let him take his death on his terms.
It is better this way, she tried to convince herself as her body moved on auto-pilot. She would seek him out and have her revenge. There would be no need to involve Cvareh and, in fact, she could still have a boon from him to spend on anything he didn’t give her freely out of adoration. Yes, she was doing this for him, as much as herself. It would be better for everyone this way.
Arianna walked to the door, poking her nose into the hall, looking around. The smell was stronger, though it seemed to be trailing away. She looked back to the desk, caught between what she had vowed to fight for all her life—a rebellion, a future for Loom—and a quiet whisper that this was the one thing she truly wanted.
The Dragon she needed dead was here. He was here, and vulnerable. She could kill him and then build a future without the shadow of the past lurking somewhere in Cvareh’s home. Rafansi was close enough that she could do it and be back in her room before the sun crested the horizon, before any were the wiser.
Arianna tore at her Dragon clothes in a sprint of movement. Yanking open the top drawer of her dresser, she pulled out her industrial trousers. They fit as perfectly as they had before. No matter how much time she spent on Nova, this was the cloth she was cut from.
She was meant to walk in boots designed for function before fashion. She was meant to tighten belts and harnesses about her fully-covered torso, wrapping herself in her own clockwork designs. She was born of stronger things than colors and fanfare. She was born of steam and steel. It had never felt so right to don the coat of the White Wraith.
As she started down the hall, her hands running over her winch box, the bottom of her coat flapped about her calves and she felt like a bloody god. She would not take her revenge in the clothes of a Dragon. She would do it with every advantage she had stitched into herself during every hardship she had survived over the years.
Arianna was not seen if she didn’t want to be. She’d spent days, months, slowly mapping out the Xin Manor with the same care as she would a high-paying heist. The halls were surprisingly empty of occupants, which made it all the easier.
She tracked the scent, running in parallel halls upward until she was right upon it. Arianna looked up and down the stretch, seeing and sensing no one. In the distance, she could pick up the edge of magic, but it was weak. Likely a servant, nothing she couldn’t handle if she was forced to.
She stopped before the door and took a deep breath to slow her racing heart. Her eyes shot open, blood boiled. He was here. Rafansi was right in this room.
Arianna forced herself to take measured breaths. She forced her head to cooperate. But all she could hear in her ears were the dying words of Eva, of Oliver, of everyone she held dear. She could feel the tug of bloodlust pulling her under its powerful wave, and fought all the harder to breach the surface with clear thinking and logic.
She looked down the hall once more and briefly considered walking away. If she let this man go, she would reclaim control over the one force that had driven her to the brink of insanity for years. She would reclaim her future by snapping the tether of the past.
Killing him would also snap that tether.
Arianna dropped into a crouch, peering into the keyhole. Just from the bit of tension the door handle gave when her hand rested on it, she knew the lock was engaged. She reached for the small tools concealed in the belt holding her winch box.
The lock was as simple as the one on her door. She approached it with ease and familiarity. Still, sweat dripped down her neck and her fingers nearly trembled. Nearly. She reaffirmed her grip on the pin now slick with sweat in her hand, and held steady.
She was close. She was so close.
The lock disengaged and the sound was louder than a gunshot to Arianna’s ears. She slammed down the handle, swinging open the door. Her hand was on her knife, drawing it. The door snapped shut behind her, her blade wedged into the groove to prevent anyone else from entering. She turned, her other blade already in hand.
A Dragon stared at her in shock from the center of the room. His face had paled to nearly a Fenthri gray, his jaw slack. His magic seemed to nearly vibrate with pulses of frantic terror.
Arianna stared at him. Their eyes locked and it was a spell, one she couldn’t fight. Here he was, here was the man who had betrayed her. No one to get in her way, nowhere for him to escape, he was hers. Her lips curled in a guttural growl of bloodlust.
“A-A-Arianna?”
“I’m glad you didn’t forget my name.” Her voice was gravel and broken glass and the sum of countless hours spent screaming alone into the darkness. “I never once forgot yours, Rafansi.”
He shuffled backward as she advanced.
“And now, it will be the last thing you ever say.”
Arianna pushed off, unloading the tension of her knees into the floor. She grabbed for the golden chain around his neck. The tempering resisted her magic—no matter. She twisted, swinging him like a rag-doll down onto the floor.
He fell hard. Arianna went down with him. She panted, her knife rearing back like an adder. She had him right where she wanted him and the idiot was too stunned to do anything. She could do anything she wanted, kill him however delighted her, though nothing would satisfy her hunger for his suffering.
Did she want to scoop out his eyeballs with the point of her blade? Did she want to carve out every organ he ever gave her? Did she want to take his heart and be done with it?
Arianna wanted to scream.
None of it was enough. None of it would be enough to quench her thirst for revenge. None of it would bring back the woman she’d loved, the teacher she’d revered, the friends she’d made in the only true home she’d ever had. She could kill him a thousand times over, and it wouldn’t be satisfying to her. Because what she truly wanted, no boon, no vengeance, no vision, could give her. She brought down her dagger.
His hand shot up, catching her wrist. The other swiped for her throat. Arianna caught it. They were in deadlock. Eyes on eyes, blade point and claw point at throats. She shifted her feet, ready to overpower him. She could feel it in his trembling grip—he wasn’t nearly strong enough to hold her.
“Wait, don’t kill me,” he spoke quickly, before she could laugh or scream or even give a growl at the coward’s attempt to barter for his life. “Don’t kill me, Arianna. I can give you something better.”
“Once a traitor, always a traitor,” she snarled. Arianna swung backward, pulling on his wrist, feeling the bones pop. She curled herself and brought her feet forward, kicking out his other wrist.
“Yes!”
Her blade stopped a second time, now of her own accord.
The man’s face moved oddly as he spoke. His visage was horribly scarred with markings that hadn’t been there the last time she’d seen him. Arianna watched his bones knitting before her eyes. Envy bubbled up at whoever had maimed him so effectively; jealousy was quick to follow that somehow she found herself lacking in doing the same.
“Yes, I am a traitor. But it is not you I am betraying now. I can give you something better, more satisfying than my death.”
“You have no idea how badly I want this.” Her hand had finally given to shaking.
“I betrayed you, Arianna, but I was nothing more than a puppet. If not me, it would’ve been someone else. What do you get from my death? Nothing. There will be more
like me who creep up from the shadows. Kill the man who pulls the strings.”
“You’d betray your own King?”
“Once a traitor, always a traitor.” He grinned darkly.
A shiver of malice raced down her spine. She wanted to kill him. She had wanted to kill him for years. But he was now a low-hanging fruit. She had him and she could slay him any time. She knew she could overpower him and best him in any fight—that much had already been proven in their short encounter thus far.
Yes, killing him would serve her personal vendetta. But it would mean little for any beyond her. If she killed Yveun… She would cut off the head of the snake.
“I can take you to him, right to him. I can get you in his room before the sun even wakes. No one else can give that to you, no other Dragon will.” Rafansi panted softly, continuing to eye her dagger. “It’s a fair exchange, my life for the life of the Dragon King. Don’t you think?”
Arianna stood, glancing to the window. If she killed him in the manor, she’d have to contend with the other Xin. She could let him take her to the King, kill Yveun, then take Rafansi’s life in turn. Arianna flipped her dagger in her palm, once, twice, before sheathing it.
The mere idea, even if it was a farce, of working with him again made her feel soiled. Eva, forgive me. But she was going to cast the die and gamble for it all, or nothing.
“Take me to the Dragon King.”
40. Florence
Why?
The word seemed to linger on the tongue of every survivor. Why?
They were adrift in the world, separated by the distance of train lines and the bleeding wounds that had been carved deep into their hearts. So the train continued in the only direction it could, on to Ter 1.2. No one objected. No one suggested otherwise. There was nowhere else to go.
An entire guild, an entire people, homeless and adrift.
Florence had wanted to live to see a world where people weren’t tethered to their guilds, but she hadn’t wanted it like this. She’d never wanted this. She would sit and listen to the wailing tears that were only smothered, not soothed, by time. She rocked silently with the train.
Powell looked equally shell-shocked, numb. The truth of what he had been saying since he had woken her two days ago echoed in her mind, underscoring the parted lips and drifting eyes that now made up his face. She waited for it to wear off, but she could only wait so long before her burning questions threatened to immolate her fragile sanity.
“Powell,” she whispered, hoping to get his attention without disturbing any who dozed around them.
“Florence?”
“You said the Dragon King ordered the attack.” His silence was affirmation enough. “How did you know?” She didn’t ask him why. If the man knew why, his state over the past two days would’ve been different. He would’ve been angry, frustrated, regretful. But he seemed as confused as her in that respect.
“There was a whisper.” His voice mirrored the word. “From the Revolvers’ Guild. It was a warning that the King’s Riders had taken over. That they demanded explosives en mass. That the Harvesters were to be the first example.”
“‘The first example’?” Florence repeated. “You don’t think the King means to attack the other guilds, do you?”
“I don’t know.” Powell’s shoulder rubbed against hers with the swaying of the car. “And we have no way of finding out now.”
All the Chimera with whisper links in the Harvesters’ Guild had been killed. It had been an impressive hub of communication, one that could rival even the Ravens’. Florence’s stomach turned sour. A guild had been destroyed, possibly the first of many, and the world didn’t even know. Injustice and pain that went unknown hurt all the more, she had discovered.
Nora and Derek tried to ease her into sleep, but Florence refused. She sat on the edge of the train car, watching the world go by and the distant mines appear and vanish along the dawn-colored horizon, none the wiser to the fact that their world was burning. She envied that distant point, a place beyond the edge of the world where she now lived.
They were the fourth train to arrive in Ter.1.2. That was a relief to all. The people who greeted them on the platform were already equipped with knowledge, and prepared to manage the survivors. They were shuffled along, unburdened by the need for thought, into various inns and temporary encampments that had been set up throughout the too-quiet city.
“I think this is where we part.”
Florence was startled to attention by the sound of Powell’s rough, solemn voice. She grabbed Derek’s arm, preventing him and Nora from disappearing ahead in the flow of people. Florence turned her face up to Powell’s, demanding an explanation.
He sighed heavily. “The Vicar did not survive. So there must be a vote for who will assume the mantle. Only four Masters seem to have made it out, however.” Pain flashed hot on Powell’s features. “The Master Harvesters were all called in on my behalf, to vote.”
“This was not your fault.” Florence gripped the man’s forearm. She tried to push magic into him, despite the fact that he was a Fenthri. She tried to push in her truth—that she, too, stared survivor’s guilt in the face regularly. “Powell, look at me: This wasn’t your fault.”
“No…” He sounded unconvinced. “Anyway, seeing how four isn’t enough for a quorum, they voted to grant me my circle and make me a Master for the vote.”
“You would have been awarded it anyway.” Florence couldn’t imagine being awarded Mastery under the current circumstances. It made her heart ache for the Harvester before her.
Her effort brought a small smile to his mouth. “I like to believe that’s true.” She knew he would always wonder.
“Powell.” The other Master Florence had met on the train, Max, called from a short distance away. The circle emblazoned on his cheek around the Harvester’s sickle seemed almost like an omen of sorrow now.
“I’m coming.” Powell turned to leave.
Florence held fast to his forearm. “I’m coming with you.”
“What?” It came from Powell and Nora at the same time.
“This was what we came here for,” she explained to the Alchemists. “To speak with the Vicar Harvester about the rebellion.”
“The Vicar Harvester was undecided,” Nora reminded her.
“That Vicar Harvester is dead. And in light of recent events, I think we have a better case to make.” Florence squeezed Powell’s forearm. She wanted him to feel her strength and certainty. She wanted to be as strong as Arianna was when the woman had pulled her from the depths of the Underground and told her everything would be all right. “Powell, we would like to request this of the Masters.”
He looked back to Max who was halfway to them, no doubt having heard the better portion of the conversation. He was tall for a Fenthri or Chimera, nearly Arianna’s height. His sharp blue eyes assessed her.
“The vote won’t be a place for a Raven.”
“I’m not a Raven,” Florence replied on instinct.
“What are you, then?”
She stopped short of her usual response of “Revolver.” Instead: “I’m Florence.”
The man raised his eyebrows. But his response was interrupted by a solemn bell toll from a nearby assembly hall. He pulled out his pocket watch, inspecting the time.
“Very well, come along. But they sit in the back,” he cautioned Powell, as if the man was now solely responsible for the three of them. Judging from the train, it wasn’t an unfair assessment.
Usually, a filled hall would seem like a joyous occasion. The rising of a Master, the appointment of a new Vicar. Every seat was packed with journeymen and handfuls of initiates.
But nothing had ever looked sadder than the three men and two women who were seated in the center of the floor. No one spoke for a long minute. The room was as still as a tomb.
Max stood. “Today, on
the thirteenth day of the eleventh month, in the year one thousand eighty-one, we, the Masters of the Harvesters’ Guild, have been called together to elect a new Vicar Harvester from among us.”
Florence shifted her weight from foot to foot. She was short enough that she had elected to stand in the back of the room on a small box to be able to see. Plus, even if she didn’t fully agree with them, Max’s words stayed with her. While she believed that any Fenthi from any guild should be able to witness the changing of a Vicar, this did not impact her in the same way it did the journeymen and initiates who lined the room. They deserved to be closer.
“Do any have a nominee from among us?”
The first journeyman stood. “I nominate Maxwell.”
“I second.” Another stood as well.
“I nominate Theodosia.”
“I third Maxwell.”
“Second Theodosia.”
“I nominate Powell.”
Florence watched with more interest the moment Powell’s name was added to the ring. Whoever the other two Masters were, they didn’t seem to have the same type of fervor wrapped around them. Eventually, the only names that mattered were Powell and Theodosia.
When it was clear that the room was split, the two stepped forward, away from the Masters, to face their peers. Chosen from a select group, supported by the guild on the whole, now the most experienced men and women would cast their votes for who would lead.
“I vote for Powell.” Max was the first to cast his ballot.
“I vote for Theodosia,” the second woman decided.
The final man thought it over a long moment. Florence wished she could ask him what ran through his head. What did one think while they were deciding the future of a guild? How did someone even approach a situation like that? It was a skill Florence wanted to imitate and learn.
He took a deep breath and made his choice. “I vote Powell.”