Touch of Iron (The Living Blade #1) (33 page)

And then through it.

The roof gave way under her with a protest of old age. The falling sensation stopped abruptly as her feet slammed into solid ground once more. And though she instinctively curled together and rolled over her shoulder, the roll carried her down a set of rotten stairs, splintering under her weight. She banged against the stone wall head-first and lay dazed, staring at the patch of night sky visible through the hole she had made. Debris still rained down.

Everything hurt. Her fingers came away red when she touched her temple, and on the inside of her cheek hung a flap of flesh where her teeth had clicked shut as she impacted the floor. Blood filled her mouth, grainy with dust. She was alive, though not yet breathing normally. It seemed her lungs had forgotten how. At least her legs weren’t broken. Nor her arms. And look! She was still clutching her knife. And now, breath! At last. Relief flushed her body.

Shouting erupted below her. Someone kicked in a door. Nora rolled, aching, and struggled to her feet. No rest for the ungodly. She stumbled down the next flight of stairs to the ground floor, one hand trailing against the crumbling stone wall, the other grasping the knife. A man came running around the corner, wide-eyed. He had a sword in his hand, but its point was lowered. She slashed her knife in a desperate lunge at his throat. His hand raised to the pulsing wound, and he staggered against the wall, chopping at her with the sword. She dodged it clumsily, slamming into the remains of the wooden banister. Other men came in behind him. She pushed herself upright and stuck her knife into the man’s chest. At least one. At least one she would take with her to Lara’s silent road. But there were so many.

Through the open door behind the attackers, she realized she had fallen through the last street of houses. The mill was just outside, the gap in the wall only a few meters away. Another man came at her with an ax. It thudded into the frame of another doorway she ducked through as she retreated through the broken house. She grabbed the edge of an ancient, moth-eaten tablecloth and threw it over the man’s head. The overturned table became another obstacle. As the man roared, yanking the cloth from his face, Nora heard the tinkle of broken glass behind her and turned in horror.

A dark, sleek arrow of a man darted through the window, arms protecting his face from the glass, two blades in his hands. He came up on his feet and flung himself forward in blurring speed. She braced herself for the incoming pain. But he was past her in a flash and pierced the axman through.

“I expressly told you
not
to improvise!” Diaz said over his shoulder.

Nora closed her eyes, knees trembling. She laughed breathlessly.

Garreth, Shade, and Owen carefully crawled through the broken window.

“Stay with me!” Diaz shouted, stemming the waves of attackers, a lone rock making for the open door and beyond to the gap in the wall. “Garreth and Shade, get the flour bags from the mill. Owen, you keep our back. Noraya, at my side, where I can see you.”

They rallied around him and were advancing out into the street already, men dying at their feet.

Nora pressed against Diaz, moving with him in a deadly dance of blades while Owen stood his ground behind them in a low crouch, spear at the ready. A man was charging at them—a number of men. From the corner of her eye, Nora saw Owen’s spear thrust forward, jabbing a man in the side. Another man probed a spear in Nora’s direction. She knocked it away from her face with her fist, grabbed the shaft, and pulled the man onto her knife. Spear still in hand, she slammed it into the belly of a man who was sidling around Diaz. She slashed at another man’s side, and diverted the blade of another with her free hand, head-butting him violently. His hand came up to his nose and she drove her knife into his exposed chest, then kicked him back. And so it went on for what felt like hours but could only have been a few minutes. She fought beside Diaz, holding the gap, weaving in among his thrusts, stabbing at whatever she could whenever she could, using her empty hand to disarm and sweep man after man onto the ground or Diaz’s busy blades. They melded into a four-armed beast with sharp claws.

Owen pushed his back against her.

“Master Diaz, there’s something you should see back here,” he shouted over his shoulder. “Someone.”

“Not now,” Diaz said, brow furrowed in concentration.

“Yes, now,” Owen said.

But it was too late.

A cold sensation flooded Nora’s veins, and her arm snapped short in the middle of a motion. A dull expanding sensation throbbed through her. She was unable to move even her little finger as a sheet of electric blue swept up between Diaz and the attackers. A yank below her navel pulled her backward violently, and the three of them were raised off the ground and thrown against the wall of the house behind them.

A lone figure stepped out of the shadows, robes billowing around her, both hands full of dancing silvery water reflecting the moonlight.

“Talitha.” Diaz groaned, already back on his feet before Nora even noticed the chill of Cumi’s water magic was gone.

“Quite right,” Master Cumi said. “Now tell me: what do you think you are doing?”

N
ora let out a strangled
cry. A dome of ice-cold blue closed in around Diaz, Owen, Master Cumi and her, shutting off the attackers who streamed around it. She got to her feet and stared at Master Cumi in disbelief.

“The Solstice fire,” Owen breathed. “It was your signal to attack. You knew there was a force waiting in the forests. You let the miller pillage the walls to create a breach. You’d give over the Temple of the Wind? Why?”

The water swirled in Master Cumi’s hands. She watched it spin serenely before her face and smiled.

“Is this the moment where I tell you my evil, evil plan? I don’t think so.”

“But you—” Nora shook her head, trying to make sense of what was being said. “You blessed those married couples earlier. You blessed them, knowing they were about to die because of you?”

“Till death do us part—that’s how the words go, Noraya.” Master Cumi’s hand dropped to her side. The orb of water went with it, hovering at her fingertips. “Because that’s how all life goes.”

Nora saw that Master Cumi’s long sweeping skirts were spattered with blood at the hem. She met her dark blue eyes.

“I don’t understand,” Nora said.

“Don’t you? You know what they give you when you dig the deepest holes, Noraya? Only a larger shovel.”

“This is not you, Talitha,” Diaz said.

“And what do you know of me, Telen? You’ve always had a picture of me in your mind. A picture of my redemption. From blood witch to noble guardian of tradition. And there has been nothing I could ever do or say to change that opinion. Gods know I tried. Well, maybe there is this.”

She gestured to the sparkling blue around them and laughed.

“Fine. I see you still don’t understand. The fall of the north is just the beginning. You will find the Living Blade. The gods will return. Their treasures will be assembled. They will be woken from their slumber. The prophetess has seen it. All of it. And I convinced her of my worth in her service. And theirs.”

“You killed Calla’s master last summer,” Owen said.

“Fast, aren’t you? I know you spoke with Calla. Unfortunately, Master Rallis wouldn’t see reason.” Cumi smiled at Owen. “So unlike Calla, who is such a devoted girl. Devoted to the order and its silly traditions.”

“And for your service, what do you get?” Owen spat.

“Freedom. To be free of the bonds that shackle me to denying who I really am: a mighty blood witch, descended from Neeze, element of water.”

Diaz paled.

“Talitha, you would never be free,” he said. “You would become nothing more than an instrument in her hand. This temple belongs to the order. The order you chose and vowed to serve.”

Cumi raised her brows and laughed. But it wasn’t her usual laugh. It sounded hollow and bitter instead of ringing out clear and true.

“What choice did I have? I was about Noraya’s age. I can hardly remember the words. The years don’t go by as gracefully for all of us as they do for you, Telen. I have little time left on this earth, and I don’t wish to spend that time living out some fantasy version of myself that you have made up for me. For years I have let myself be bested by lesser men. Done the job and received nothing for it. Darren. Akela. You. You think I would just hand over my position to you? Why should I? Because you’re a man? Because you’re older? Silly traditions of silly old men, and I will no longer yield.”

Cumi shaped the water into a vicious spike and hurled it at Diaz. He dodged and ran toward her, blades at the ready. She reached out to the water and pulled it back toward her in midair. It spun into a whip and slashed at Diaz, opening a wound on his arm. He winced and kept on running. The water spun into an orb above Cumi’s head and then parted into tiny needles, winging toward Diaz. He held up both blades before his face and cut through the water. It fell like rain, only to be lifted up once more. Diaz was nearly on Cumi now. She concentrated and moved her hands in a complicated gesture. A silvery bolt rose from the ground and crystallized behind Diaz, speeding toward his turned back.

Nora jumped up, knife in her hand, and started to run without thinking.

“Look out!” she cried.

Diaz turned and knocked a blade through the water, sending it to the ground as harmless drops once more. He had lost his footing, though, and stumbled. He dived to the side and rolled over his shoulder and was up before Nora reached Owen, who grabbed her by the arm, holding her back.

“We’ve got to do something,” she said.

Owen shook his head.

“This isn’t your fight.”

He was wrong, but Nora hadn’t the heart to tell him.

Together they watched the two masters from a distance, ducking when a whiplash of water sloshed over their heads. Diaz and Talitha were dancing a complicated step, and the flash of swords and spatter of water were whirling like a churning river around them. They lashed out at each other with wide sweeps, silver streak after silver streak flicking through the night. Talitha shaped a ball of hard ice and flung it at Diaz’s face. He cut through the sphere, drew his sword back, and struck a killing blow at her heart. Cumi brought her hands up, and his blade jerked to a halt just before it touched her skin. It hung there suspended, as did he. Surprise swept over his features. Then he frowned.

“You won’t kill me?” He spoke softly, but his voice carried.

“It’s not my place.” She shook her head, sweat glistening on her brow. “For a long time, I wanted to change the world, heal it, make it better. But I can’t, Telen. None of us can. All we do is make things worse. That’s why we need the gods.”

“To be their slaves?”

Cumi licked her lips. A drop of blood pearled in the corner of her mouth as she smiled.

“I put a curse on you, Telen Diaz. A final curse, spoken with my last breath. You will remember it and despair, and I will have that solace at least. So, listen, wight, messenger of the gods: the only freedom you shall ever have is the freedom to choose whose slave you want to be.”

She let her arms hang loose and as she did, Diaz’s thrust pierced her through. They both gasped. Then Talitha crumpled to the floor, dark blood oozing from a deep cut in her chest. She moaned and shuddered, curling up. The blue dome disappeared, leaving an orange glow imprinted on the back of Nora’s eyelids along with white starbursts. She blinked. The light had been taken away. Darkness fell once more.

Footsteps approached from behind. It was time to move.

O
wen crouched low on a
rooftop on the highest level of the courtyards, closest to the temple. He shivered in the cold wind. Tiny flakes of snow were whisking through the dark around them, pure white against the black, like fallen stars. He saw the same afterimage whenever he closed his eyes. Next to him, Nora’s teeth chattered. She wasn’t wearing warm clothing.

He was staring intently at the mass of men pounding the wooden beam against the red gates. From the rooftop, they saw that Bashan and a number of armed men had taken up position on the first platform of the stairs, waiting for them to break through.