Page 54 of Fortune's Blade

No, not it, I thought. She. Because it was Claire and she was savage, in a way that I had never seen nor dreamt of.

The green was larger again by half, perhaps more. It was difficult to tell when they were nothing but a fighting, screeching, mad ball of fury. But I thought it was larger.

It lost anyway. I think most would have, save possibly the biggest. Not because Claire was stronger or faster or better, but because she was simply scarier, with no quarter asked for or given. She intended to kill or die and gave the impression that she didn’t much care which. I supposed the green had different thoughts, because it tore away—literally as it lost part of a wing in the process—and darted after its chieftain in the distance.

And Claire followed.

“No!” I screamed, because I wasn’t sure that she was rational enough to let him go. If he caught up with the others and she was still following, they would tear her to pieces. “Claire!” I yelled again, but someone else had seen.

Not Den, who was savaging an enormous blue-black specimen up above, with crunching sounds that made my spine clench. And not the smaller, dragon riding castle guards, who had caught up belatedly and were diving after battling duos and trios, adding their numbers to their masters’ power. But nobody noticed Claire.

Except for one, and in this case, one was enough.

A brilliant red streak tore after her, fast, fast, so unbelievably fast that he looked like nothing more than a smear of light on the horizon, one last gasp of a sun that had already set. Tanet, I thought, watching him with my heart in my throat. Because he’d started so far behind her that I wasn’t sure—

But I hadn’t even finished the thought before he caught her, desperation lending him speed and then power as the fluid body wrapped around hers and held on, even as she clawed and fought and twisted and turned, as frantic to get away and after her prey as he was to make sure she never did.

They fell into the tree line and out of sight, still battling each other, along with a dozen other pairs. We drifted down slowly behind them, while the forest burned, the wind whipped my hair into my eyes, and golden cinders fell all around us, turning the blue-black darkness into a fantasyland. The moon silvered it all, including the great castle behind us, shimmering in my borrowed vision as darkness finally claimed me.

Chapter Eighteen

“Mar!” Someone was shouting, as I fought my way back to consciousness. “I am not Tanet! I am Tanet-Mar and so I ask again—who are you?”

“Let go of me.” The voice was low, guttural, and unfamiliar. I tried to place it, but my brain stubbornly refused to come fully back online.

I think it was scared. I hurt all over, like a thousand pulsating suns eating their way across my body. I had been in pain before, plenty of times, and usually dealt with it pretty well.

But not now.

“Tanet-Mar!” the voice roared again. “Son of Rathen-Den and heir to House Eddred! I know who I am, but you—you do not even know your name!”

“I know my name—”

“Then tell it to me! Not the human one you hide behind, your name, my sister’s name.” And suddenly, the voice changed, from anger to something approaching horror. “Do you even have one? Have you even thought about it?”

“I’m warning you—”

“Of what?” The question echoed through the forest, along with a laugh that had no humor in it. “We’re at war with Vitharr, having killed a dozen of their people! Everyone will have to choose sides now, they’ll have no choice, and what poison do you think that bastard Steen is pouring into their ears at this very moment? We don’t know what they’ll choose; we don’t know what we’re up against; and my sister, my blood, is half out of her mind and looks like that!”

“Get out of my way,” Claire said, and it was her, although I could barely tell. She didn’t sound like herself at all, and I was having trouble thinking clearly. The adrenaline from that crazy fight had completely run out, and my ability to stave off pain along with it.

My world was fire.

I automatically reached for a weapon, any weapon, but preferably my Smith &Wesson. Bought in the eighties, it was the 29-2 model and almost comically massive, dwarfing a Desert Eagle in size and looking like a prop gun off a movie set. In fact, it had been: it was Dirty Harry’s gun, and loaded with the same .44 Magnum rounds he had supposedly used. I hadn’t bought it for that reason, but had to admit to asking a few people if they felt lucky.

None had.

Maybe because, while it wasn’t the most powerful handgun in the world anymore, it was enough to drop a charging rhino and to make the average vamp rethink his priorities. I frankly doubted whether it could do the same to the kinds of things I faced now, but I still needed to touch it, like a child reaching for a favorite blanket and the reassurance it provided. And maybe it would have—

If it hadn’t gone missing.

That happy little fact jerked me the rest of the way out of slumber. I’d jumped with as many guns as I could carry and still move, and that one should have been in a handy holster beneath my armpit. But only cloth met my hand when I felt for it, the silky, burnt remains of my once expensive gown, and when I opened my eyes, I saw only darkness.

For a moment, I panicked, thinking that I was still blind, and that maybe it was permanent this time. And while there were other clues to my location—loamy, damp soil under my fingertips along with the occasional forest litter; wind in the treetops outside, moaning a lonesome tune; and the smells of resin and pine—I didn’t calm down until light met my desperately searching eyes. Even if only tiny glimmers of it.

Some type of dark fabric was above me, I realized, draping the world in shadow. I was only able to glimpse anything else through some broken strands in the weave, which let in a few crisscrossing lines here and there of slightly less dark. They told me nothing, yet immediately consumed all my attention, cutting out every other thought.

It wasn’t a shroud—stop it, Dory! It was too high above my face and too heavy, to the point that it barely ruffled in the breeze. For a brief, frozen moment, I stared at it, not sure what it was.

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