Page 108 of A Steeping of Blood
Where she was met by a pair of men. She flipped Calibore in the air, the hilt of a dagger falling into her hand. She shoved it into the first man’s leg and pulled it free. He screamed, stumbling to the cobblestones with his hand pressed to his calf to staunch the blood. She slashed her dagger across the second man’s neck, walking past as he gurgled to his knees. She picked up his knife, and pushed forward, the whisper of the sea growing quieter and quieter.
Just as Shaw’s heartbeat had, just as Sora’s.
Around her, vampires tore out throats and limbs, feeding for thefirst time in weeks, months, and in some cases, years. They were the starved weapons the Ram wanted them to be, turned against her. Men fell like rag dolls; some emerged with wooden stakes. The square was a war ground.
A cleaver swung toward her. Arthie leaped away. She flung her stolen knife into her attacker’s stomach with a sickening squelch.
“Not enough money in the budget for a real weapon?” she asked. He ripped it out with a snarl, and she winced. “Should have kept it in.”
A chill dragged down her spine, and Arthie found what she was looking for: the Ram, standing beside her carriage just outside the chaos. She had played her part in the battle, and now she was content to watch.
Good. Watch me destroy.
Arthie fought her way forward, slicing at the men with Calibore, leaving a trail of bodies. She transformed it back into a pistol as she neared the Ram, and held her gaze when she cut the last of the men near her down, tossing his cheap knife down with him.
The Ram stared at Calibore, then at Arthie.
“We meet again,” the Ram said.
Your men are losing, Arthie wanted to say, but there was a better way to say it and get what she wanted out of this moment, to make the Ram think she had won and Arthie was a willing prisoner:
“Let’s not kid ourselves. It’s me you want.”
The Ram tilted her head. “If I did, I would have killed you with the Siwangs.”
Arthie smiled her razor-edged smile. “That’s exactly why you didn’t. Call off your men, let mine go free, and you can have me.”
38ARTHIE
Arthie leaned back into the supple leather seat of the Ram’s carriage. The last time she sat here, the Ram was threatening to take Spindrift. This time, far more was at stake—far more had been lost too.
You’re welcome for the dignified retreat, Arthie wanted to gloat, but she couldn’t decide if the Ram thought Arthie was gullible enough to think her black-clad men had the upper hand there, or if she was playing Arthie just the same.
Arthie was where she wanted to be, and that was what mattered.
Before the carriage door slammed on her face, Arthie met Jin’s eyes across the distance. She saw his rage, his pain. He started running for the carriage, shoving humans and vampires out of the way.
Why?his eyes implored.
Matteo caught him, holding tight against his thrashing. He held Arthie’s gaze too, as confidently as he said he held her heart, and she pressed her fingers to her lips, remembering their kiss in their final moment of solitude.
Then the Ram rapped her knuckles on the ceiling and set her gloved hands in her lap as the carriage lurched forward. Hands that had just killed two people the Ram had known for decades. Two people who had been an important, integral, irreplaceable part of the Ram’s operation for years. Her disregard had never shown itself so starkly.
Why?Jin had asked.
Because the Ram was winning, and she needed to continue believing that. She needed to continue believing she had broken them. Because she had.
Now she even had Arthie.
But the Ram didn’t yet know the damage Arthie had dealt, the damage she would soon amplify. She was ruin personified, and her enemies would know it.
“You may as well remove the mask so you can breathe, Lady Linden,” Arthie said.
When the light bounced in through the carriage window, Arthie saw the Ram’s eyes harden. If vampires could feed off of anger, Arthie would have gorged just then.
“Quite the ruse to keep for twenty years,” Arthie continued. “Do you kill the people who find out?”
The Ram’s silence was answer enough. She had killed for less.
