Move.Ramson gouged his nails into the mud, struggling to regain control of his muscles. Something rough and hard dug into his palm. He lifted his hand. Half-buried in the muddy water beneath him was the coarse, wet rope that he’d easily shimmied out of while the mercenaries had been distracted by Ana.
Ramson’s hands closed around the rope, thick as a vessel’s anchor line.
Sudden inspiration struck.
He was weakened and exhausted, with no leverage over this mercenary in a sword fight. Yet outside of swordplay, Ramson did have one advantage.
Before he’d become a Cyrilian crime lord, Ramson had been a sailor. A blue-blooded Bregonian sailor.
He stood, gripping his sword and stretching the long coil of rope between his hands. Within a few seconds, his sailor’s hands had worked the end into a bowline with a loop large enough to fit a man’s head.As fluid as the river,he thought.
The rain fell so thickly now, it was difficult to see past a dozen paces. The roar of the deluge blocked out any other sound. He was on a ship again, in the middle of a storm, navigating with nothing but a broken compass and that boy with the thin, sharp voice by his side.
Ramson clenched his lasso, his muscles coiled tighter than a spring. “Hey, horseface!” he yelled. “Find your balls and take on someone your own size, won’t you?”
The mercenary turned. A snarl split his ugly face as he palmed his daggers. “I’ll snap you like a stick,” he growled, and hurtled toward him.
Ramson leapt back. In an extension of the same motion, he whipped out the length of rope, lashing it at his enemy. The motion was smooth, familiar. He’d done it a thousand times in a life long past.
The rope met its mark. Like a living thing, it whipped around the mercenary’s neck.
Ramson threw his weight backward and pulled, sharply and with all his strength. The mercenary stumbled off balance, his legs tangling as he fell to the ground. His fingers scrabbled at the noose around his neck.
Ramson leaped forward, the hilt of his dagger slick but firm in his hands. He plunged it through skin and sinew and flesh, and slashed upward.
The mercenary jerked, and with a few more twitches, his struggles ceased. Blood gushed, quietly pooling around him.
Ramson sank to his knees. The rain fell steadily, already washing away the blood on his hands. He drew a deep breath, trying to still the frantic galloping of his heart and his shaking limbs.
He’d been careless; he’d almost died. Perhaps prison had made him slower, softer. He couldn’t afford that again, because next time, the witch might not be there to help him.
He was cold and drenched and injured, and he would have willingly handed over half the goldleaves in his possession for a soft bed, a warm fire, and a good bottle of Bregonian brandy right then. But he needed to move—quickly. There was no telling whether the mercenaries had allies close by.
Groaning, he pushed himself to his feet.
The witch lay motionless by the trunk of a tree, but it wasn’t her he looked at. Ramson paused at the body of the first mercenary. The man’s mouth was open, his face frozen in a silent scream, his skin oddly colorless, as though the blood had been drained from it.
And it had, Ramson realized with sickening dread. The rainwater pooling around the body bled into crimson, the color seeping into the mud.
He’d heard a tale once: a terrible haunting that had occurred ten years back with an Affinite. The bodies, twisted like a grotesque piece of artwork. The looks of terror on the victims’ faces. The lack of puncture wounds. And the blood, all the blood…
They’d called her the Blood Witch of Salskoff—a story a decade old, at this point, the culprit having vanished to never be seen again. Some had taken it as a sign that Affinites were growing more powerful, that darker powers graced these monsters sculpted by the hands of demons.
Ramson had thought it all a pile of waffles. But that hadn’t stopped him from keeping his eye out for the powerful Affinite who had become that myth.
He’d simply never thought she’d come looking forhim.
A cough snatched his attention. He hurried to the witch. Blood dripped from her nose. She was shivering, but she was conscious.
“Are you all right?” He touched a finger to her cheek; her skin was colder than ice. For the second time since they’d met, he examined her, running his gaze over her elegant cheekbones, the heart-shaped face and sharp chin that rendered her beautiful yet feral in appearance. She was young, too young, to be the Blood Witch of Salskoff—yet as he reached forward and tipped her face up, he caught the fading red hue of her eyes.
Something stirred in his memory again—she looked faintly familiar, like a portrait he’d come across many years ago that had left a single, deep impression. But that was impossible.
Ramson let his hand drop. “How did you find me?”
“The Gray Bear’s Keep. The bartender.”
“He told you?” She nodded. Ramson cursed. “We have to move. He’ll send men after us. Can you stand?”
