The kapitan had her sword out, lifted to kill.
Linn sprang.
She caught the kapitan in midair; they tumbled to the ground, a tangle of limbs and sharp metal. Linn rolled to avoid being cut by the Whitecloak’s blade. With a back kick she’d learned from her early days in training, Linn rolled over the kapitan.
She pulled her elbow back and gave the woman a solid punch on her cheek. Her knuckle connected with bone; she heard a crunch, saw the splatter of blood and what resembled a tooth on the ground.This is for Gen,Linn thought.For the Temple Masters you tortured. For the innocents you slaughtered.
The kapitan knocked a hand into Linn’s face and shoved. She was heavier and bigger than Linn; the impact sent Linn wobbling.
Linn shifted tactics. She somersaulted to her feet, clutching her knives in both her hands. She was battered, bruised, and bleeding freely from the wound on her abdomen inflicted by the Whitecloak earlier—but no matter. As long as she had her blades, she could not be stopped.
“You bitch,” the kapitan snarled. “Do you know who I am?”
“No,” Linn replied in fluent Cyrilian. “And I do not particularly care.”
“So it speaks,” the Imperial Patrol sneered. “Well, I’ll have you know that you face First Kapitan Karinya of the Cyrilian Imperial Patrols.” She paused and spat out a mouthful of blood. “No need to ask where a creature like you came from.”
Linn only gave her a cool look. She’d worked for these types of pale-faces back in the days she’d spent under indenturement; they were all the same. Born with faces like marble and hair likegold, and they thought they all wore crowns on their heads and were entitled to palaces.
“Pitiful deimhov,” the First Kapitan continued. “I have the Deities on my side. I will wipe you from the face of this world like the stain you are.”
Linn lifted her own daggers. They were small, but they were sharp. “I do not need your gods,” she replied, surprised to find her voice so steady. “I am human, and I have strength enough.”
The First Kapitan pounced. And Linn thought of everything her Wind Masters had taught her, of how she’d watched Gen dance earlier.
She yielded to the woman’s sword, shifting ever so slightly to step out of harm’s way. And then, in an extension of the same movement, she kicked out.
The woman screamed as Linn’s foot slammed into her stomach.
Linn knelt over the First Kapitan, holding her blade against the woman’s neck. “What is the Deities’ Heart?” This time, she used the Cyrilian words she had heard them say earlier.
The First Kapitan’s face cracked into a bloodied smile. “You’ll never stop us,” she leered. “You think we’re the only unit deployed here? Think again.”
Linn hesitated, her blade hovering over the woman’s skin.
A silhouette flashed; pain exploded in her side, and she slammed onto the mud. Linn struggled to her feet as another Whitecloak lifted his weapon to her head—
—and a tall, burly figure stepped in her path. Kaïs’s sword made a sound like a knife slicing through fruit. The man expired in his arms.
Several paces away, the First Kapitan was crawling, reaching for her sword. Kaïs stalked toward her. Before Linn could call out, he slashed his blade through the woman’s back. The First Kapitan fell to the ground and lay still.
Linn pushed herself to her feet. “No,” she gasped. She stumbled; Kaïs reached out and caught her. “You should not have…”
His expression was tight as he wound a hand around her back to steady her. “She deserved worse.”
“She had valuable information we needed,” Linn choked out.
A pause. “I’m sorry,” Kaïs said. She remained silent, staring at the body of the kapitan and the information she’d held that was now lost to them forever.
Linn closed her eyes briefly. “The fault was not yours,” she said, and pushed away from him.
Before them: a clearing of cooling bodies, Cyrilian soldiers and Temple Masters alike. In their midst was Gen, silver hair fanned out over the mud.
Linn knelt by the fallen Temple Master. Somehow, even in death, he looked graceful. His robes were pale, nearly white in the flickering lowlight, and Linn thought again of how white was the color of mourning in Kemeira.
Her eyes pricked. He’d saved her life; he’d been the only connection she’d made in her homeland. She touched a hand to his cheeks, the skin papery and cooling beneath her fingers. “I am sorry, shi’sen,” she whispered.
Gen had known of the Heart of the Gods…the Deities’ Heart…whatever it was that Morganya’s forces were here for. He’d needed to protect it so badly that he’d given his own life.
