She blinked. Yet there it was, in front of her, a slab of jade etched with Kemeiran characters that spilled down it like a waterfall.
The moment of confusion cost her. Something whistled behind her, and before she could react, pain sliced across her left shoulder.
Linn spun round, raising her knives. There was nothing there. Yet the air to her right shifted again: She felt, through her winds, a figure hurtling toward her, parting the air with edges of pointed metal. Linn turned to the nothingness, lifting her knives to where her Affinity told her the opponent’s knives would be—
They shifted in the last moment, and she felt their sharp biteacross her abdomen. Linn stumbled back, alarm bells pealing in her mind, confusion scattering her response. She hadseennothing, but she hadsensedit with her winds….
When the air behind her parted a third time, Linn turned. This time, she caught a blur of movement through the dark.
Linn closed her eyes and tuned in to her Affinity.
She met the attacker’s sword with both her daggers, grunting as her wound screamed. Blood warmed her clothing. Her opponent moved again and Linn reacted—but not fast enough.
Pain exploded on her temple. She staggered back, spat blood, and looked up just as her opponent materialized seemingly from thin air, his arm retracting from the blow.
He raised his sword. Metal arced, splitting the curtain of her winds—
And then the man’s sword was flying through the air in the opposite direction. The Imperial Patrol stared at his hand, stupefied, and looked back to Linn.
Ruu’ma stood between them. The woman held a pair of curved scythes in her hands. Her stance was low, defensive, her robes rippling around her as they settled.
“The Cyrilian is a sight wielder” was all she said to Linn, and everything clicked into place.
Sight wielder.An Affinite who manipulated vision and specialized in illusions. She thought of how she’dseenthe jade tablet but her hands had felt nothing.
Linn spun round to the marble pedestal just as the illusion collapsed. The jade tablet flickered into nothingness, revealing an empty plinth.
In front of the shelves a few steps away, where Linn had sensed the tremors in the air, two more men materialized: twomore Cyrilians materialized, holding a blackstone chest between them. Their first attacker stood in front of his squad, hands raised in a defensive position. She recognized him from his lean build, the curve of his outline, and the edges to his armor that her winds had carved out. It was the sight Affinite. An Inquisitor.
Linn’s gaze snapped to the blackstone chest. “The tablet,” she said.
“Run,” the Inquisitor barked at the other Imperial Patrols. He turned back to Ruu’ma, unsheathing a second sword from his back as the footsteps of his fellow patrols faded down the aisles, the blackstone chest—and the jade tablet—disappearing with them.
“Ko Linnet. Leave this fight to me.” Ruu’ma’s countenance had been patient and fair thus far, but in this moment she spoke rapid-fire words to Linn:“Retrieve the tablet, windsailer.”
Linn didn’t have time to ponder this order, so abrupt was the delivery. She gritted her teeth and pushed herself from the ground, daggers in hand, hilts slick with blood.
Face twisted with rage, the Inquisitor charged.
Linn didn’t have time to send a blessing to the Temple Master. It was the Inquisitor who would need it, after all.
She turned and ran. With every step, the gash in her abdomen seared.
Linn reached the entrance of the bookhouse to find chaos in the courtyard. Bodies were strewn across the clay-brick floor, along with remnants of whatever elements the Cyrilian Affinites and the Temple Masters had used to fight with. The ground shook with the sound of battle.
There were ten Temple Masters still fighting—and now, theother unit of Cyrilian Imperial Patrols had arrived. Her stomach tightened as she took in the scene.
A Water Master, standing in the middle of the man-made lake in the courtyard. He appeared to be meditating,floating,on the surface, water roaring around him.
A Metal Master, forming a blade that twisted and thrashed like a snake.
Rii, the sun wielder, lighting up the courtyard with bright flashes from the sky that struck where the Cyrilian Imperial Patrols stood. They moved gracefully, leaving a trail of burnt corpses in their wake.
At last, Linn spotted her quarry: two Cyrilian Imperial Patrols running through the battle, a snarl in the weft and warp of the tapestry of war.
Linn took off after them. Fatigue was beginning to wear into her muscles now, the loss of blood making her head light. She stumbled once or twice on patches of ground that had been torn away. Sweat poured down her forehead, stinging her eyes.
The two Imperial Patrols were too far ahead, sprinting through the now-empty main roads of Bei’kin. Linn swiped a hand across her face and called on her winds. They came from the front this time, sweeping in shrieking gusts that stirred up the dust on the roads. Trees rattled, tarpaulins fluttered, and discarded pieces of food were tossed into the air.
