EIGHTEEN
Blood Ties
MARY
Benedict dodged one way, I the other.Three guards and the Provost bolted after Benedict while the last two charged me.
Here.Tane pulled me around a corner and down a flight of stairs.
Where did Ben go?My reply was more image and nerves than words.
I’ll find him.Go right, then left.Through the door.
Tane left me, ghisten light vanishing into the shadows and the thunder of running footsteps.I felt naked, though a tether of ghisten flesh remained between us—thinning with each passing moment.
“Stop!”a guard roared.
The stairs ended.I darted right but instantly stopped, flattening myself to the wall.I began to whisper under my breath, subtle notes turning into a melody that barely reached the ear but it stole the air from the hallway as surely as punch to the lungs.It would not work as well, not here in a space without doors, but even if I could disorient the guards—
One barreled around the corner, cudgel in hand.I stuck out my foot and he fell hard, his cudgel clattering away.I seized it and backed away, making for full, clean air before I lost the breath to sing.
The first guard, gasping like a fish out of water, fumbled to his knees.The second—a middle-aged man, cold-eyed andmoustached—stumbled to a halt behind him, registered what was happening, and leveled a musket at me.
A bullet tore through the air beside my head, and the crack of the shot was deafening in the enclosed space.I barely twisted away, breath gone, song disrupted.Air rushed back into the hallway and Moustache charged.
I ran, cobbling together fresh notes, but my pursuer was too close, my control shaken.I crashed into another door, pulling the keys from my pocket as I went and shoving in the first one.
It didn’t work.The second.No luck.
My hands were trembling so hard I nearly dropped the whole ring.
Tane, I need you!I can’t find the key!
I’m coming.
The third key jiggled uselessly in the lock as Moustache charged around the corner so fast he nearly hit the opposite wall of the passageway.Pushing off with a growl, he lunged for me with his sidesword drawn.
I could feel Tane rushing back to me, our tether winding back on its spool, but the guard was four paces away now.Three.
I spun, pulling out the stolen dagger and ducking into a lunge just as the soldier came into range.I caught his sword with my blade as I sidestepped and grabbed his wrist with my other hand, wrenching hard.His sword dropped with a clatter.
His elbow struck me right in the head.I managed a stumbling lunge as I fell and he caught me gracelessly—a child tackling a runaway goat.We toppled to the floor, I flailing and cursing, he slapping my hands away.
Somewhere in the chaos my head took a second hit.My vision blurred, and when it cleared again the guard was pinning me to the wall—one hand on my throat, the other on the wrist of my dagger hand.My pistol was on the floor, kicked out of range.
He shouted something in Mereish, but with no Tane to translate, I couldn’t understand.No Tane.Without Tane, I was vulnerable.Without Tane, I could die.Then she would cease to exist, and—
The guard’s hands closed tighter, cutting off my breath and crushing my wrist until my fingers felt as though they would rupture with trapped blood.My grip shuddered open and the dagger clattered to the floor.
The guard’s eyes grew suddenly wide.He tilted his head to one side like a startled hound, but whatever he heard was beyond me.His hands began to tremble and his gaze turned inwards.
A surge of courage hit me, so fierce and vivid that I no longer felt the hand loosening on my throat or the cold stone grating against my back.
The guard stared at me, his face a muddle of confusion and distraction.I smashed my forehead into his nose, and he reeled with a shrieking gargle.
Before I could go after him, a shadow stepped between us—a large, masculine shadow stinking of sweat and dirt and worse.
Benedict threw a punch.The guard’s head rebounded off the wall with a solid crack, and he crumpled like a sail without wind.
