“Do priests now meddle in politics?” Liana asked. “Do youserve your goddess or Roderi of Elmar?”
Ferisa blinked in surprise.
“But she’s not a murder goddess, nor a goddess of war,” Liana continued. “This is not a divine mission you’re on, but a purely human revenge spree for insults real and imagined.” It was a wild guess, but it hit the mark.
“You know nothing about my purpose,” the priestess said.
“That may be true, but I know everything about the consequences of what you’re about to do.” Liana spat out more blood. “You think peace is a cowardly solution? You think Elmar has suffered too much to give up so easily? You want the rest of the kingdom to taste blood?”
“Who are you?” Ferisa growled.
“I’m someone who’s seen the war you’re about to start. The kingdom will bleed, yes, but Elmar will lose everything.” Liana’s words were slow and deliberate. “You will all die.”
Ferisa shot her an unpleasant smile. “Do you think I care about dying?”
“I know you don’t,” Liana said. “But you’re irrelevant, a tool too dumb to see how it’s being used. Nobody cares if you live or die.”
Ferisa bared her teeth at her. “If you tell me who sent you, I promise to kill you quickly.”
“The gods sent me,” Liana said in a flash of perfect clarity. “And I’m going to stop the Black Lord.”
The time for banter and bravado was over. Liana read Ferisa’s intention a moment before the priestess lunged at her, and she jumped back, avoiding the blade. Liana was fast, but in this small, locked room, she was barely fast enough to avoid getting killed. No matter how many times she dodged the blade, she had no chance of stopping Ferisa with her bare hands, not while the priestess’s eyes glimmered with arrowfoil and Liana’s head was all muddled with poison.
Her heel bumped into something hard, almost throwing her off balance once again. She risked a glance behind her. It was a small medicine chest. She bent down, avoiding another slash, and grabbed it. The precious glass vials clinked when she shook it.
“Don’t touch that!” Ferisa cried.
“You want it?” Liana threw the chest at Ferisa, its contents spilling out and falling on the floor, where they burst like overripe fruit. The priestess screamed. Liana turned, pushed the shutters open with her shoulder, and jumped through the window.
She landed in a writhing mass of brambles. The fall kicked the air out of her and the thorny tendrils grabbed her limbs, cutting her clothes and skin.
Above her, Ferisa looked through the window, her face twisted in rage. “I’m coming to get you,” she said.
Liana writhed in panic, a rat entangled in oakum. The more she struggled, the tighter the shrub held her, piercing her flesh with its long thorns. A death by a thousand cuts, an agony that was the sum of all the smaller pains assaulting her twitching body. Like a trapped animal, she panicked, hurting herself.
Only when she heard the back door open did she finally pause, cursing herself. She was a forest creature, she knew how to get out of a thicket.
“Where are you?” Ferisa called, a note of amusement ringing in her voice.
Holding her breath, Liana made herself small and lithe, a young lynx prowling through the underbrush. Lightly, she slipped out of the thorny embrace. The shrubs were reluctant to let her go, leaving long, deep scratches on her arms and legs. She winced in pain, but kept moving towards the wall, quiet and invisible. Yet, the faster she crawled, the further away the wall became. Like in a bad dream, moving was an illusion.
A swish of the blade splitting the air warned her to duck. Not fast enough: The sharp steel bit into her upper arm.
“Do you think you can hide from me in my own garden?”
Liana rolled over and delivered a savage kick to Ferisa’s knee.
The priestess yelped, losing balance, swinging at Liana and missing her chest by a hair’s breadth.
Blood poured down Liana’s arm. She cursed, retreating through the shrubs, which suddenly seemed as tall as a maze, blocking her path to the wall. No garden was so large among the crowded houses of Abia.
She was being stupid, thrashing around in panic where she should have been cunning. She blinked quickly, and when that didn’t help, she licked the tips of her fingers and rubbed her eyes.
Now she could see.
The priestess charged behind her, but Liana refused to turn, refused to waste her true sight on that creature. Instead, she rushed forward, the path now clear before her. Without slowing down, she jumped and caught the top of the wall. Her arm burned in pure agony, but she didn’t let go while her legs scrambled for a foothold. She dragged herself over and fell to the other side, broken and bloody like a deer carcass after a hunt.
Her head, her throat, her back, her arm, the whole surface of her skin hurt, but there was no time to contemplate her injuries because a hand grabbed the top of the wall, and a dark head rose over it.
