Hunted Warrior (37 page)

Read Hunted Warrior Online

Authors: Lindsey Piper

She tried one more time to reach the man she loved. Yet he was a vessel for some other being. He was the personification of rage and selfish hatred. Was this what he'd been that day at Bakkhos? Were those the memories Ulia was exploiting to turn Mal into something bestial and unthinking?

“Cadmin! Please! Try again, my young one. Try again. Save our Giva!”

The warrior's face was warped with so much pain, from the shock waves of anguish that radiated over the floor of the arena, and from the injuries she'd sustained at the hands of her own cartel's fighters. But she held the bow steady, with more determination on her face than Avyi had ever seen.

But she
had
seen it. This was the moment when Cadmin fired an arrow into the crowd at the person who had orchestrated the attempts on Mal's life. At the Asters' bidding, Ulia would've been able to track Mal across the world. He never would've been safe, and neither would the leadership of the Dragon Kings. The Asters had predicted exactly what method to use when it came to bringing the whole of free Dragon King society crumbling down.

In this case, Avyi's predictions were far more accurate.

Cadmin incapacitated Ulia with a sure, pure shot through the witch's throat. The old woman gagged and clutched. Those around her, even Dr. Aster, backed away. Some screamed, knowing now that the Dragon Kings could come after them.

This was no longer an entertaining bit of blood sport. This was death on the prowl.

The Dragon Kings, driven to near-madness by the pain Ulia had inflicted, looked dazed when they came back into themselves. Skirmishes slowed, then stopped, as they realized there was no longer a need to fight—not for survival, not for glory, and certainly not for the cartels. Some fled the arena floor in favor of the stands, where human spectators ran in screaming hordes.

Avyi could not watch the bloodshed. She understood her people's wrath, and how greatly some of the humans assembled there in Battersea deserved to die, yet she was unable to take any pleasure in vengeance. Her goals had always been more complicated, whereas her loves and hates had always been so simple.

One such love was Cadmin. She fell to her knees. Instead of running to comfort her, Avyi landed a roundhouse kick to the face of the nearest human guard. His armor meant the impact of the kick reverberated up Avyi's leg, but she spun at the waist and, with ambidextrous skill, hit him from the other direction. She swept his calf and jabbed her switchblade in the exposed places where the armor latched but didn't completely protect: the wrist, the back of the knee, the leather of his boot's upper padding, and finally, when the man doubled over, she stabbed the back of his neck.

She snatched up the damping collar he held and raced back to Cadmin. “Your injuries are already bad enough,” she said. “Wear this.”

“What about my powers?”

“They'll be taken from you. Your choice, my young one.”

“I'm not a Dragon King without my gift. This is the first time I've felt my fury gathering. It's pure. I want it, even if it means pain, too.”

Avyi bent swiftly and kissed her first babe's forehead. “I knew you would be strong. I never knew you would be
this
strong.”

Cadmin touched Avyi's cheek. “Mother before my mother. Save our Giva?”

“Now that you've done your part, absolutely.”

She turned to find a sight out of her deepest, most terrifying nightmares. Dr. Aster. Standing over Malnefoley. He held the Dragon-forged sword.

All she could count as a blessing was that Ulia's incapacitation had allowed Mal to return to himself, with his blue eyes clear and full of the shining intelligence and canny skill she'd come to respect so dearly. But was it a blessing? To see her lover returned just in time to have his head wrenched back by the one man in the world she hated the most?

Yes. A blessing. Because with her gaze alone, she told Mal what she could not with words.

We both knew this was coming.

Roughly fifty years old, but still sickeningly handsome with a smile made of distilled charisma, he locked eyes with Avyi. “My Pet in a duel to the death. I imagine you've waited for this for years.”

“No.” A part of her heart ripped in two. But only a part of it—a single vulnerable edge where old memories of this man still lived. “I waited for years for you to change. I didn't want this.” She nodded toward the grip the doctor had on Malnefoley's scalp, the sword poised over his vulnerable neck. The doctor was within cutting distance of killing the man who had helped make Avyi into a woman. Who had made her
Avyi
. “I didn't want to face you, until you threatened this man's life. It's always been inevitable. Only now, I'll enjoy it.”

“Is this love, my Pet? For your selfish, useless Giva?”

“Not the kind of love you expected from me.”

“Then, my dearest prophet, you've probably seen this, too.”

He angled the Dragon-forged sword down and across. Avyi screamed and lunged. Blood covered her shirt. She was temporarily blinded with the sight of it, such a brilliant scarlet, so terribly, terribly red. The doctor's mirthless laugh rang out around them.

Her hands were slippery when she grabbed the hilt of the sword and pulled it free of Dr. Aster's weaker grip. She swung her right hand, connecting brass to jaw. He grunted. Bone on bone made a grating sound. She hit him again and again, as years of rage welled up in her like a never-ending spring and came bubbling out in a flailing geyser.

When she stopped, breathless, she looked down at the fallen form of her former master. His face was devastated. What she hadn't expected was the crushed-open cavity of his chest and the compound fractures along his thighs. For a moment, she'd become like a Pendray in the throes of a berserker fury. No memory of the violence. Just the possession of it and being possessed by it.

Aster stared up at her with eyes that barely held life. He grinned, toothless and bloody, and laughed until he coughed. Avyi adjusted her grip on the sword and swung in a clean, downward arc. The doctor's head rolled across the arena's sandy ground.

“Av . . . yi . . .”

“Mal!”

She screamed his name again, dropping to her knees as if in prayer. His throat was cut. So deeply. Oh, Dragon be, he had come within mere inches of death, and there was no certainty that death had loosed its final hold.

Three prophecies in succession. Cadmin. Her fight with the doctor. The attempt on Mal's life. They were coming faster, faster. Her stomach was a twist of acid as the copper scent of blood filled her nostrils, like a noxious poison intended to drive her mad.

A shout in the ancient, shared language of the Dragon Kings rang out from the amplifier Old Man Aster had used.

She looked up and saw a familiar figure high atop one of Battersea's four smokestacks.

Tallis, of Clan Pendray. The Heretic.

Dragon Kings who had finished their grim work in the stands had either fled into the night or gathered on the arena floor. A flood of familiar faces were among them. Leto of Garnis waded through the warriors with astonishing speed and agility, divesting everyone of deadly swords.

But the fact that Malnefoley gagged beneath the pressure of her hands was all that mattered. With damage to his neck so severe—nearly beheaded by the doctor—would there be any saving him now?

She cursed the Dragon. She threw every word in every language to the sky, furious that the being she had trusted and believed in when others abandoned their faith had forsaken her now. He had given her a gift unique to their people, and that gift had shown her three visions yet to come.

One was Mal burning.

One was the shadow of the dragon over Battersea.

And one was she and Mal in love.

It seemed none would come true, as his blood flowed between her fingers and his mouth went slack.

*  *  *

All around Malnefoley was red. Red everywhere. He tried to find Avyi, with her night-black hair and eyes as gold as a cat's. He wanted to find her bewitching smile-that-wasn't-a-smile and the resilient way she moved forward with each step, knowing each step could lead her to a dismal future.

He wanted her.

“Mal,” she cried, from such a distance.

At least the pain in his head had subsided. The red wasn't a physical color so much as a picture of himself from very high above. He was outside of his body, as if he'd suddenly assumed an Indranan's telepathic powers and could see the damage the doctor had wrought.

He was going to die.

There was no way to survive a cut as deep as the one that slashed across his throat.

Avyi was there. He could see her from as far away as he could hear her distant, desperate voice.

“You can't leave yet.” Her hands were pressed tight around his gash, but wouldn't stop the inevitable. “Do you hear me? I have three visions left, Malnefoley of Tigony, and two of them involve you. Neither reveals you dying by that bastard's slice. So you hold on. Hold on!”

She called to other Dragon Kings, whose names rattled through Mal's brain like marbles rolling across hardwood floors. He was losing it, losing himself.

Losing Avyi.

No.

He concentrated on how she held him in her lap, and how her hands grasped him with the strength of a desperate woman. She was trembling. Or was that him? Maybe they trembled together, as the future lapped at their heels. Only this wasn't a gentle tide. This was an oncoming storm, sent to sweep them away too soon.

He wasn't ready.

“What . . . visions . . . ?”

She leaned nearer. “Don't talk. Don't you dare. Here, you, help me.” Another woman joined them, kneeling in a swirl of golden silks. “What's your name?”

“Kavya,” she said.

Avyi stilled. “The Sun?”

“That's right,” came another familiar voice. Mal was having trouble piecing voices to faces to memories. But this one was unmistakable.

“Heretic,” Mal rasped.

“I said shut up!” Avyi squeezed harder, as if to emphasize her point. “You're an Indranan, yes? Tallis, can she be trusted?”

Tallis of Pendray laughed tightly. “The Pet is asking me? The irony is thick in this place.”

Mal tried to find a sword with his free hand. “Name's . . . Avyi.”

“What this Dragon-damned fool is trying to say is that I'm no longer the Pet. My name is Avyi, and I need your help. Both of you.” Mal felt more hands tighten around his neck. “Is Nynn here? Can you find her?”

“She's here,” Kavya said. Mal liked
the Sun
better, because she glowed with the radiance of the sun he would never see again. “But what you're thinking . . . Why not just use another Tigony?”

“There are things about their clan that can't be trusted.”

“That's rich,” the Heretic snorted. “The mighty, vaunted Tigony? With ghosts in their closets? I never would've guessed.”

“He's not thinking very kind thoughts about you right now, Tallis, dear. Do be quiet.”

“Here, hold his hands in place.” That from Avyi. Another woman's hands laced fingers with his and applied more pressure. “Kavya, I need you to do what you can to enter his mind. Can you do that? Are you willing?”

“Yes.”

“With my help before, he used his gift to cauterize a wound in his own shoulder. I need more precision than that. I need . . .” She gasped and inhaled two quick breaths. “I need a miracle.”

“I'll try,” said Kavya.

Mal tried to focus on her face, but she was shining. He squinted.

Nynn arrived. Mal could smell her. Strange that his senses were more acute, even as pain obliterated physical sensation and muddled his thoughts. He couldn't remember why he and his cousin had fallen out, why he hadn't ever met her late husband or her son, Jack. It seemed another reason why dying right then, in Avyi's arms, was to shortchange a life.

No, more than one life. He found a tickling trail of reason. If he died . . . if they had assassinated him . . . there would be repercussions.

There would not be another Giva. No one would send their precious, rare children. The entirety of the Dragon King culture would collapse without a leader, even a leader as flawed as he had been. As flawed as he would continue to be. All he could do was make decisions and hope for the best possible outcomes.

He'd chosen to trust Avyi. He'd chosen to make love to her. He'd chosen so many skewed paths in order to stay with her. Long enough to fall in love with her.

“Nynn, you need to help him,” Avyi said. “I don't know if he has enough strength or control, even with Kavya to guide him.”

“Dragon be, we need a sword and someone to say his funeral rites.” Nynn was blunt, but tears clogged her throat.

Avyi lunged for the woman. “I won't give up on him! You need to help me. Help me fix the Chasm. It starts here with Mal!”

“Get off of me, you freak,” Nynn growled. “The last time I saw you, you were Aster's latex-clad footstool.”

The women tussled until Nynn was unceremoniously hauled up, onto her feet. “Enough,” came the rough command of her partner, Leto. “The Chasm isn't fixed. She's said it. Others we've met have heard it in dreams. If this isn't a moment to trust in each other and the Dragon, there never will be.”

Nynn sank to her knees. She joined with Avyi, their hands around his neck. Kavya's slipped into his mind.

Concentrate, Giva. We need you to live.

What were her visions? Ask her.

Avyi asked, “Ready?”

“Wait.” Kavya spoke up. “He wants to know what your visions are.”

Avyi shook her head. She was wild and frantic now, when Mal wanted to reassure her . . . of what, he couldn't say. “We don't have time.”

“I get the feeling he won't cooperate until he hears them.”

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