Unrivaled (Fate Untethered #2)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

ISOLDE

The only peace worth protecting is ours.

—Matri’sion proverb

12th Day of Winter’s Wife Moon,

Age of the Locways, Year 271

La’Angi City

The icy winter wind carried with it the stink of the pyres that burned in the orchard, and the reek of a city on the edge of collapse.

There was something feral in the night beyond the keep walls.

The city was so empty now after the deaths of the plague.

And, with the skeleton staff mostly working the keep, the people here were relying on their wits.

I’d never felt quite so at home in La’Angi.

The looters had cut the rope walkways to their nest. They were trapped.

Which would’ve been useful if we could’ve safely shot a burning arrow in there, but La’Angi didn’t have the staff to put out a major city fire right now.

We also didn’t have the staff to worry about the Lyle family wealth, and here I was anyway.

I kept the option of fire in the back of my mind.

The Lyle family’s wealth didn’t concern me.

The Lyle family’s wrath, as it was tied to Sullivan, who was a Blackguard of Audrey’s father, the Duke of La’Angi…

A smart woman paid attention to men whose expression didn’t change at all between when he stood guard, sipped beer, or broke the spine of his best friend.

And bringing the Duke back from the war before we got out of La’Angi would be a greater bother than a quick trip to the old Three Leaves smithy.

After all, I’d already scouted the area years ago, when a young girl came seeking to flee her uncle and cousin who’d run the Three Leaves.

Ahead of me a door opened and I stilled. Torchlight spilled over the cobbles and lit up bits of twisted iron that littered the ground around the looters’ headquarters. As traps went, this wasn’t going to help them. Audrey could’ve shown them a thing or two about snares.

The air was cold enough that it burned as I drew it deep into my lungs.

The person ahead of me walked around, taking the same path as the one before, and the one before him.

A single person doing predictable patrols, twice on the hour.

Simple enough to kill them, but there was no benefit unless I needed to use their clothing to disguise myself.

The long-healed broken bone in my left arm ached from the cold, as did the bones in my feet. I spared a moment to marvel at that. There’d been plenty of moments I wouldn’t have thought I’d live long enough to get old bones.

I wiggled my fingers to keep them supple, easing further around the building. I’d circled it three times so far, making sure it was as I recalled. I’d been too late to help that girl so many years ago. But I knew the area.

And I knew where a few bodies were buried.

I should return and try again in the light of day. Kaelson’s scout sure hadn’t been here in the darkness. Those boys weren’t comfortable in the shadows. They did their crimes in the light.

We’d make a plan together, or…mayhap I’d listen to them make their plan.

The idea filled me with a pleasant but uncomfortably intense sensation of pride.

Audrey and her bloodsworn knight had single-handedly turned back a major ambush while I’d focused on not dying from the plague.

I’d only learned about it today, and they still hadn’t confirmed it.

They didn’t really need to. No one else in La’Angi could use a bow the way Audrey could—except me, of course.

Kaelson’s comments about a master bowman, and the lack of response and interaction between Audrey and Chay, told me everything.

I tucked my hands under my arms and watched for movement.

It was too early for them to be abed, but too cold for them to be in view.

The thought of returning with so little information didn’t thrill me.

But at least I’d get to see Audrey at work.

Mayhap I’d even suggest she take her weapons along.

The thought brought me pleasure. Take your city.

Take it every single way it can be taken.

Claim it so thoroughly that they’ll never forget your name.

I could picture her now, war-belt on her hips and axe over one strong shoulder, standing over a looter moaning for her mercy.

I hoped when the time came, she’d be confident in her knowledge of when to stay the axe, and when to bring it down.

A sliver of light appeared on the wall a half-length ahead of me and I paused, a battle-energy rushing through my limbs.

The light vanished. With my gaze I tracked it to the area where it should’ve come from, but all I could see was wall.

My mind filled in the forgotten pieces of information I hadn’t needed earlier: the high, narrow windows on each side of the building had always been boarded up.

Those boards weren’t really part of the structure.

Then there was the dimmest flicker of light.

An opening. It was covered, and twice my height up the wall, but it was there.

I considered my options. I didn’t have much to show for this jaunt yet. And what if I returned before Audrey was done burning off extra energy with her knight?

Settling my belt more firmly, I lifted my hands to my mouth to warm my fingertips and crossed quietly to the building’s wall. It was made of big, solid, regular slabs of stone. Easy climbing, really.

My toes ached as I dug my boots into the scant cracks left by weather and time.

If I could get in tonight, well, there’d be other nests for us to smash together, other opportunities for these men to cry out for Audrey’s mercy.

I tried to picture what I knew of the building as I climbed, comparing the distance I’d walked to where I knew the main entrance was on the far side.

That was the location of the biggest room.

They’d treat that as their feast hall, surely.

It was late enough, and cold enough, that they could be settling in to sleep.

This wall would just have a few rooms sectioned off with regular pillars or juts to create enclosed spaces.

I’d only glanced inside in the past, but that’s what I’d seen in other such buildings. It made sense.

It had been so long since I’d been on the hunt.

The stone beneath my fingertips was bitingly cold, but I didn’t hesitate, pulling myself up, finding ways forward.

The flicker of light came again, and now I heard quiet conversation—not well enough to make out the words, just the rise and fall of voices.

They sounded sleepy. Sleepy, and happy. Two things I wished for Audrey.

The narrow window ledge was deep and wider than an arrow slit, but not easy to climb through. I suspected no one knew the original use of such openings in the whitesmith furnace, not since Barloc had conquered the city. Just another piece of information lost to time.

My fingers found the edge of wooden shutters and fabric someone had added, probably to keep the drafts out whilst being able to take quick looks.

How many boards had they pried loose?

Exactly what was on the other side, I couldn’t be sure. At least two people, and probably Sullivan’s family jewels.

Those belonged to Audrey now.

I raised myself half onto the ledge. If I fell from this height, I’d be in dire straits. But I hadn’t fallen since I’d become a Matri’sion.

There was enough space for me to get up on one knee if I twisted to the side to fit into the gap. With one hand, I felt again along the surface, testing the resilience of those wooden boards. I wasn’t kicking anything in without waking up the entire cluster of looters, and that seemed inefficient.

One of the boards slipped down a little.

I listened past the roar of blood in my ears. Inside, the conversation hadn’t paused.

They’d pried the boards off. The fabric was there to act as a curtain.

They’d cut the rope walkways, but they’d still left themselves ways to escape.

Kaelson had come to Audrey, talking about the ambush the mystery bowman had halted.

That mystery bowman had been Audrey. As the Captain, Kaelson needed to concern himself with such matters, especially if this mystery bowman could be used again to forestall the wrath of one of the most influential families in the city.

He couldn’t have known he was asking for help from the lady herself, the one who’d put together and maintained the council that held the city together in the immediate aftermath of the plague, the one who was best positioned to solve the vast array of impending problems including but not limited to the starvation of the entire city’s population.

He couldn’t know the woman he’d asked for a sliver of information from about a master archer, the woman disempowered and crushed by the Butcher at every single turn, was the master archer.

Audrey had probably tracked those bandits through the streets, too. Unseen. Unthreatened. Their bodies would’ve fallen before they’d known she existed.

If only she’d do the same to her father.

The old, gnawing frustration surprised me. I thought it had faded, its teeth softened by compassion. That was a fight I couldn’t force on her, nor take from her.

But this one? These bandits, taking from people who were going to complain to the brutal warlord who had sired her?

This was a battle I could fight for her.

I drew in a few breaths, circulating the power through my limbs, anchoring myself with my back against the cold wall, one foot and knee braced against it, hands empty of weapons though my body still remembered exactly where each of my knives rode and the precise distance from my fingertips to the fletching on the end of my arrows.

In the building, I heard some low, calm noises of quiet murmurs.

Beside me, the darkness stretched out. In the distance, pools of light served only to highlight the depth of shadow.

For a moment, I felt the heat of the Bloodfire. I was back with the Matri’sion, with my tribe who hadn’t just accepted me, but welcomed me exactly as I was. The Bloodfire chant ran through my mind, the voices of my sisters surrounding me. I am the fury of a mother’s revenge.

I’d spoken, sang, screamed, and cried that line more times than I could count.

The other lines had hit me in the heart.

I am the breath from my dying sister’s lungs.

I am the shattered sword, reforged. I am the wind in the trees.

My mother had never protected me. She couldn’t protect herself, so how could she protect me?

But I understood, now.

Audrey made it real.

My fingers found the edge of the boards. I moved quickly, taking the cloth with me, moving forward as I scooped it all to the side. The fabric muffled some of the sounds, and there was enough noise that a few bumps wouldn’t be noticed.

Inside the room, it was a little warmer.

The smell of stale beer, polishing oils, and dust were exactly as I’d have predicted had I bothered.

Two men, one younger, one older, were scrambling to their feet, drawing in breaths.

A jug of beer spilled as they rose and carved wooden pieces from a game skittered over the thick wooden boards.

The younger man’s mouth started to open.

The haft of my knife was cool and balanced. I’d spent so much time holding that steel I didn’t need to settle its weight in my palm. My arm flexed, elbow bent, wrist snapped. My bow, already strung, I left in my quiver. The older man’s cup was still in his hand.

Throwing knives were satisfying, but I’d always liked the heft of a good hunter’s knife. The curved length of it, the way it filled my palm without dragging as a sword would. In my peripheral vision, the younger man was struggling to pull the knife from his throat.

My remaining target ducked the stab I feinted toward him straight into my hand.

I grabbed him by the hair. Beer splattered around us, and I moved a foot back as I drew the knife across his neck, avoiding both blood and beer.

Beneath my left boot, a game piece crunched.

His hair was a little wiry in my hands, his weight falling backward onto me.

I let him go in a controlled slide and went to the younger man.

One of his hands rested limply against the hilt of the knife buried in his throat. I brushed it aside, taking stock of my surroundings.

They’d gone for smaller, easier to carry items. Barrels of jewels, gold chains, and coins were stacked with surprising neatness between the pillars. Light pooled. From below, laughter floated up.

Mayhap, if they’d listened to Audrey, they wouldn’t all be about to die.

The wind at my back was cold. I didn’t bother cleaning my knives.