Chapter 6 #3
He stared down at me, taking a step that brought him too close for comfort.
“I’m going to take my dice back now, before you succeed in setting me on fire or choking me out or whatever else you have up those sleeves.
But Nina?” His free hand smoothed over the left curve of my hip, seeking the bulge of his dice pressing against my pocket.
“I hope you know, I’ve really enjoyed our chase. ”
“I’m kind of in the middle of another one, thanks to you.”
“Is that what those whistles are about?” He hummed as he slipped his fingers into my pocket, scooping out his artifacts. I failed to suppress the shiver his touch sent across my skin. “You’re more devious than I ever could have predicted. A cunning little bluffer.”
I tried to fight the invisible bindings keeping me against the wall, but any resistance sent a shard of pain slicing through my limbs.
Without the dice, I had nothing to siphon to get me out of his grip, and I didn’t have time to waste.
Every second, the guards would be closing in on this street, searching for me.
“Let me go!”
A smile curved his thin lips. “Why don’t you make me?”
“Stop being childish; you’re twice my size!”
He sucked a sharp breath before replying, “You have an Archetype, do you not? Use it. Prove you’re a Forger. It’s uncommon these days to see someone use so many bloodlines, especially so young. Shadow, fire, now time. You’re a rarity. So why are you hiding in the Fissures as a simple surgeon?”
Irritation boiled my blood. “Maybe I just enjoy watching grown men weep at the sight of a needle.”
He was forced to bend his neck to meet my gaze. “Or maybe you’re hiding your true value until the opportune time to use it against me, like the fire in the cart.” A smirk tugged at his lips. “If we were gambling, you’d be the ace up my sleeve.”
I swallowed. “An ace can have the highest or the lowest worth in a deck. Maybe I’m not worth anything to you at all.”
He skimmed a tender spot on my jaw where he’d harmed me inadvertently when he’d forced me in a spinning thrust against the building. “Then play your hand and prove it. If you have an Archetype, then use it. I’m giving you the chance.”
My anger turned to fury. I reached out for anything to draw from, even the man locked against me.
But there was nothing—no air remnant in his body to siphon.
Which was impossible, knowing he was able to wield a bloodline.
He’d used the dice, as he claimed before in the cart, but I hadn’t realized he’d used them in the same capacity as I had. Until now.
I went still, understanding then. He’d watched me wield shadows, then fire, now he was asking me to do the same without the dice. He was testing me to see if his suspicion was true.
“You sure you don’t need my dice, Ace?” he whispered against the shell of my ear, sending an uneasy chill from my temple to my spine.
“There she is!” a deep voice boomed down the street.
The outsider stepped away immediately, and I nearly fell to my knees from the return of my control. Without another word, he slipped around the corner of the alley, staring at me with a nameless expression as shadows wrapped around his form and blended him with the darkness of the backstreets.
“Oh, screw you,” I spat at the dark before turning to run. More guards had filtered into the alley from the constable’s call, but I refused to give up—until I saw the enforcer.
Enforcers were specialized police in metal, relic-charged suits—Academy hounds, through and through. Normally, they stayed out of police business, except in very special cases.
Unfortunately, it looked like I was one of those exceptions.
My knees nearly gave out at the sight of the enforcer.
Obsidian armor glossy from the light rain, the heart of the Architect engraved in the space above their own, a long-range gun built into one iron arm, a staff charged with a blue-tinged electricity attached to the other metal gauntlet.
He struck it once on the cobblestones to send a current through the ground, forming a barricade of the same energy around the area, preventing my escape—unless I wanted to be chargrilled.
Two constables posted at his side started toward me, but there were others waiting on the other side of the boundary.
The police had weapons, but nothing as advanced as an enforcer.
I’d never seen them in full action, but I’d heard rumors of their tech.
They could burn down buildings, fly over short distances…
Their suits made them more powerful than anyone else in the city.
“No…” I whimpered as the guards neared, their guns trained on me. I held my hands up in surrender. Completely hopeless, my mother’s face flashed in my thoughts. What would she do without me?
The constables stopped a few yards from where I begged for mercy, tears blurring my focus on either of them. “No, please. I wasn’t the one who killed him, I swear. I didn’t—”
A shot left the gun, but it wasn’t a bullet.
A syringe pierced the soft flesh of my shoulder, and I felt the strength in my body drain away.
I fell to the street in a heap. As darkness crept inward from my peripheral vision, I could faintly hear one of the coppers reading out the charges against me.
I was under arrest for the murder of the Valveron Governor, Ignace Therell.
I wanted to scream, wanted to run. But sleep claimed me.