Chapter Twenty-Four Dominic #2
Besides, the diversion serves me well. While I unstrap my scabbard with one hand, I slide my hidden vial out from my gauntlet with the other.
I uncork it, cover the opening with my thumb, and briefly tip it.
As I set the sword to the side, I swipe my thumb over my tongue, the taste of blood filling my veins with a tingling hum of power.
The pain from my wound disappears completely.
By the time I climb down from the wagon, the vial is sealed and tucked back under my gauntlet.
“Order your Summoners out,” Henderson says. “No artistic tools. Keep them four paces behind you.”
“Bard. Inana.” Under my breath, I add, “Sloth, tell Inana to hum. Tell her that she and Bard are to run back to the wagon when I give the signal. They’ll know it when they see it.”
Bard and Inana emerge from the wagon behind me.
I sense Sloth pulling away, slithering in a pool over the snow and hiding beneath Inana’s skirts.
He passes on the message, his words hidden from everyone save for me and her.
I feel the moment she obeys, my three shadows calming at once.
Her voice is too quiet to catch over the roar of the river below us, but that’s enough.
So long as she hums and Harlow draws, we should be able to counteract whatever art Henderson’s Summoner is performing.
Until his archer fucking shoots, that is.
Slowly, I close the distance between us and Henderson, my fingers begging me to unsheathe one of the daggers at my waist. That bastard must not consider my knife skills much of a threat for him to have let me keep them. Though he too is strapped with a dagger, so I suppose we’re even.
I stop on the other side of the diagram.
“What is this about, Henderson?” I shift my feet as I speak, letting the vial slide from my gauntlet to fall safely onto the snow before I fold my arms over my chest. “Why are you so godsdamned interested in my Summoners?”
“You know what they’re guilty of, don’t you? Murder. Of an unspeakable nature. Which makes their crimes treason too.”
I sense the moment Inana stops humming, a heartbeat before I hear her cracked voice. “What?”
Henderson’s eyes slide to her. “Ah, yes, you. The woman who destroyed an entire village with her actions.”
Even from four paces behind me, her shock invades my senses. I mentally tug Sloth away from her, to free me from getting tangled in her emotions, but he won’t budge. Damn that dog.
“Don’t play coy,” Henderson says. “I know you’re a killer.”
Her panic briefly abates. “You’ve got the wrong person. I didn’t murder anyone or destroy a—”
“Dunway?” Henderson beams with satisfaction as she snaps her mouth shut. “I see you know what I’m talking about.”
“I don’t.”
“Enough,” I say, both to her and Henderson. She should fucking know better than to fall for his lure. “You have no right to interrogate them. As my Summoners, they can’t be prosecuted for past crimes.”
Henderson returns his gaze to me. “But a pious Shadowbane would dismiss his Summoners and turn them over to the crown if he found out they were guilty of treason. If you’re not willing to do that, relinquish them into my custody.
Let me turn them in. I’m willing to look away from your shortcomings and accept that they’re due to a moral quandary you’re having.
Is that what it is? Do you feel guilty about condemning them to the crown’s justice? Or…”
I shift slightly as his lips tilt in a devious grin. With subtle motions, I slide the vial forward with the tip of my shoe, hidden beneath the snow, until it reaches the edge of the circle. Then, without stepping fully down, I plant my foot over it.
“Or is it something more sinister?” Henderson says. “Do you perhaps dole out justice on your own, adopting these pitiful outlaws, using them, and then slitting their fucking—”
I bare my teeth and press my foot all the way down.
Glass cracks beneath my boot, freeing the blood that hums in resonance with the iron tang still melting on my tongue.
At once, light erupts before us, filling the diagram, as wide as the bridge and twice my height.
Without hesitation, I dart through the pillar of light and come out the other side, charging straight for the armed Summoner.
His hands tremble as he retrieves the arrow that must have fallen in the snow when he was startled by the unexpected light.
He doesn’t see me until my knife is already at his throat.
I whirl the man around, letting my blade dig into his skin.
“Shoot him,” I grate in his ear as we face Henderson, who scrambles on his knees.
He manages to close his hands around the hilt of his sword but freezes when he sees me with his Summoner.
The archer slams his head back, aiming for my nose, but I’m already angled away from him.
His attempt does nothing but give me a reason to drag my blade across his throat. As I do, blood sprays from the wound.
The resistance of flesh against steel is so much stronger—so much more personal—than cleaving through a Shade or decapitating an Incarnate with my sword. Disgust writhes through me, but it’s faint, as is the guilt and shame that always comes from taking a life, even with my blunted emotional range.
Two of the Summoners take off at a run, abandoning their master, while the third falls to my weapon, another clean slice to the throat.
A quick death. Darkness stirs ahead, Shades drawn by violence.
I feel only minor panic as I wonder if the same thing is happening on the other side of the bridge.
The pillar of light should keep the other Shades from witnessing said violence, and if my Summoners obeyed the directive I left with Sloth and Inana, they should be doing their best to calm the Shades from whatever they may sense coming from here.
My tether to Sloth is weak, stretched wide across the light, so I can’t be sure.
All I can focus on is Henderson. The biggest problem here.
I push the corpse of his Summoner to the side and gather up the archer’s weapon. It’s been years since I’ve shot a bow, but muscle memory has me nocking the arrow with ease. I aim it at Henderson.
The man still hasn’t managed to stand, and now he releases the hilt of his sword, rolling onto his back with his palms raised in surrender. “Graves—”
“Did you really think this was going to go your way?” I say, stalking a step closer. “Did you think I’d let you threaten my Summoners and not turn the threat back on you? Did you think you’d be the one to incite violence tonight?”
“You can’t shoot me,” he rushes to say. “You’ll break your vow.”
“No, I can’t shoot you.” My eyes flick to the shape that rushes toward us, mask askew, eyes wide. It’s Henderson’s favorite Summoner, and as Abigail dives over his body, shielding him from me, I let my arrow fly, piercing her in the back.
Henderson cries out, but I don’t stay to see if the wound is fatal.
With how many Shades swarm onto the bridge, finally coerced into enough of a frenzy to step upon it, his crew’s chances of survival are now in their hands.
I rush back through the pillar of light, nearly knocking Inana down in the process.
She stumbles back, and I hold out my arm to steady her. “What…what happened over there?” Her eyes rove my face. “Wait…That’s a lot of blood.”
“It isn’t mine. Come. We can’t go that way anymore.
” My eyes dart to the wagon. Relief uncoils in my chest as I find this side of the bridge far calmer.
The Shades remain gathered at the edge, but they show no aggression.
Bard strums his mandolin, his soothing tune in stark contrast to my racing heart.
Calvin is already encouraging the horses, a step at a time, to reverse.
I take Inana by the wrist and pull her forward, desperate to get away from here as soon as we can. My mind spins as I mentally plan our next best route. Fuck, we’ll have to take a godsdamned detour to the south—
“Dom,” Inana says, tugging her hand from my grip. I’m about to tell her this is no time to argue, but I find her attention isn’t on me or my momentary touch but the pillar of light. She holds a hand out to it, flinching back when her fingers make contact.
She turns her masked face to me. “Is it supposed to be this hot?”
“What do you mean?” I frown. It didn’t feel any warmer than usual when I raced through it, though maybe that’s because I’m a halfsoul. Heat doesn’t affect me the same way. Domes of light aren’t any warmer than the mildest rays of sunlight. Even the flames that light our swords are mild. Unless…
Dread fills my stomach as my eyes dip to the circle, glowing brightly beneath the pillar and illuminating every line, every glyph of the diagram. It looks the same as the one I draw to capture Shades, just with different symbols regarding the height and width.
No, not the same.
There’s a different glyph.
One relating to heat.
The bridge shudders. Shakes. “Get back,” I say, but it’s already too late.
The circle splits in half, the wood cracking, splintering.
I lunge forward, reaching for Inana.
She reaches back, fingertips brushing mine…
Before the wood drops out from beneath her, plunging her down, down, into the river below.