CHAPTER 12
ZEPHYR
Now
“I WAS DISTRACTED.”
Fiery locks fall on either side of Davina’s face. I wish I could push them behind her ears, as I know she tends to do, as she would do were her hands not bound behind her back.
Proud, unbending Davina.
I wish I hadn’t let her filter through the cracks of my defenses. Wish I still believed her to be the entitled, uptight Widesightian I’d expected her to be when she first entered that board room back in Kantria.
Why did you have to betray me? I want to demand. Why did you make this so hard for both of us?
I say nothing, though. Nor do I move to push her wild hair back, no matter how distracting.
Only the truth matters now, and it sounds like I’m finally going to learn what really happened after we parted that day in Kostrols.
Her jaw is tense, and I see in her expression how ashamed she is of admitting her slip out loud.
For once not perfect. Too preoccupied with turning up empty-handed to realize the danger she was in, it seems.
If I could roll my eyes at the irony, I would.
“I was checking out a promising shop of old parchments and manuscripts,” she continues, “which mentioned the Four Kings, when a blade dug into my lower back, followed by a demand to hand over my pouch.” My fingers twitch at the image of that blade spearing through Davina.
“A woman appeared from a dark alley further down the street. She was carrying a blade like the one I suspected was pressed over my kidney.” Her delicate throat bobs, reminding me of—
Focus, Zeph.
“I didn’t move a muscle, even though I itched to get the blade off me. The woman taunted me, her blade brushing the side of my face.” My blood boils. Had that blade cut a single inch of her skin
. . . “They cursed Widesight, calling me a falcon bitch and a few other names, but I didn’t rise to any of it, biding my time.”
No, she wouldn’t. Trained to assess the whole situation before taking any course of action, she waited to see if more people would appear. To learn how many attackers she’d have to take down.
To think I had allowed her to be there alone .
. . Gods damn it. I’d been too shaken by the foreign rush of protectiveness that had taken over me in that last shop when the owner had looked at her, then by the unexpected effect of her proximity, then by red-hot anger when she unilaterally chose to dismiss me. If something had happened to her . . .
“They taunted me a bit more, then said if I gave them the pouch, they’d consider letting me live.”
“How so very na?ve of them,” I muse.
Davina’s lip tips up, and the sight tugs at my chest.
It’s been days since I last saw her smile. How odd and also how her, that she does it when reliving a moment that would have made people twice her size wet their pants. It might be my favorite one of her facades; vicious Davina.
“I’ve been underestimated my whole life. It’s the one undeniable advantage of being so fucking pale: the ink on my fingers is hard to notice. Even more so in the dark.”
I fight a smile of my own. I won’t tell her that only a fool would not know to take her for the threat she is, even if that’s the pure truth.
That it’s not the ink that gives away how dangerous she really is.
That I knew from the very first day, even when I was determined to hate her.
Saw it in the stealth in her steps, and the ever-burning sharpness in her eyes.
Those goddamn eyes.
“When I still didn’t move, the man pressed the blade harder, nicking my skin. Then the woman went to speak again, but I struck before she had the chance.”
All traces of shame are gone from her features, replaced by . . . I have to swallow a snort. Because it is fondness softening her mouth.
“I went for the man first, phasing and stepping to the side before kicking his blade away. When the metal hit the sandstone, the impact echoed around the empty street, providing me with the weapon I needed.”
“You used the vibration,” I said. I’ve seen her use it other times—some, against me.
She nods. “My skin tingled as I called that reverberation forth, using the vibrokinesis inked on my fingers. The wave that I sent up his sword carried ten times the strength of my kick. He didn’t stand a chance.
His shoulder dislocated with the force and he screamed, chortling a ‘She’s an inked’ to his companion before falling to his knees. ”
“Ruthless.”
She ignores me, continuing with the narration.
“The woman cursed, but I was already coming for her. Avoiding a clumsy swing of her sword, I turned so that her back was to my chest, my hand on her shoulder. She tensed, but before she had a chance to move, I stomped my foot against the floor, and the resulting vibration was everything I needed to take her down.”
Hearing so many details about the mysterious skill of vibrokinesis is enlightening. Absolutely captivating. Seeing it happen is different from hearing how she makes it happen. The cold detachment with which she narrates it, though, the ease . . . it chills my blood.
Exactly how dangerous is Davina Lachlan?
I have asked myself this question on more occasions that I care to count over the past month. She kept surprising me at every turn. All the way to the end. Even now, bound, and rendered powerless by the wooden cuffs, I still ask myself that very same question.
I wish I’ll know the answer, one day.
“With my hand on her shoulder, I channeled the amplified vibration into her body,” she continues, “and she collapsed, her whole body shaking violently as she fell, crashing on her side.
“The man was still whimpering when I turned back to him, his blade discarded a few feet away. I crouched and set a single finger on his injured shoulder. He started begging for himself first, then his family.
“I told him he should consider other people’s families, too. How they work hard to earn coin that will keep them fed and safe for another day, week or month, and how they would do well to remember that the next time they decide to assault someone in the middle of the night.”
I arch an eyebrow. “Did he listen?”
“I don’t know. But he said his sons were hungry, and,” her jaw rolls once, hard.
“At the sight of real tears in his eyes, I hesitated. Violence is never the answer, but I am not unfamiliar to desperation. And so, I took two coins from my pouch, dropped them on his lap, told him to try asking first instead of stabbing next time, swept both blades from the floor, and walked away.”
If someone can be cold as ice while burning with the force of ten thousand fires, it’s Davina Lachlan. Only someone like her could have left two attackers who had planned to skewer her crying at her mercy, with bodies barely bruised, but with half-swayed hearts.
I lean forward, gaze fixed on my captive, and say, “And then you found what you were looking for.”
I’d known she’d been lying the moment she said how she obtained the lead, but I thought it’d been something she found out during her disappearance the previous night before setting the house on fire. Which now I know she hadn’t been responsible for.
“That, I did.”