Chapter 51b #2
Another squad was waiting at the top of the stairs. The guards advanced, weapons drawn. The one in the lead stepped forward. “On your knees,” she spat.
“Sabine,” Azrian said, low and urgent. “Behind me. Now.”
She dropped, knees scraping splinters from the barge deck, just as the lead guard leveled her lance. Azrian shifted, his body blocking her from the blade. His hands curled, elegant fingers flexed, and the space around him seemed to warp. His spine was rigid with effort, and his shoulders trembled.
He reached for his threads and wove them with the barest movement of his fingertips.
The air around Azrian fractured, lines of force spiderwebbing out from his body.
The lead guard lunged, blade flashing. Azrian’s weaving snapped.
The cobblestones beneath the guard’s feet liquefied, then erupted in a jagged spike.
The woman was impaled through the chest, her body convulsing as blood soaked her uniform. The others broke formation, shouting.
But something was wrong. Azrian’s magic stuttered, unstable. The next blast struck the wall, not the guards, and the stone exploded outward in a hail of razor-sharp shrapnel. A man went down, face a ruin of red.
Azrian gritted his teeth. Sweat dripped from his hairline.
Three of the guards remained. They advanced, careful now, wary of collateral.
Azrian surged to his feet, weaving again.
This time, the destructive force lanced sideways, wild and uncontrolled.
The canal’s railing twisted and screamed, metal unraveling like thread.
Another guard tried to leap the gap to safety, but the stone beneath his feet disintegrated, dropping him into the water below.
“Take her,” Azrian barked at Oris, not looking away from the enemy. “Get her out.”
Oris’s hand closed on Sabine’s wrist. His grip was cool, sure, but she yanked herself free.
“No,” she hissed. “If you think I’ll leave him here, of all people, you are mad.”
Azrian shot her a look, equal parts fury and disbelief. “Sabine, go!”
But she was already moving, scrambling up beside him, ignoring the shriek of torn skin on her palms and knees. She reached for his sleeve, then for his bare wrist, and the moment her skin touched his, everything changed.
It was like snapping into alignment. The world steadied. She could sense his heartbeat, fast and desperate, the tension of his muscles beneath her hand. Her own magic felt like a counterbalance, a weight holding the chaos of his destruction steady enough to hit its targets.
Azrian inhaled. The next weaving was clean. The threads of destruction gathered in his palm, impossibly dense, and he flung them forward like a blade.
The effect was instant and absolute.
The nearest Registry guard was ash the moment the spool of magic touched him.
When it reached the second, it shattered his ribcage, bones, and blood, spraying the alley walls.
The last tried to run, but Azrian’s magic caught him mid-stride, unspooling flesh from bone, leaving a red smear and nothing else.
Silence, except for the slap of water against the barge and Sabine’s own ragged breathing.
She swallowed, throat raw. The smell of blood and ozone clung to the air.
Oris peered over the top of the barrels, his expression unreadable. “More will come,” he said. “We have seconds.”
The three of them tore down the next alley.
“Up,” Oris groaned. “We have to reach the street.”
Sabine’s legs burned. They burst out onto a narrow landing. For a heartbeat, Sabine froze. She saw the geometry of the alley: the angles of escape, the lines of fire, the inevitable bottleneck at the end where the guards would close in.
“Left,” she gasped, and the three of them scrambled along the edge of the canal, feet splashing in the shallow runoff. Another squad appeared at the far end. Azrian swore, then turned, hands already weaving. The air between them and the guards shimmered, then detonated in a spray of shrapnel.
But it only slowed them for moments.
If they kept up this game of cat and mouse, they’d end up dead. Or worse, possibly, captured.
So she felt inside her for her affinity and found it waiting: hot, wild, furious.
She reached for it. Ignored every call for restraint she’d ever heard.
She let it out, let it bloom in her chest, then out her arms and fingers and into the world, weaving wildly, letting the threads of her magic flail as she drew them into a pattern.
The alley flickered, resisting her command.
She let the magic overtake her, let the riptide drag her under the way Lady Delarine had taught her in all their trainings.
But even with the power running as freely as she could manage, the brick and stucco budged only slightly, not enough to seal their escape.
Sweat beaded down her forehead, and bile rose from her stomach. She’d never attempted to gather this much magic before. If she didn’t succeed soon, she’d pass out.
“Azrian,” she groaned, voice breaking on the last syllable. “Hold me.”
Azrian did not hesitate. He stepped behind her, solid chest at her back, hands running up her chilled arms to settle at her shoulders. His lips were soft against her ear. “I’m here. I’m with you.”
She felt it to the depth of her marrow. This time, when she wove her pattern again, it came with startling ease.
And the city obeyed. The bricks underfoot buckled, liquefied, then re-formed anew—arches and blind corners and dead ends.
The canal wall, once smooth, erupted in a tangle of iron spikes and razor-edged glass.
The guards, halfway through the fog, stumbled, then lost their bearings entirely as the alley’s very geometry rebelled against them.
Azrian squeezed her shoulders, his weight a reassurance at her back, and pressed his lips to her temple, kissing away the sweat.
Oris gaped, the fire in his palm flickering with uncertainty.
Sabine pressed harder, willing the city to become something new and unwalkable.
The alleys branched and doubled back, every step a puzzle only she could solve.
She led her companions left and right, up a hidden stair, over a bridge that should not have existed.
They emerged at the western gates of the city. Above them, the sky was a black bowl, pricked with stars. The shouts and boots were far away now—a distant, confused echo.
Sabine dropped to her knees, the world spinning. Azrian caught her before she hit the ground. He knelt beside her, hands shaking as he brushed hair from her face.
“You were incredible,” he whispered. “Each day, you show me something new to be amazed at.”
She looked up at him, and for the first time since the night began, let herself smile.
The magic in her veins felt clean, humming.
This time, she focused on the rhythm of his breathing rather than her own, the certainty that every second they remained free was a second stolen from the Empire itself.
Oris pointed to a battered freight wagon slouched beneath the high arch of the city’s tradesman’s gate, its oxen stamping steam into the chill. “There. Under the canvas. Move.”
Sabine’s legs buckled, then caught. Azrian steadied her, and together they pelted across the open, the staccato of their footfalls drowned by the city’s distant alarms. The wagon was a relic: weathered wood, big iron wheels, the whole shrouded in a tarp the color of old meat.
Oris vaulted up, yanked back the rear flap, and gestured them in.
Azrian climbed first, then pulled Sabine after.
The air inside was stifling, reeking of resin and straw, but anything was better than the open.
Oris ducked in after, then pulled the flap down, sealing them in blackness.
Sabine blinked, the darkness swimming with afterimages.
Azrian guided her to the far corner, where the straw was heaped thickest. Only then did Sabine realize they were not alone.
A soft, strangled sound—half gasp, half sob. “Sabine?”
She froze. The voice was soft, rounded at the edges by disbelief. She reached forward, and her hand collided with another.
“Virelle,” Sabine whispered. She pulled the girl close, hands cataloguing her shoulders, the tangle of her hair. Virelle clung to her, face pressed to Sabine’s neck.
Another presence shifted at the far end. “Az,” Caelen murmured.
The two men clasped forearms, their grip brief and brutal.
“And the others?” Azrian asked.
“Mostly safe,” Caelen said, and Sabine didn’t miss the way her husband tensed at the word mostly. “Two were captured. The others are helping Oris round up other marked couples.”
Sabine reached for Azrian and brushed her fingers along his arm. “We shall free them, too.”
“We thought—” Virelle broke off. “We thought you were dead.”
Sabine pressed her lips to Virelle’s temple. “I almost was, but you know me. Too stubborn.”
Caelen lifted a heavy pack towards the others, then pulled documents out of it.
Their proof. Caelen had taken the proof.
Sabine could cry from joy.
The wagon lurched. The city’s gates rumbled open, then slammed behind them. Sabine pictured the guards outside watching the wagons roll out with barely a glance. No one ever checked the cargo. Not at this hour.
Oris sat at the tail, guarding the flap. His silhouette, faintly outlined by the streetlamps, was as still as a stone.
Azrian shifted, pulling Sabine against his chest. She let herself collapse into his arms, every muscle in her body surrendering to the exhaustion.
Caelen and Virelle curled up at the other end, hands entwined.
The wagon rumbled through the outskirts, past the last of the city’s lights, then into the wilds beyond.
Sabine thought of the chessboard, of the game that had been set into motion the day she’d stepped foot into the Registry Hall months ago. Since then, pieces had scattered and broken, rules had been upended. Sabine had made a vow to herself not to allow the Registry to make her into a pawn.
The Registry would not shape her. She would shape the board. She’d be the new master of the game, and she was ready to play her checkmate.