I lean heavily, trying to ignore the pulses buzzing in my head. Waiting for half my energy, my drive, to simply drain away into this stranger. It doesn’t matter that he’ll return it straight away. I want to throw up.
Nothing happens.
The magistrate is frowning. Puzzled more than anything else. “Say it again.”
“I … give my Will freely.” It comes out easier, this time.
“Lani.” It’s Ulciscor, behind me. Concerned tension in his voice. I look around. Lanistia is focused on me. Moving forward, past the chains, too close to the surrounding green-cloaked guards. They step into her path. She pushes against them.
“Lanistia?” I frown at her. “What’s wrong?”
She bares her teeth at me. It’s not anger. It’s confusion. Desperation.
“Complete the journey, warrior,” she says sorrowfully.
She has a dagger in her hand.
The two guards in front of her aren’t expecting it, never have a chance to react. She’s so fast. A blur as her blade slices again and again with barely a pause in between. A frozen tableau as everyone watches, myself included, trying to understand. It’s as if nothing has happened at first except that the two men are suddenly letting her walk past. Then bright red lines bloom on throats. Their hands go to their necks in eerie unison as they collapse.
“Complete the journey, warrior,” whispers Lanistia again as she stalks toward me, knife dripping, as the screams begin below.
Then everyone moves.
I have trained with Lanistia for hours upon hours upon hours. Countless mornings on the grass outside Villa Telimus as she sparred with me again and again.
She is better than me. She has always been better than me. And now I only have one arm.
“Complete the journey, warrior.” The knife slices the air in front of my eyes once. Twice. I back away. “Complete the journey, warrior.” She says it desperately. Like it’s being ripped from her lips.
A guard comes at her from behind and she sidesteps. Twists casually. Kills him. A Razor flies at her, and she flicks her blade up just as it would have taken her in the back of the neck. The obsidian shatters, shards dropping to the ground, imbuing lost. Another green-cloaked man rushes at Lanistia, thinking to take her from behind. He dies as quickly as his companions.
Ulciscor and Relucia are both yelling her name, but their voices are lost amidst the outraged shouting in the Forum below. Bodies everywhere. Blood glinting gold staining the stones beneath the Aurora Columnae. More dash at Lanistia. More die. She is so fast, and they do not understand that she can see them coming no matter from which direction they approach.
“Wait!” I hear Ulciscor’s screams as Lanistia slices more Razors from the air; he’s stepping in between her and a fresh wave of oncoming attackers, though whether to protect her or them I don’t know. It’s all in the background though, all a blur. I stumble back again and again, ducking and weaving and blocking and hoping desperately for an opening that never comes. She is too good.
“Lanistia.” I gasp her name. “Please. Lanistia. It’s me.”
“Complete the journey, warrior.” Her knife scores a burning line along my cheek. “Complete the journey, warrior.” A cut along my remaining arm. Her formal clothing is restricting her movement, just slightly. It’s the only reason I’m alive.
Above the screams, there’s a massive, clanking rattle. Motion in the corner of my eye.
The massive chains that surround the Aurora Columnae rise. Rip free of their posts.
Fly at Lanistia.
She dives and twists but the chains are too long and too quick, even for her; one snags her ankle and then wraps itself around her, again and again. She struggles wildly, teeth bared. Hissing the words over and over now as she scrabbles in my direction. Silhouetted by the obelisk’s light. “Complete the journey, warrior.”
And then she’s down. Completely encompassed by the mass of metal. I come to a trembling halt to see Ulciscor thirty feet away, eyes midnight as they focus on Lanistia. One of the green-cloaked guards sprints in toward the bound woman, his blade out. A chain flicks up and hits him in the head. He crumples.
“She is not to be harmed!” Ulciscor roars the words, audible even over the shouts and sobs of the crowd. He is racing toward Lanistia. Chains whip around her. Protecting her now.
Lanistia’s glasses have fallen off. Her eyeless stare bores into me.
“Complete the journey, warrior,” she gasps, so softly that only I can hear it. She weeps it, this time. As if it is an apology.
Her body goes limp as the squeezing chains finally rob the last of her breath, and she passes into unconsciousness.
XI
