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One of the mercs chopping at the tavern door grunted. The wood groaned and splintered as it began to give way. From within the tavern, Verve felt the villagers’ terror as if it was her own. Memories of boot steps on a wooden platform filled her mind, and for several long seconds she couldn’t take a real breath.
Then the two mercenaries facing her moved in tandem. Sunlight flashed off of their hematite gear, smarting Verve’s eyes and shaking her out of her reverie. They had her outmatched in gear, but she was still fast. She released her rage in a scream and drove between them, hacking at limbs and necks with graceless rage. They fell aside, too wounded to immediately rise, and Verve rounded on Trainer Aya, who met her with a drawn sword.
Energy poured through Verve’s limbs, drowning her pain, fueling her fury. Her vision pooled to the fighters before her: faceless, spineless peons of Danya’s, or whoever offered them enough coin. Meridians were supposed to heal, not harm, but it was too late for that. Verve gathered her anger to her, coiling like a serpent preparing to strike, then unleashed the torrent upon Lotis’s attackers. Trainer Aya gasped and stumbled back, reeling as if drunk, and several of the hired blades shrieked and grabbed their heads. Verve spared the Chosen this emotional assault, but they got the message, judging from the way most of them took off running. Most of the trainers followed, leaving only Aya and a handful of mercenaries. Much better odds.
Verve stalked toward the remaining attackers, allowing the raw surge of her anger to flow around them, through them. “Leave now,” she snarled, “and I might let you live.”
A couple more of the mercs tore away, whimpering, while Trainer Aya stared at Verve, her chest rising and falling. At last, she shook her head. “No job’s worth this,” she muttered. “Especially not in this foul swamp. Let’s go.” With that, she and the remaining mercenaries hurried between the burning buildings as they left the village as Verve stood, bloody and panting, outside the Willow.
Her meridian senses still swam with rage and fear, and she could not get an accurate sense of which villagers had survived. Heart still racing, she pounded her fist against the tavern door. “Ivet? Ivet! They’re leaving! Are you—”
The door flung open, revealing Berel’s tear-streaked face and Klaret’s frown. “She’s not here,” Berel cried. “Kinny got scared and took off, and Ivet went after her, and then the mercs were upon us!”
“I think she went to the docks,” Klaret said grimly, pointing.
Hadiya shouldered through them, a bloody rag pressed to their temple. “Where’s Owen and Alem?”
“Here,” Alem called. He limped behind Verve, Owen and Kinneret with him, and those within the Willow exclaimed in joy. But there was no room for celebration in Verve’s heart yet.
“We’re all right,” Alem said to the others’ questions. “But Ivet…”
Verve went cold. “You found her?”
Alem’s eyes were bright with tears. “By the docks. But Verve, she’s—”
But Verve was already gone.
Please, she begged any god who would listen, please, let Ivet be well. Let her be well.
A single arm stuck out of the water at the base of one of the more rickety docks. Heart in her throat, Verve reached down and gently pulled up Ivet by her slender shoulders. Ivet’s eyes were wide, fixed unseeing upon some distant point, and a line of blood circled her throat. A cut from a garrote bracelet, just like Verve’s. As carefully as she could, Verve brought Ivet’s body up on the dock and laid her atop the warm wooden planks, bleached by the sun. Verve knelt beside her, numb.
Footsteps pounded beside her as the others approached. Dannel brushed past Verve, reaching for Ivet, murmuring in Sufa.
“I’m sorry,” Verve said, also in Sufa. “She’s gone to her next life now.”
Dannel’s shoulders hunched as he pressed his face into his hands. Hadiya came next, helping Dannel to steady himself even as tears streaked their face. Berel sobbed into Klaret’s chest, while Klaret hugged her close. Kyon kept the children well away from the horrific sight, murmuring gentle words to the little ones. In the distance, steam hissed like a giant serpent as Nori snuffed out the fires with her magic.
A familiar hand rested on Verve’s shoulder, and she reached up to touch Alem in return. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, though she didn’t know whom she spoke to.
“It’s not your fault, dharika,” Dannel whispered, and Verve’s chest ached at the Sufa word for daughter.
“Aye,” Hadiya muttered. “It’s those merc bastards.”
“No.” Verve brushed back Ivet’s necklace to show them the wound around her neck. “This is the work of the Chosen — one of my people.”
Former people. She truly was a fool to think she could escape her destiny.
Alem sucked in a breath. “They were after me, weren’t they? After a fucking dendric mage…”
He trailed off as horror stole his words, heavy in the air as the choking smoke. That same feeling thickened through the others as the reality sank in. No one spoke.
“What’s that?” Klaret asked, pointing to Ivet’s tunic, where a slip of parchment peeked out from the soaked fabric.
With shaking fingers, Verve withdrew her map of the area, which someone had tucked into Ivet’s tunic. She unfolded it and stared at the location circled with blood, near the provincial border, leagues away from Lotis. Someone had also scratched a date—three days from now—and four words: THE MAGE OR LOTIS.
“A message for me,” Verve managed. “An ultimatum.”
Alem knelt beside her, peering at the map. “Shit.”
He had that right.
Verve’s body was leaden and her stomach a block of ice. Although she clearly had work to do, she couldn’t summon the strength to stand. All she could do was cradle Ivet’s only hand in hers, gripping the pruning flesh like a lifeline. But there was nothing on the other end, no tether to a safe harbor.
Just the void.
