Mortal

Yet the worst had found them. As they ran, Rom cringed at the folly of risking so much by putting him in danger.

He stopped at the corner, snatched a look into the atrium and, finding it vacant, led them forward. They walked in even strides, straight for the main entrance.

Pounding feet and a shout of alarm echoed down a side passage from the direction of Feyn’s apartment.

Rom pulled up at the doors with his hand on the lever and turned quickly to Jonathan. “Don’t leave our backs. For any reason.”

The Sovereign yet-to-be returned a curt nod. Sovereign, because there had to be a way.

Rom glanced at Roland. Protect him with your life. The words didn’t need voicing.

He pushed the door open. Slipping out into the night, his eyes scanned the darkness.

Six broad marble steps descended before them to the concrete walkway, white in the moonlight. Beyond that, manicured lawns, tall shrubs against the thirty-foot-high Citadel wall, and the ornate ironwork of the Citadel’s side gate. Two guards in the gatehouse.

The wide street beyond the iron gate ran perpendicular to the Citadel perimeter. At the end of the street an alley cut north before entering a maze of roads that would lead them to the Basilica of Spires, where Jordin waited with two horses.

He heard Roland slip his knives from their sheaths. Rom motioned the fighter forward with a jerk of his head and grabbed Jonathan’s sleeve. “Stay close!” he whispered.

Before Rom took his first step, Roland was past him. Two long bounds to the bottom of the steps. He flew across the lawn, straight for the gatehouse. No room for temperance; he would do what he must, given the stakes.

Behind them, the sounds of chase grew louder. Fast. Heavy. Close-far too close. He could smell them.

Dark Bloods.

Rom grabbed Jonathan by the arm, urging him forward, faster. To the bottom of the steps, across the lawn in Roland’s footsteps.

But then Roland suddenly changed course, his hand up, signaling warning and now Rom knew why: the pervasive stench of a city full of Corpses had momentarily masked the smell of Dark Blood.

They veered toward the gate, committed, thirty-foot walls on either side. It was either through the gate or not at all.

With a single glance over his shoulder, Rom released Jonathan and flipped out both of his throwing knives. Roland slid up against the wall of the gatehouse, facing them, paused a beat, then spun through the door.

A grunt. Two. Nothing more.

They paused against the gatehouse as Roland slipped out, blades dripping red in his fists. In another place and time Rom would have demanded to spare innocent Corpses, but this was not there or then. No time for second- guessing now.

The fighter shoved a key in the lock, twisted hard, kicked the iron grate wide, and stood firm, heels planted, to face the Dark Bloods rushing him from the outside perimeter.

Stealth was no longer their luxury or advantage.

Seeing was.

Rom saw every move with intense precision, impossibly slow as the suspended beat of a bat’s wings.

The rush of both Dark Bloods converging on his second, who stood with his legs spread, muscled taut, blades by his hips, head tilted down, unflinching.

They came at him. One running stride…

Two…

Three…

Every movement protracted in Rom’s sight happened faster than with any Corpse or Mortal he had ever seen.

They drew their swords back.

It was then, with their flanks exposed, that Roland’s arms flashed, like striking serpents.

But he was too slow.

Rom saw it all in an elongated instant: Roland committed, both knives releasing off the tips of his fingers. Flying.

Roland’s first knife took one of Dark Bloods in his throat, slicing deep.

But the Dark Blood to Roland’s right shifted just in time to avoid the weapon flying toward him. He’d moved far faster than he should have been able. Speed to match their incredible strength!

The second knife sliced through the Dark Blood’s clavicle instead-a searing slash that would slow a weaker man, but that did nothing to stop this man’s sword, arcing toward Roland’s head.

Roland threw himself back, just avoiding the Dark Blood’s blade, his advantage gone along with his knives. The Dark Blood didn’t allow the momentum of his swing to compromise his balance, but used it, spinning for another strike.

Rom, still taking in the implications of the speed of Saric’s dark warriors, didn’t react in time.

Neither did he think to stop Jonathan, who flung himself past Rom and crashed into Roland’s legs from behind so that they buckled, the Dark Blood’s sword hissing harmlessly over his head.

Rom’s hands flashed, palmed the carved handles of his knives. He surged forward, throwing his upper body into the uncoiling of his wrists as he whipped both forward from his hips, underhanded, not bothering to steady his aim. The target was hard to miss.

It happened in slowing ticks, the spring of time having forgotten its tensile strength: Jonathan, landing on his shoulder as Roland started to rise, lips stretched back in a snarl.

Rom’s blades slamming into the Dark Blood’s chest, a single hand span apart.

Jonathan, rolling to his feet.

In one smooth motion, the boy swept low, fingers curling around the hilt of the dead Dark Blood’s sword just as the man’s companion, stunned by Rom’s knives, started impossibly forward again, weapon drawn back.

With a feral cry, Jonathan whirled 360 degrees, sword extended in a deadly arc. The heavy blade severed the Dark Blood’s arm just above its wrist, flipping hand and sword end over end, overhead.

Roland stretched for the weapon, snagged it from the air with both hands-one on its hilt, one on the fingers that still grasped it-and swung the blade with a roar that smothered the echo of Jonathan’s cry.

The sword sliced cleanly through the Dark Blood’s neck. The headless body faltered for a long count, then toppled back onto the cement.

Rom, Roland, and Jonathan remained crouched for a suspended instant longer.

More Dark Bloods were coming, running heavily down the stone steps of the palace. Alarm spread through Rom like fire.

“Jonathan! Blade!”

Jonathan flung his sword at him. It was good to see that their future Sovereign could handle himself in real fight, but the look on his face betrayed a horror that Rom feared would compromise him next time. Violence beyond the games wasn’t in his nature.

Or was it?

“Hurry!” He rushed by Jonathan, tugging at him as he passed. “Roland, rear!”

Roland spun just in time to engage the two Dark Bloods sprinting to the gate, three others behind them.

Rom pushed to keep up with his charge, who had proven himself among the three fastest runners in the camp numerous times. “Ahead-the alley to the left.”

Jonathan threw a glance over his shoulder. “Roland?”

“Can handle himself. He buys us time.”

Rom twisted back to see Roland’s blade in full swing, cutting down one of the Dark Bloods with the precision Rom had come to count on. Having miscalculated their speed once-with nearly fatal results-Rom knew Roland wouldn’t be taken off guard again. No one of Saric’s making could match the fighter’s skill. He was sure of it.

But Rom had another problem; that darker smell of death, so obscured by the Corpses of the city, came to him from farther ahead.