She thrust.
I grabbed her wrist.
It could have gone either way as we pushed against each other.
Then I tore the knife from her. Still expressionless, she moved to strike again, but I was faster. My blade met her throat, opening a river of blood down the front of her black jacket.
Anserra’s body went limp all at once, and for a moment, expression flooded back over her face, doll-like stillness giving way to a twisted gasp of dismay. She fell over me.
I acted next on nothing more than instinct.
I had no magic of my own. But I had managed to take it from Irene, and from Max — even from Stratagram ink. The Syrizen drew from deep levels, just as I did. Could I steal Anserra’s magic, too? I didn’t know. It was a ridiculous guess.
Still, it was the only one I had.
I sliced my hand, and pressed it to the wound of Anserra’s opened throat.
She let out a sickening, gargling moan. Her magic flooded me. It hurt, burning my veins. She went slack. When I pulled my hand away, black rot consumed her throat…and I had magic, even if only a fragment stolen from someone else’s life.
I had no time to be disgusted.
I pushed her off of me, grabbed the spear, and leapt to my feet. Another Syrizen was lunging for me, and I whirled just quickly enough to block her with Anserra’s spear. With considerable effort, I forced my magic through it. Il’Sahaj always took my magic beautifully, but between the unfamiliar weapon and the unfamiliar magic, this was clumsy and sluggish. Worse, I rarely fought with spears. My body still moved as it would wielding a sword, and the length and weight of the weapon was awkward.
Pain lit my abdomen. I was bleeding. I stumbled. Then countered. Despite my poor fighting, I managed to land a strike. Black and red, blood and rot, bloomed over the Syrizen’s side. She staggered, and I yanked her closer. Grabbed her face with my open hand. Tried and failed to ignore the sound she made when her expression came back, only for a second before decay overtook her face, and her magic flooded into me.
She fell. I whirled towards Sammerin. He had grabbed a dagger, which he was now yanking out of the limp body of one of the Syrizen. Ariadnea was the only one left, frozen mid-strike, fighting against the hold of his magic.
He turned to her, then hesitated. His magic faltered, just long enough to leave her an opening to attack.
I didn’t think. My spear was through her back before her blow landed.
She fell.
The spear made a sickening sound as I pulled it out of the limp body, one that I barely heard over the staticky ringing in my ears. Sammerin slowly rose to his feet, his gaze lingering on Ariadnea’s lifeless face, then rising to meet mine.
I had never seen Sammerin look outright frightened before. Once, Max had told me that during the war, he would gauge whether they were really in trouble by the expression on Sammerin’s face. If Sammerin looked panicked, he’d told me, that’s how he knew they were really in trouble.
We were really in trouble.
“I’m going down,” I said.
“We’ll cover each other,” Sammerin replied, but I shook my head.
“No. Go to the surface.”
His eyebrows lurched. “You can’t go down there alone.”
“We do not have time to argue about this.”
In the distance, I could hear footsteps on the stairs. More Syrizen? They could be coming for us.
Frustration flickered across Sammerin’s face. “You can barely use your magic. You can’t go down there alone.”
“We cannot let this become another Sarlazai,” I shot back. “We’re too close to the Towers. And the city. And…” My hand reached into my pocket, closing around the two feathers there. I hesitated.
I did not believe that Ishqa had lied to us. Still, that didn’t mean I trusted him, or believed that he could help us. But I did know that the magic I felt in the air, the magic that had tainted the blood of the Syrizen, was different. Inhuman. Perhaps the very magic he had warned us of.
I thrust the feathers into Sammerin’s palm.
“If I do not come right back, burn these,” I said, and he shot me a perplexed look.
“Is this…?” And when I nodded, he let out air through his teeth. I thought he might question the decision, but he nodded grimly.
“Tell Filias and Serel,” I choked out. “Tell him to get them ready to leave.”
I had made such a mistake, bringing them here. Serving them up to be pawns in yet another country’s wars. Stupid of me. Naive.
“I will,” Sammerin said.
“And protect yourself.”
“I will.”
My eyes burned. “I’m sorry, Sammerin.”
There was no time for me to be sorry. But I was, anyway. I wanted to tell him how sorry I was, for tearing him away from what he had built — for tearing all of the refugees away from the tentative peace they had created.
Sammerin just shook his head.
“Creating is harder than destroying. In the end it’s always worth it.”
Gods. When Sammerin said things, he said them like a promise. I nodded, closed my eyes until they stopped stinging. When I opened them again, I cleared away everything but focus.
“Go,” I said. “Quickly.”
I was already turning away by the time the words were out of my mouth. I did not know how long the energy I stole from the fallen Syrizen would last — and Max was running out of time.
I ran down the stairs. The fog grew thicker, the dense feeling in the air stronger and more painful as I descended. It built inside of me, too, a knot growing in the pit of my stomach.
I wondered if this is how
