the hilt of his rapier gleamed.
A paper-wrapped package leaned against the wall at Lilten’s feet, about the length of Kalen’s arm and thrice as wide. It lacked the elf’s uncanny fastidiousness: the damp of Luskan’s sewers had soaked through the base, turning it a deep, ugly brown.
“What is that?” Kalen asked.
“Nothing for this battle.” Lilten waved at the parcel. “All things at their proper time, no?” He swept his arms around the room. “Do you not know where we are?”
The wide chamber in which they stood expanded enough for forty or fifty to mill around in comfort. Hollows in the ground held withered soil and chipped stone basins might have held flowers. Kalen thought it an arboretum from ancient times. How long ago had it been that this chamber, now so deep underground, had seen the sunlight?
Kalen looked to Sithe, who shrugged slightly.
Myrin, on the other hand, furrowed her brow. “Something familiar. I can’t-”
Kalen stepped in front of her, dropped the torch, and pulled his daggers. An arrow streaked from the darkness and embedded itself in his shoulder. Myrin sucked in a sharp breath to cry out, but before any of them could utter a sound, men streamed through the half-dozen archways leading into the chamber, steel glinting in their hands.
It was a trap.
Kalen had no time to consider whether Lilten-who seemed to have vanished-had betrayed them or not. He parried aside one man’s strike and slashed at the next. He felt the arrow in his shoulder only numbly. Sithe whirled, her axe flying, and men toppled away from her. Arrows streaked through the darkness at her, but she batted them aside with her jagged blade.
Kalen parried a thrust, punched out at his attacker’s face, then spun to kick a second man between the legs. His foot met some sort of resistance and barely touched his target. An attack that should have put the man down was turned aside. He saw Myrin spreading her fingers to cast a spell and shouted to her. “Save your magic for Scour!”
“It won’t matter if we all die!” Myrin said. A sheet of flame erupted from her fingers, illuminating the chamber and driving back two masked warriors with eastern blades.
The rogues herded the three into the center of an ever-tightening circle. Kalen and Sithe flanked Myrin, batting aside attack after attack. The wizard blasted with thunder, frost, and magical force, but to no avail. There were too many. Worse, they were bolstered by some sort of protective spell that turned most of Kalen and Sithe’s strikes aside.
Armored by faith, Kalen realized.
When the three touched backs and found nowhere left to retreat, as the sound of applause rang out through the wide arboreal chamber.
“Brilliant!” Eden called from behind the throng. “Well fought-well fought indeed. But while you can beat to a pulp every dastard in this midden hole of a city one by one, how long can you stand if every one of them comes at you at once?”
Indeed, their attackers were of all sorts-Shou Dragonblood, brutish Dustclaw, ragged Dogtooth or Bloodboot, even some weasel-like Dead Rats. All of them wore the gold sash of the Coin-Spinners.
“Come face us, Sister,” Kalen said. “Or is the new queen a coward?”
Angry murmurs passed through the gathered rogues, but soon enough, Eden did as Kalen bade. His half- sister swayed through the ranks of her troops, dressed as before in her tarnished gold breastplate. The newly appointed queen of Luskan was all smiles as she tapped her flail against the buckler on her left arm.
“What an unexpected joy,” she said. “I was sure you’d have fled the city by now, considering how many Luskar hunger for your blood. Yet here you are. Best of all, you use my title-queen.” She squared her shoulders. “Incidentally, you may bow now.”
Kalen took a step toward her, but she raised a hand crossbow in her left hand to his face. “Oh, Brother? You had an objection?”
Kalen stared around the crossbow at her face. Anger rose in him, but he pushed it down. “It’s me you want, Eden,” he said. “Let the others go.”
“Actually, no,” Eden said. “I want the girl. Give her to me and your deaths will be both merciful and quick. I promise I’ll restrain my creativity.”
“That’s never going to happen,” Kalen said, but a soft hand touched his arm, staying him before he could step forward.
“It’s well,” Myrin said. “I’ll fight my own battles, thanks. I’ll face her.”
“But-”
“No more protecting me.” She strode forward to confront Eden. “Challenge.”
“Challenge? You?” Eden laughed, loud and long, and her men picked up the mirth. “What honor is there in defeating a child?”
“I’ve had just about enough of folk calling me a child, by the gods.” Runes traced into being on Myrin’s skin, crafting their own obscure story in a language Kalen did not know. Arcane fire dripped from her fingertips. “Do you accept or are you a coward?”
With a cry of “Eden!” two men charged Myrin. She slashed her wand and a crack of thunder sent them sprawling.
“Stop,” Eden said, raising her hand to ward off the others. “This one requires the power of the goddess.”
The scum she’d brought readily backed away, forming a circle around the two women. Kalen might have interceded, were it not for Sithe’s unflinching look. “No fear,” she whispered, ostensibly calm. “This must come to pass.”
She was right. He could leap in and die fighting at Myrin’s side, but doing so would kill all of them. If they were to survive this and have a chance against Scour, he would have to let Myrin fight this duel on her own. And more than that, this was Myrin’s fight. If he was ever going to trust her to handle herself, he had to trust her now.
The two women squared off in the middle of a room full of thugs. Eden wore heavy armor and hefted her flail. Myrin held only her dagger-long wand of gray wood. Blues runes glowed on her skin, however-great magic waiting to be called forth.
Myrin moved first, lashing out with her wand like a whip. Thunder crackled, knocking Eden half a step back. She should have gone flying, Kalen thought, but the magic drained away into the platinum coin in Eden’s eye socket. Movement suddenly seemed easier for the woman-her twisted leg hardly seemed to trouble her.
“You are overmatched, girl,” Eden said. “Best to kneel and take your punishment with some dignity.”
Myrin responded with an arrow of magical force, which Eden deflected with her raised buckler. The magic flowed around and into Eden’s coin. She rolled with the blast and came forward in a rush, grinning madly.
The wizard threw up her free hand and summoned a shield of blue force to deflect Eden’s flail. The barbed heads crackled against the magic, but Eden wasn’t done-she lunged in and bashed Myrin viciously across the face with her shield. The younger woman staggered back, blood streaming from her split lip. Eden laughed.
Myrin came back up with a ray of freezing blue light that struck Eden’s shield. Frost spread along the woman’s arm toward her face. With a curse, Eden swung her flail at Myrin, but the woman foresaw its path and dodged out of the way.
When Eden brought the flail around her head for a second blow, Myrin tried to block with her conjured shield. The flail crunched through, however, shattering Myrin’s magic and sending her staggering to the side.
“You let me know,” Eden said, “when you’ve had enough.”
Calling aloud in a whirlwind voice, Myrin whipped her wand over her head, summoning a small tornado that swept around Eden-then dissipated to no effect around her. Eden’s platinum eye-coin glowed vividly, its light dissolving Myrin’s spells. Myrin struck with a bolt of force that cut through her armor, but Eden simply pressed her hand to the wound and healed herself with a slight golden glow.
“My goddess is far more powerful than your magic could ever be,” Eden said. “Just as my arm is more powerful than your whole
She slammed the flail down like a hammer and Myrin barely dodged to the side. She sent Eden back with a
