Scythe (Arc of a Scythe #1)(85)

“And if I sign it, what then?”

“Well, Scythe Faraday did grant you immunity until Winter Conclave. Immunity is nonrevocable, even in a case such as this. Therefore, you will be held in an incarceration facility until that time.”

“A what?”

“They were called ‘prisons.’ There are still a few left—abandoned, of course, but it shouldn’t be to hard to restore one to house a single prisoner. Then, at Winter Conclave, your friend Rowan shall be ordained, and, as has already been stipulated, he shall glean you. I’m sure, knowing what we know now, he’ll have no reservations in doing so.”

Citra looked morosely down at the page on the table next to her. “I can’t sign it,” she told him.

“Oh yes, of course, you need a pen.” He reached into various pockets of his gilded person until finding one. As he moved to place it on the table next to her, Citra thought of half a dozen places she could jam it into him that would either render him deadish, or at least incapacitated. But what would be the point? There were BladeGuard officers in the next room, and she could see even more on the porch through the front window.

He gently laid the pen down within her reach, then called Mandela back in to witness her signature. As soon as the door to the cabin opened, Citra realized there was only one way out of this situation. Only one thing she could do. It might not buy her anything but time, but right now time was the most valuable commodity in the world.

She feigned to reach for the pen, but instead swung her bound hands in the other direction, slamming them into Xenocrates’s gut.

He folded with an “oomf,” and she sprang from her chair, ramming her shoulder against Mandela, knocking him backward and out the front door. She leaped over him, and immediately a swarm of guards came at her. Now she needed every ounce of her training. Her hands were cuffed, but Bokator was more about elbows and legs than it was about hands. She didn’t need to decimate them, all she needed to do was disarm them and keep them off balance. One came at her with a jolt baton that she kicked out of his hand. Another had a club, which missed its mark as she dodged, and she used his momentum to flip him onto his back. Two others didn’t waste time with weapons; they lunged for her, hands outstretched—a textbook case of how not to attack. She dropped to the lawn, swung her feet, and bowled them down like pins.

And then she began to run.

“There’s nowhere you can go, Citra!” called Xenocrates.

But he was wrong.

Forcing strength and speed into her legs, she ran across the rooftop lawn. There was no guardrail, because the High Blade wanted nothing to impede his view of his domain.

Citra neared the edge, and rather than slowing down, she increased her pace, until the grass was gone and there was nothing but one hundred nineteen floors of air beneath her. She held her cuffed hands over her head, grimacing against the wind and the uneasy feel of freefall, and plummeted feet first, surrendering her will to gravity, relishing her defiance, until her life ended for the second time in a week, this time with what was undoubtedly the best splat ever.

? ? ?

This was unexpected and inconvenient, but it changed nothing. Xenocrates didn’t even run out to the edge. That would just be wasting time.

“The girl has a spark,” said Mandela. “Do you really think she’s working for a tone cult?”

“I doubt we’ll ever understand her motives,” Xenocrates told him. “But removing her will certainly help the Scythedom heal.”

“Poor Marie must be beside herself,” said Mandela. “To have lived with the girl for months, and not known.”

“Yes, well, Scythe Curie’s a strong woman,” Xenocrates said. “She’ll get over it.”

He had his guards call down to the lobby. The site of Citra Terranova’s remains was to be cordoned off until her unpleasant little self could be scraped off the sidewalk and brought to a revival center. It would have been so much cleaner if she could just stay dead. Damn the immunity rules! Well, when she was once more pronounced alive, she would find herself in a cell with no possible means of escape, and more importantly, no contact with anyone who might take up her cause and petition for her freedom.

Xenocrates went to the express elevator, not trusting his security detail to handle the situation down below. “Will you accompany me, Nelson?”

“I’ll stay here,” said Mandela. “I have no desire to see the poor girl in such an unpleasant state.”

? ? ?

Xenocrates assumed this would be a simple scrape-and-soar maneuver—and indeed, an ambudrone had already landed on the street ready to spirit away what was left of Citra. But something wasn’t quite right. It wasn’t his security detail surrounding her remains; instead, there were at least a dozen men and women, all in cloud-colored suits, forming a circle around her. Nimbus agents! They ignored the threats and jeers from the BladeGuard officers who insisted that they needed to get through.

“What’s going on here?” Xenocrates demanded.

“The damn Nims!” said one of the guardsmen. “They were already here when we came outside. They won’t let us near the body.”

Xenocrates pushed his way through his security detail and addressed a woman who appeared to be the head Nimbus agent. “See here! I am High Blade Xenocrates. This is scythe business, and as such, you and the rest of your Nimbus agents have no place here. Yes, the law states she must be revived, but we shall bring her to a revival center. The Thunderhead has absolutely no jurisdiction.”