The Rebels of Gold (Loom Saga #3)(65)

“Don’t move until I do . . . Keep your magic pulled in tight.”

Even in the pale moonlight, the approaching Riders’ red skin shone brightly, as if by their own light. Three women dismounted their boco. Two went for the flowers, but one stopped mid-step. She held out a ruby-colored hand.

“Come out.” She squinted into the temple.

Cvareh stood, and with him, Dawyn and Cain. He walked forward, stepping into the moonlight and stopping on the top stair of the temple.

“Cvareh Xin, you seem to have a habit of being where you shouldn’t be and meddling in Rok affairs.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he dead-panned. Why bother trying to mask a lie everyone already knew was false?

“Yveun’Dono will be delighted to have proof of your treachery.”

“Yveun’Dono cannot bar me from worshiping at my patron’s temple.”

“He can do whatever he pleases.” The woman narrowed her eyes. “Now, by his order, leave.”

Cvareh didn’t move. The smart thing to do was to leave. Doing so would be consistent with the role Petra had carved for him: keep his head down, acquire information, be forgotten, be underestimated. She would be the one to plan and execute the attack later. But she was gone, and he had to fight for himself. For Xin.

“By his order? Or Coletta’Ryu’s?” Cvareh didn’t expect Dawyn to speak, but now that she had, he wanted to hear the answer as well.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The woman’s lips curled back, exposing her teeth. “If you do not leave, it will be a refusal of an order from the Dono. We are permitted to kill anyone who demonstrates such impudence.”

“Are you?” Cvareh assessed them. “You have no beads, so you’re not Riders. I’ve never heard of anyone but the king’s Riders operating with enough authority to duel and kill on his behalf.”

“Go, wayward Xin, and you will live out the rest of your god’s hour.”

“You go, and leave the flowers.” Tension rippled through his muscles. “Or I will be forced to defend them on behalf of my patron.”

He didn’t know if it was excuse enough for a duel, but it was all he had, and the women before him seemed even less concerned than him with the idea of keeping things respectable.

“You, the weakest of the Xin children? Fight us with your pets . . .?” The woman laughed. “Leave, Cvareh.”

He didn’t need to endure any more disrespect.

Cvareh lunged.

The woman was ready for him and darted forward, claws out, taking the first swipe as they met halfway. Cvareh dodged widely, forced to step back and avoid a second attack from one of the other women. Cain and Dawyn weren’t far behind, however, and quickly engaged the other Rok fighters one-to-one.

“This won’t last long.” The woman before him thrust a clawed hand out. Cvareh side-stepped and quickly pushed off his other foot. A woman’s scream rang out nearby; Cvareh turned, expecting to see Dawyn in need of assistance.

“You wretched girl!” The Rok Dragon was on the ground, hand covering a shoulder pouring blood.

Dawyn spat flesh from her mouth. “Look out!”

Cvareh turned back in time to dodge the point of a hairpin slicing downward in a vicious arc.

“Don’t let it touch you!” Dawyn shouted, even though they were not very far apart. “They’re Coletta’s women. Expect poison!”

“Coletta’Ryu, Xin scum.” The woman Dawyn was fighting regained her footing and lunged.

Cvareh lost track of Dawyn and Cain, focusing on the fury of attacks at his front. The woman was good, better than she had any right to be. She fought as Cvareh would expect a Rider to, every attack precise and fearless. Her long claws gleamed in the moonlight as Cvareh laced his fingers with hers, gripping her hands in place.

“What do you want with the Flowers of Agendi?” he demanded.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” She kicked out her feet, tumbling backward and pulling Cvareh with her. Her claws dug into his skin as they rolled, swiping at his face and neck, seeking a blow that would incapacitate him long enough to go for his heart.

He twisted, scrambling, and a claw came out of seemingly nowhere, shooting straight through his jugular.

“I will kill you,” she snarled, leaning in toward his face.

Cvareh looked at the woman over him, gurgling blood onto the earth as her knees pinned him. He sunk under her weight as though the soft, upturned ground itself was going to engulf him whole. Cvareh saw one imperfection in the moonlight’s outline of her hair as she pulled back.

“I will watch you die, just like I watched your sister die.”

Petra.

Blood spewed from his neck as he mustered a roar that gave voice, at last, to the rage he felt boiling inside. He pushed into the ground until he found something firm enough to brace against and pressed upward. She may have the advantage, but she was off-balance with his sudden movement and he had height on her. His arm, barely long enough, whipped upward.

Her hand caught his wrist, knowing what he had been going for.

Cvareh fought against her. Magic pumped through his veins and fueled his muscles with an energy he shouldn’t possess. But she had leverage still, and used it to keep the poisoned hairpin at bay.