The Rebels of Gold (Loom Saga #3)(77)

Florence finished etching the runes she needed and stood. The footsteps were close enough now that even she could hear them. She leveled her weapon.

A Dragon bounded around the corner. One or two shots, that was all she had. She couldn’t miss. Florence kept her magic even, pouring it in slowly. Consistent, not a burst of power, but a steady stream, like a rope spun from runes and gold and steel.

Gunshots echoed as Shannra panicked. The bullets sheared off the haze of a corona. Florence adjusted her grip slightly and widened her feet. She had to wait until the last moment.

Another female Dragon rounded the corner, gaining speed.

Florence squeezed the trigger.

It wasn’t like a normal shot—fire and done. Florence continued to feed her magic into the weapon. Stay together, stay together, she repeated in her head as the beam shot out straight and true. The magic impaled the Dragon straight through the chest, his corona cracking and splintering off like an eggshell made of light.

The man fell dead, and Florence already had the other Dragon in her sights. Her magic was depleted from the first shot, and she locked her knees to keep them from buckling. Still, her hands were steady.

Florence waited two breaths after she thought the Dragon was in range.

It felt like the gun demanded every ounce of her, down to the very breath she drew to live. So Florence gave it that, and let the world go black.





Cvareh


His chest still ached. There was a sort of phantom pain scraping against his ribs long after his lungs had grown back from where the Alchemist’s knife had raked against them. Cvareh rubbed his chest again and thought of how many of his own he had condemned to harvesting. Cvareh had never lost an organ before and, now that he had, he was having a hard time seeing it as anything more than a deeply barbaric process.

For now, the ends still justified the means. But he wondered if the Alchemists in all their madness and wisdom couldn’t think of a way to grow organs in their tubes, or harvest from the dead. Something, anything, to prevent Dragons from enduring what he just had.

Suffocation. Death without death. Repeating again and again until his tissues had grown and mended enough to hold air again.

He said nothing of his pain. He was the rightful Xin’Oji, the man who would win the war for them all and become Dono, and he had made the choice willingly. Furthermore, Arianna had to endure much the same—at least half of what he had gone through, as she didn’t have to regrow—and she had yet to speak a word of discomfort.

It was moments like this one, when he looked at her readying her weapons, not more than one day from undergoing a major operation, that he was ensnared in awe at what she was—something more than he could ever aspire to be. Something different from anyone he’d ever met. And none of it had anything to do with the fact that she was now a true Perfect Chimera.

It was a fundamental construct of her nature, of her, that made her an unstoppable enigma. It was the same thing that allowed her to take organs and make them her own, like her hands, or ears, or now his lungs—motley parts that seemed so naturally incorporated into her body, like they’d yearned to be there all along. It was that nature which gave her the wisdom of Dragons four times her age, and kept her going with a profound, insatiable drive.

Cvareh wondered if it was something that could ever be lost. Or if she would forever pursue her ends with the march of a soldier to battle until Lord Xin finally came for her immortal soul.

It was something he wanted to embody as well, something he needed to possess to be worthy of her.

“When will you be back for more?” he asked, picking up the golden tube that would be used not to transport reagents, but flowers.

“I don’t know just yet,” Arianna said without looking at him. “As I mentioned, the Rivets were growing competent at making the boxes when I left. It’s been a few days since then, but there may still be just a few ready for the flowers.

“It may not be me, however, who comes back up.” That thought hadn’t occurred to Cvareh until the moment she said it. “If all goes according to plan, I won’t be the only Perfect Chimera in the world. Whoever comes, I’ll have them use that river passage through the island to hide the glider trail.”

“Will you come back?”

Her motions stopped. She must have heard his heart more than his words, the quiet panic that came at the thought of her leaving him and not returning.

“I’m sure you’ll need me to fight at some point.” Arianna sheathed her dagger behind her back. “The Perfect Chimera will take some time to train.”

“I need you for more than that.” He stood over her, looking down. If she could hear that nervousness in his soul at the idea of her trying to vanish from his life again, then she could also hear the truth of his words.

“Are all Dragons this insatiable?”

“Only the ones in love.”

Arianna huffed in amusement, shook her head, and stood. She collected her things and carefully loaded the tubes in her bag. But none of it was a gesture of her own feelings toward him, and Cvareh was keenly aware that she had never told him if she reciprocated his affections to the same degree.

“I should be leaving.”

He knew it was true. They’d kept each other for three days from the world. Cain had been covering for him, but Cvareh knew it was time to return to the Xin Manor. It was time to assume responsibility for his destiny.