The Rebels of Gold (Loom Saga #3)(81)

It was the final mistake in a lifetime of poor decisions.

Cvareh lunged.

Finnyr tried to guard himself, but the movement was slow and telegraphed. Cvareh swatted the defense away with one hand and plunged the other into his brother’s chest. He would waste no time. He would not draw out the fight. As satisfying as the act would be, he had more important things to focus on than bloodlust. It served all of them, even Arianna, for his brother to stop existing as quickly as possible.

Finnyr coughed in shock. “Y-you really did it,” he wheezed.

“Salvage her memory.” Cvareh’s fingers closed around Finnyr’s heart. “Did you kill Petra?”

“I did . . . but she was already poisoned.” His brother leaned forward, whispering in his ear. “You will never beat her. She is stronger than you all.”

“Coletta?” Cvareh asked. It had to be.

Finnyr grinned, grabbed Cvareh’s shoulders, and pushed himself away. Cvareh had never seen a Dragon take their own life, but it was a coward’s death befitting his brother’s existence. Finnyr stumbled backward. One foot had nothing to fall on, and he tumbled lifelessly into the empty air beyond the edge of the balcony.

Cvareh brought his brother’s heart to his lips, taking a bite out of it. It was stringy and tough. Even though he knew Arianna had Finnyr’s organs, he couldn’t find the taste of her in the man himself. It was a relief, and Cvareh cast the unwanted scrap of meat after its owner.

He turned to those gathered, wondering what they thought, what they felt. It was an anticlimactic end that put the title of Oji on a man who had never wanted it and hadn’t been trained for it. Were he one of them, he wouldn’t feel very confident.

“What now, Cvareh’Oji?” a woman was bold enough to ask.

“Now, we fight.” Cvareh took a deep breath. “We fight to end Rok’s tyranny.”

“How are we to stand against them?” The question wasn’t asked to undermine him, but as a genuine concern—a warranted one, Cvareh understood.

“As Xin, we have always placed the end before our ideals. Our patron teaches us that the end is all that matters, for all things march toward the ultimate end—death.” Cvareh hoped they would understand, and that his first action as Oji wasn’t about to be defending his plan for saving their house from annihilation. “We shall rely on Lord Xin’s guidance. We shall set aside our ideals, the pride as Dragons that blinds us from what we must do to gain our victory. We will ally ourselves with the Fenthri on Loom, and we will achieve victory.”

The long silence that followed did not encourage him in the slightest.





Arianna


She hated that Dragon.

She loved him, too.

Cvareh was nothing but raw emotion and conflict that gnawed at her fresh lungs from the inside out. Arianna flew the glider with reckless abandon, plunging into the God’s Line and speeding for Garre as though nothing else in the world mattered.

Nothing else did.

She was going to lose the chance to kill Finnyr. She was going to lose the chance to kill Yveun, too, for Cvareh to become Dono. And when he did assume that title, she was going to lose him as well.

Arianna had never wanted to want him in the first place, but now that she did, it was hard to even breathe, thinking about him marching down a path with more conviction than she had ever seen—a path that would ultimately separate them. Just as Florence had found her place in the world, so would Cvareh. And neither of them required a Wraith.

It was night by the time she landed the glider in the far hangar. The room was still, icy with winter, and her breath curled in the air as she relaxed her magic from the glider.

“Good to see our wayward inventor return,” a weathered voice spoke, as cold as the darkness itself.

Arianna turned in the direction of the sound. Magic pooled in her eyes and goggles until she could make out the living skeleton lurking in the shadows.

“Garre needs to work on its welcoming committee.” Arianna stepped down and started in his direction. Louie stood in front of the entrance to the guild, and there was little else she could do. He didn’t budge as she approached. Goggles of his own covered his beady little eyes; Arianna could only assume he stared up at her. She sighed heavily. “What do you want?”

“You don’t seem pleased to see me.”

“I will never be pleased to see you and am not in the mood for your games.” The single sentence used up all the patience she could muster for the man. “Now, step aside.”

“We need to speak.”

“We have done so. Step aside.” Arianna wondered if he was heavier than the tube-filled satchel at her side. She could just lift him up and move him.

“No.”

“Do you have a death wish?”

“Not in the slightest. Quite the opposite, actually. The question is, Arianna, do you?”

“Do not threaten me.” One warning—that was all he would get.

“The vicars may consider you a threat.”

“What?”

“Since your little experiment as a weaponsmith blew up in the Vicar Revolver’s face.” Arianna was instantly reminded of her prototype on Nova. She’d sent the schematics to Florence and—

“I heard Florence was there, too. Fighting Dragons with faulty weapons . . . it’s so sad, the outcome.”