The Rebels of Gold (Loom Saga #3)(84)

“That’s it?” Cain balked as Cvareh turned away from the old homestead. “You’re turning tail and running?”

“Yes,” Cvareh affirmed.

“No.” Cain grabbed Cvareh’s elbow and held his ground, practically yanking him back into place. “I will not let you hand Napole to them. You became Oji to fight.”

“And fight I will,” Cvareh vowed.

“How do you figure? You’re leaving our capital, the Xin jewel, ripe for the taking.” Cain snarled at the mere thought. “As your Ryu—”

“As my Ryu I need you above all others to trust me, Cain. Napole is not in the ground, or the buildings. What makes it shine is not the revelries or cafés. It is the people, Cain.”

“They will come here.”

“I know.” Cvareh was counting on it. If Yveun let him down and didn’t make a show of taking Ruana, he was in very real trouble. He’d only had time enough to come up with one plan, and this was it.

“You mean to ambush them!” Cain had yet to wrap his mind around not fighting. “The streets will run gold with Rok blood.”

“No.” Cvareh took Cain’s hand, removing it from his person to clutch it tightly in both of his. “I will rob Yveun of his conquest. There will be no victory here. He will land on Ruana and be met with nothing more to claim than dust and rotting food.”

“And then you will fight him?”

“I will not duel him yet.” Cvareh shook his head and started again for his boco.

Cain fell hastily into step, his feet no doubt trying to make up for the slowness in his mind. “He will certainly challenge you.”

“I know.”

“You can do it here without fear of others’ involvement.”

“I know.”

“But you won’t do it anyway . . .” Cain’s voice trailed off, trying to process a concept he had never heard of before. “What are you doing, Cvareh?”

“I am focusing on the end.” Cvareh mounted his boco, taking up the reigns and looking toward the breaking dawn. “We’ve played along with Rok’s world order for too long, and for what? If our goal is to build our own, we only have ourselves to answer to.”

“This will be war on Tam as well. They will come to Rok’s aid,” Cain cautioned, finally understanding but still two steps behind.

“I know. So it must be if Xin is to lead. We must earn our victory over both of them.” Cvareh squinted, wondering if he imagined the outlines of boco on the horizon. Not wanting to take a chance, he spurred his own mount to the skies. Cain did the same. “We will soon have Perfect Chimera. Only then will we strike.”

“And what if she doesn’t send them?” Cain called over the wind and flapping of wings. “She will.”

“I hope you’re right, Oji. All bets are on the table.” Cain looked uncertain, but still he followed. Even when his doubts were at their peak, he followed. He had earned every shifting shade of blue his skin took on in the lightening dawn.

“With stakes this high, we have to go all in.”

Cvareh gripped the reigns, leaving a city he loved dearly behind him to be ransacked in frustration by Rok and the Dragon King. Instead, he headed for the refinery that had just enough gold to produce the first new glider of what he hoped would be many.





Florence


In her mind, she was in that oversized bed in Old Dortam she’d foolishly lamented having to make every morning.

The noise around her was Arianna’s. It was a lazy day, one where there was no job and no one in Mercury Town—the sort of day where she could wake slowly and leave the room a bit of a mess. They would quietly sip something hot while their throats woke up, before bundling up to brave the icy winter wind that swept down the mountains, as they set out in search of something more substantial to put in their stomachs.

Florence would ogle the hats on pedestals in the window of her favorite hattery and walk slowly by the one confectionery in all of Old Dortam. It would be Arianna who would insist that they had to keep going. They could stop another day . . . but for now, they had to keep going.

I have to keep going.

She cracked her eyes open. The light shining from the other side of her eyelids was not evidence of a bright winter morning, but a buzzing electric bulb. The noise around her was not Arianna, but an Alchemist. The chill was indeed from winter, but it was magnified by the depths of the Underground.

“Shannra? Willie? Thomas?” Florence whispered.

“They’re all fine,” a familiar voice replied. “Varying states of fine, but all fine, nevertheless.”

Florence knew who she was speaking to the moment his face appeared in her vision. “Didn’t know you made it to Ter.4, Derek.”

“I was one of the last to make it out of Ter.2. You’d already moved by the time I got to Ter.0 and by the time you settled in here . . . Neither Nora or I knew how to approach the infamous Florence.”

“Infamous? Has a nice ring to it.”

“You would think so.” Without warning, he plunged a syringe into her arm and a warm sensation flowed up through her veins.

Silence passed between them as Florence waited for her mind to clear. Things were different now. Perhaps it was because she’d gained “infamy” that she hadn’t set out in search of them either. After all, there was a time when he and Nora had been everything to her.