34

Eliana

“Because of your generosity and teaching, my lord, it will take more than a fall from a tower to kill me. One more day, and I will have them.”

—Message written by the Invictus assassin Rahzavel to His Holy Majesty, the Emperor of the Undying

Eliana staggered back to avoid Rahzavel’s flying sword, stumbled over a chair, and fell hard into Navi’s arms.

Simon lunged in front of them, his own sword raised to strike. The two blades crashed together and caught.

“Navi, get her out of here!” Simon bellowed over his shoulder, just before Rahzavel let out a harsh scream and swung his sword around to free himself. Simon stumbled against a pillar, kicked a chair into Rahzavel’s path.

Navi grabbed Eliana’s wrist, and together they raced into the crowd. Bystanders had noticed the fight and hovered nearby. Navi wove through them, shoving at bodies twice her size when they didn’t move fast enough.

“Eliana!” Rahzavel called after them, his words punctuated by grunts and the clashes of blades. “You can’t run from me! I’m like you, don’t you see? I can’t be killed!”

Fear was a fantastic energizer; Eliana’s head cleared with every step. Soon she was the one dragging Navi after her.

“In here,” she gasped, turning Navi into the maze of the fighting pits. Narrow paths separated each cage from the next; a turn past one cage, then another, and they were in the thick of the brawls. A bare-chested fighter threw his opponent against the wire wall to Eliana’s right. The noise was tremendous, the crowd a seething mass on all sides.

“Back to the apartments,” Navi cried. “We’ll be safe there!”

“If a fall wouldn’t kill him,” Eliana replied, “then we’ll never be safe from him again, not until he’s dead.”

I’m like you! I can’t be killed!

But he was wrong, wasn’t he? She could be killed. She wasn’t completely invincible. If he stuck her through the heart with a sword, she would die just like any beast that bleeds.

And him… His fall off the maidensfold tower in Orline must have been a lucky one. He’d hit the water at just the right angle, avoided the rocks scattering the river. The Emperor had fed him a regimen of drugs, conditioned his mind and body over the years to withstand impossible abuse.

“Could he be an angel?” Navi shouted over the din.

Eliana grimaced. “Knowing our luck?”

They emerged from the pits onto the open floor. Eliana ran for a set of twisting iron stairs nearby. As she reached for the railing, a body flew out of the crowd and slammed into her side, knocking both her and Navi to the floor.

Eliana pushed herself up, head spinning. “Navi?”

She lay unconscious two feet away, beside the inert body that had hit them. She must have hit her head against the bottom stair. Eliana crawled toward her.

A sword struck her across her back once, then twice. Blazing pain ripped through her body. She screamed, tightened her grip on Arabeth, turned, caught Rahzavel’s sword with her dagger.

He leered down at her, pressing hard against their joined blades until she was nearly flat on the floor. Her bleeding back was a twisting plane of fire.

“Hello again.” His voice rattled; his ravaged face stretched into a madman’s grin. He stomped down hard on her thigh, then on her ribs. As she screamed, blinking away starbursts of pain, he raised his sword with wild eyes. She plunged Arabeth into the top of his foot, then rolled out from under him right as his sword slammed into the ground.

Navi shook herself awake, then looked in horror at something past Eliana’s shoulder. “Watch out!”

Eliana turned, ducked in time to avoid Rahzavel’s sword. The tip of the blade caught her cheek. Blood spurted hot across her face and arms. She thrust out with Arabeth; he bashed it out of her hand with his sword. She spun out a hard kick at his chest; he grabbed her leg, twisted, slammed her to the ground.

Before his fall, he would have fought her in silence, every movement swift and calculated.

Now he laughed, yelped playfully when one of her daggers caught his skin, clucked his tongue when she missed. A tight crowd had gathered around them, boxing them in with pumping fists and wordless, rhythmic cries hungry for violence.

Eliana grabbed a carving knife from a nearby table, whirled to throw it at him. He knocked it easily aside. She found another one, turned.

She dropped the knife. It clattered useless to the ground. Swaying on her feet, she reached out for support, found nothing, fell to her hands and knees.

Fidelia.

Fog blackened her vision. The nausea returned, sweeping through her with startling violence.

“Look at her!” Rahzavel cried, dancing gleefully around her prone form. “The famous Dread of Orline!”

The crowd responded with a chorus of jeers.

“Eliana, get up!” Navi frantically tugged on her arms. Eliana tried to stand; her limbs gave out, and she crashed to the floor.

“They’re here.” Her stomach wrung itself into a knot. The world spun, tilting right then left. Whoever or whatever was pinning her down, it was wrong. It didn’t fit; it didn’t belong here.

“Run,” she gasped out, groping for Navi’s hand. “They’ll find you.”

“Who will?” Navi’s voice was full of panicked tears.

A furious cry behind them made Eliana blearily turn.

Simon dropped down from the stairs above, crashing feet first into Rahzavel. The assassin dropped hard, then rolled away with a feral peal of laughter and sprang back to his feet. Simon advanced ruthlessly on him, his scarred face ferocious with anger.

Then, turning to block one of Rahzavel’s thrusts, Simon glanced over and found Eliana on the floor. Their gazes locked.

The world seemed to stop. Eliana’s breath caught in her aching chest.

They had been here before—not in the fighting pits of Sanctuary, but in a similar moment of danger and flight.

Of separation.

The certainty of that—like suddenly recalling a lyric long forgotten—opened an unfamiliar chasm in her heart.

A flicker of some unnameable sadness shook Simon’s face. Did he feel it too?

“Run!” he roared at her.

Reality returned. Time spun forward, blistering and unkind.

Eliana shoved her way into the crowd. She heard Navi yell her name, heard a harsh cry, hoped it wasn’t Simon. She searched for another set of stairs that would take her back to the third floor. She would get Remy and leave. They would run as fast as they could, for as far as they could. She would shave their heads; they would get new clothes. They could make it to Astavar like that, disguised and unrecognizable.

She made it to the second floor before Navi caught up with her. The girl grabbed her arm, yanked her back hard. Eliana spun around, pressed Whistler to Navi’s throat.

“I’m getting my brother and leaving,” she spat, “and if you try to stop me, Navi, I swear I will gut you.”

The world spun and wouldn’t stop. Eliana dropped Whistler, sagged against Navi’s body.

“Eliana?” Navi sank to the floor with her. “Get up, please!”

Eliana gasped for breath, her voice choking in her throat. She tried to dislodge herself from Navi’s arms, crawl away, but she couldn’t move.

Then Navi disappeared.

A gloved hand came over Eliana’s mouth, pressing a reeking cloth to her face. She struggled, her scream muffled. Another hand caught the back of her skull, forcing her harder against the cloth.

As her vision dimmed, she saw a black-clothed figure—hood drawn, mask on—gathering an unconscious Navi into his arms.

The wrongness in the air swallowed Eliana whole. She wanted to be sick again, but the pressure bearing down on her throat prevented it.

A voice at her ear whispered, “And when the Gate fell, He found me in the chaos, pointed to my thirsting heart, and said, ‘You I shall deliver into the glory of the new world,’ and I wept at his feet and was remade.”

Then Eliana slipped into a narrow pit, where the fading world around her jolted sharply before folding her away into nothingness.