NOVEL NEXT Chapter 113: Shadowed Sacrifice
Claire tore down the street towards the lumbering creature, cursing herself. Rae's dagger was unfamiliar in her hand, and even the sensation of running felt unfamiliar. Claire wasn't a fighter. Her fists and the blade both were as foreign to her as healing might be to someone like Kess. Yet she'd spent most of her life surrounded by blood and gore. She didn't fear it, but she wasn't sure she was prepared to shed it.
The streets were empty, and Claire dared hope for a moment that she'd be able to stop the creature without interference. She hadn't looked behind her to see if Arlette and the others were following, though part of her hoped they were. Her hopes were dashed when a single Blocker wandered lazily into the street in front of her. Claire skidded to a halt, looking behind her for the others. They were dealing with their own group of Blockers several streets away—too far to help.
Claire was alone. She gripped the dagger, swallowing as her thoughts raced. She tried to dodge, hoping she could get around the creature. After all, the street was wide, and Claire was fast. She immediately felt foolish as its comically long arms stretched to block her. She twisted, narrowly avoiding the arms as they sprung past her face. She knew what would happen if they touched her, and unfortunately, she needed her Fulminancy for the creature ahead. I have to do this without getting hit, she thought. Wonderful.
Claire hesitated, her damp hand clutching the knife, her heartbeat in her throat. She'd discovered how to slow these things down. She knew how every nerve and tendon held together this monstrosity that made a mockery of human anatomy. She could defeat it. She had to defeat it.
She studied the creature, looking for weaknesses. The limbs could stretch nearly as far as they wanted to, but Claire was fairly certain that there was a limit to the bones and ligaments within those limbs. It was a form of a human corpse, after all. The creature would have a blind spot.
Claire circled it carefully, then charged.
What am I doing? She thought as she swept in close. That arm swung around to grab her, lightning quick. I'm not a fighter like the rest of them. She hated the lightning that snapped through her veins, tying her stomach into knots—adrenaline. Adrenaline made her hasty. It made her movements shaky and less sure. It made stitches sloppy and ruined the dexterity needed for complex surgery.
And yet here, it gave her an added burst of speed she didn't know she had. She ducked the arm, coming around the back of the creature a little clumsily, nearly losing her footing. If she was right, then the arms wouldn't be able to—
She was right, but she'd forgotten about the neck. It stretched around to snap at her, but Claire sunk her dagger right into one of its upper vertebrae. It stopped moving, gasped, and collapsed. Claire removed her dagger with a squelch that would have made just about anyone else sick to their stomach, then sat back for a moment, collecting herself.
Her hands shook. Her legs were weak. But her Fulminancy was still there. Fighter or not, she had a job to do. She got to her wobbling legs and stumbled back down the street towards the school.
Kess struggled against bonds she couldn't see, straining muscles as tears ran down her face. Her head throbbed and ached from Niall's throw, and her vision was blurry, but it was the least of her problems. Her tongue was thick in her mouth, but she could still speak, so she tried that.
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"Oliver," she ground out, her voice ragged. Something in her broke at his cold eyes. This was wrong. This was her brother—not a spy, not an agent of the Council sent to temper her. They'd lived together, dined together, laughed together. He was her only family left. This isn't him, she thought desperately. It can't be. The Archives were wrong.
Oliver's knife paused over her hand as Niall got to his feet in the background, dusting off his cloak and wincing. Kess went on, though there wasn't a flicker of light in her brother's eyes. "Oliver, you know I'm the last person to beg for my powers. I've been trying to get rid of them for years. But this won't change anything. You'll level the city. Please, just—just leave them alone. We can work together."
Oliver's voice was level even as the Ashfall roared nearby. "You've spent the last year rescuing criminals and attacking soldiers and you want me to believe that you're suddenly focused on the greater good?"
"Criminals? They were innocent people. Please, this is bigger than us. This is—"
"They were Fulminant criminals and their Forgebrand families, hellbent on causing the same sort of destruction you were. Kess, we regulate these things for a reason. People like you—the Council would never have allowed you to go free without a good reason. Rules exist for a reason—order keeps societies and people alive."
"Does that look like order is winning to you?" Kess spat, wincing when her head refused to jerk towards the storm. Oliver's eyes maintained that damning, level coolness, not a hint of hesitation in them.
Kess searched his eyes for a hint of a man she thought she'd known, but found nothing. She'd been so careful. She'd sacrificed so much to make sure she stayed away from these people. And yet, somehow, they'd followed her all this time, and with her brother no less. She shook her head haltingly, still trying in vain to pull her hand away.
"You weren't like this," she whispered, trying another tactic. "This isn't the brother I knew. Fulminancy was a tool for you, but not the people wielding it."
He raised an eyebrow at her, the knife still hovering over her palm. "Is it not the same?" he asked. Cold ran through Kess's veins.
"You've changed," she whispered. Oliver laughed humorlessly.
"No, Kess. I haven't changed. I've always been this way, but when did you ever get to know me? Even after we spent all that time together Downhill, you were focused on one thing—avoiding Fulminancy, avoiding any kind of conflict except the kind that you deemed acceptable. You fought to run, Kess. Did you ever think to actually talk to the brother you spent so much time protecting?" His voice caught on the word. "You were secrets, and lies, and late nights spent getting bloodied and bruised. You never talked to me about your powers. You never asked me what I really thought about that night all those years ago." His words grew stronger as he spoke. "You were too focused on brawling like a coward. Well Kess, I can brawl too." He raised the dagger, and Kess gritted her teeth, trying one last time to snatch her hand away. "But unlike you, I brawl to win."
The dagger fell. Kess shut her eyes.
She waited for the pain and the inevitable feeling of her Fulminancy being drained, but Oliver gasped as a sick crunching sound whisked through the air. Something warm hit her cheek. Kess opened her eyes and snatched her hand back as she felt Oliver's grip loosen and his knife clatter to the ground.
Oliver knelt poised over her, a knife firmly through his hand, blood gushing from it as he cried out and gripped his arm with his other hand. For a moment, addled by her crash into the wall, Kess thought it was his own knife. Then her eyes caught movement.
Rae stood on the battlements with Rowan not far behind, smirking as she leaned back and crossed her arms. She sauntered over to Oliver, so confident that even Niall only watched, though Rowan's sword might have had something to do with that. Kess pulled herself to her feet, grabbing her staff, and backed up to the wall as Rae passed her, clapping her on the shoulder.
She crouched down by Oliver, smiling, then spoke. "The problem with that—Oliver? Is that your name?—is that everyone else is fighting to win too."