Shadow Heart (36 page)

He punched her hard in the gut, so quickly she did not even have time to brace herself. The wind exploded from her lungs, and she gasped for more to replace it. Had she not been tied to the tree she certainly would be on her knees, but all she could do was lean forward. Rowan pushed her back against the tree and drew his knife. She tried to dodge his thrust at her neck but had nowhere to go. He could have killed her in that moment, but he stopped short, reaching up to the collar of her uniform and using the knife to cut the fabric. A moment later she felt the cold air bite at her chest. He had not disrobed her entirely, but now the uniform was extremely low cut. Hardly the fashion for a Silent Thunder operative.

She laughed and received a backhanded slap.

“Laugh while you can, for you will not enjoy this,” Rowan said. “There is a saying from one of the old religions. You may have heard it. ‘Those who live by the sword shall die by the sword.’ Well, it is no secret that your feminine charms have been your greatest weapon. In death you will be stripped of that weapon. Whoever finds you—
if
they find you—will see you humiliated and bare, all traces of beauty stripped away.”

“And what care will I have for that once I’m dead?” she asked.

He raised the knife and pressed the cool steel to her cheek, “Who said anything about killing you, my dear?”

The cold seemed to spread from her chest to the rest of her body, freezing her veins as it went. She did not fear death, not really. She feared dying. And most of all, she feared the notion that she would survive something she should not, that she would take the slow road, lingering on in the world—suffering—even after death had marked her. This was what Rowan had planned. Pain. Torture. Maiming her beyond recognition. And then ensuring her survival, so that she must live with her suffering.

Panic seized her, and though in her right mind she may have tried to remain stoic and calm, the imaginings of what was about to happen to her drove her mad with fear. She took a deep breath and let out a shriek, louder and more desperate than anything to have ever escaped her throat. And that shriek took the form of a name, the name of the only person who could help her now.

Rowan stepped even closer now, so near she could feel his breath. And he smiled at her, eyes sparkling with the gleam of victory. He placed a piece of tape over her mouth and whispered mockingly in her ear.

“Thank you.”

G
RACE FROZE ON THE
stairs when she heard the cry. She might have taken it for an animal if it hadn’t taken the form of her name. Liz was in trouble. And she had left her out there alone. She bounded down the stairs as fast as she could go, heedless of her previously injured leg for the first time.

Not until she reached the bottom did she finally come to her senses. The lights were on. Liz had shouted her name. Whoever was out there, they knew Grace was inside. If she walked out the front door, she would fall right into their hands.

The chances of her coming away clean from this were slim to none. With no clues as to who might be out there or what they might want, she would be going in blind. In fact, there was no way for her to even know if Liz was still alive. That cry could very well have been her last. The thought made her angry...to have come this far with someone and then lose them—it was more than she could stomach.

She would leave here either with Liz, or revenge.

Grace drew
Novus Vita
and made her way over to the far wall where she had turned on the lights just little more than an hour before. She took a deep breath and pulled down on the lever, plunging everything back into the deep darkness of night. If they had been watching the door for her, they would now be just as blind as she was, so she felt along the wall for the doorway and slid back outside. Not getting shot upon exit was a plus, so she made her way quickly and quietly around the base of the outpost, hoping that her black uniform would make her even more difficult to see.

As her eyes adjusted and the trees came back into focus, she stepped away from the outpost and pressed her back against a trunk to check her bearings. She still had not been attacked, but there was no sign of Liz, either. She peered around the side of the tree and caught sight of Barley’s silhouette a few yards away, still tied up in the very same place he had been when she left.

The entire area was quiet, but there was a tension in the air, a feeling of anticipation like the calm before an ambush. Something was out there, waiting, stalking her. She had been hunted before, but there was something different about this. Maybe it was being alone in darkness, or the tomb of dead bodies mere feet away, but she sensed death at her door, ready to take her at any moment. She might not even see it coming.

Her grip tightened on
Novus Vita
, and she took a look around to the other side of the tree. A shadow moved, inconsistent with the motion of the branches overhead, and she strained her eyes in that direction. She caught a glint of Liz’s golden hair in the moonlight, blowing softly in the breeze. She was standing still, which was unlike her. The only time she could stay in one spot longer than two seconds was when she was asleep. She must be bound, or worse.

From what she had seen so far, it seemed she was not dealing with the Persians or any other large group, but only one man. She didn’t know whether to feel better or worse about that fact. Thoughts of being stalked by a single pair of eyes creeped her out more than if it had been several. Armies, she knew. The lone murderer was more difficult to understand and therefore harder to fight.

Grace ran down her analysis quickly. Liz was a Spectral-adept, and the odds that this man was also skilled with a Gladius were slim to none. He never could have bested her in a frontal assault, so he must have taken her by surprise. He was probably mere feet away, waiting for Grace to make her cautious approach to free Liz from her bonds. That was what any sane person would do.

Naturally, she would have to do something else.

She pivoted around the tree and took off at a full run straight for Liz,
Novus Vita
coming alive as if the moon’s light had taken physical form. It was the first time she had run like that since injuring her leg, and it felt good. For a moment she could almost forget the danger, but as Liz came into focus the reality of the situation crashed back down on her.

Her arms were bound behind the trunk of a tree, and gray tape covered her mouth. But her eyes were wide with both warning and surprise. Had her lips been free, the words
it’s a trap
would certainly have escaped them, but sometimes the only choice was to spring the trap and hope the predator made a mistake.

Grace had closed half the distance when it happened. Something whizzed past her ear, cutting through her hair as it went. Too slow for a bullet, too fast for something thrown—probably a tranquilizer dart. Regardless, the stalker had given up his position. Now they were getting somewhere.

She dove behind the nearest tree and drew her sidearm with her free hand. She squeezed three rounds in the direction from which the attack had come, then took off again, this time in an arc slightly away from Liz. She made it to another tree just as a second dart thunked into the opposite side. She fired in his direction again, and once again went on the move.

By now he should have guessed at her strategy. If she continued on her current course and he remained stationary, she would eventually flank him, and with her Gladius in the equation that would mean game over for him. He would have to leave the safety of his position to escape her.

But that was all Grace needed. Once she could see him, he would cease to become a shadow stalking her in the night. He would become flesh and blood…and the predator would become the prey.

His third shot ricocheted off her Spectral Gladius just before she reached her third hiding place along the circle—a lucky miss—and she followed the routine by firing two more shots in his direction. But this time, she did not run right after. She merely watched for her opponent among the trees.

It was a risky move, but it paid off. The black figure slunk out from behind a forked tree and made his way around, attempting to stay diametrically opposite her. But now that she knew his position, she would not have to catch him.

She holstered her sidearm and pulled back on the hilt of
Novus Vita
. The Gladius vibrated as the magnetic forces realigned, and the metal sword widened into a cylinder. She leaned around the tree, took aim at the figure’s position, and pulled the trigger.

The rolling hum of charging Solithium filled the quiet forest, and two seconds later a ball of white flame burst from the end of the Gladius, destroying the tree and ripping up the ground like a mortar shell. She ran back along the arc in the direction from which she had come. The shadow moved within the smoke, moving toward her now, and as she closed the distance she raised the Gladius and pulled the trigger again.

Another burst, another ball of flame, another explosion of dirt and smoke, and still the shadow came on.
Novus Vita
reformed into a blade as the distance between her and her opponent closed. Then a spike of white appeared in the assassin’s hand, and Grace barely had time to register her shock before the man's Gladius crashed into her own.

But it had apparently been nothing more than a feint, for as she squared her feet into dueling stance he blew right past her, caring nothing for shelter. Grace drew her sidearm again and took careful aim. She fired, and blood sprayed from the man's shoulder. The force of the bullet ripping through his body knocked him to the ground, and the Gladius went flying. He groaned and rolled back to his feet, crying out as he tried to push through the pain. He managed to scoop the Gladius up from where it had fallen as Grace squeezed off another round. The bullet threw up dirt as it was buried in the earth.

The man stumbled for the cover of a tree and disappeared right before she fired again. She retreated behind one herself, fighting the urge to yell out obscenities. Now they were back to square one: cat and mouse. Only now she was the cat, and he the mouse.

She took a deep breath and prepared to lay cover fire for her next advance—

“Well played, Commander,” a male baritone rumbled into the silence. “But you forgot to protect your queen.”

Grace leaned around the trunk and caught sight of him standing next to Liz with the Gladius at her throat. She closed her eyes in exasperation.
Liz!
How could she have forgotten to protect her? She had been so focused on her entrapment that she hadn't seen through his plan. Now they would both likely die for it.

“Come on out,” the assassin ordered. “Nice and slow.”

She emerged, hands out to her sides, still holding both her Spectral Gladius and her sidearm. For a split second she considered shooting him, but even if she killed him instantly, the blade would still prove fatal to Liz.

Liz attempted to cry out, but her voice was muffled by the tape over her mouth. Grace could imagine the things she was trying to say: at first, warnings to come no further, to leave her behind. And then, as she drew closer, insults on the stupidity of her actions. A small corner of Grace's mind had to agree. The chance for both of them to escape this alive had all but disappeared, but Grace could still get away on her own. But that wasn't how Grace treated her friends. She could not leave her to die just to save herself...even if all she accomplished was that Liz wouldn't die alone.

“Drop your weapons,” the man ordered. She hesitated for only a moment before obeying, and when her Gladius hit the dirt there was certain peace to it—a resignation, as if she had been awaiting this day for the better part of the year. She recalled distantly the emotions running through her as she had walked down to the pyre for execution in the Central Square. Fear. Anger. Doubt. She'd had so much life left to live, a life of promise and value.

No such emotions plagued her now. She had lost most of the things she had wanted to survive for. In a way she had merely been hanging on to the frayed remains of her old life, waiting for the final thread to break.

The man directed her to a tree opposite Liz, where he tied her up in similar fashion. She got a good look at him now, up close. He was attractive in his own way, obviously a trained military man, muscular all the way up to the firm set of his jaw. But it was his eyes that took her aback—not the eyes of a man, but of a machine. She had seen that look many times before in the eyes of Great Army soldiers. But there was something deeper there. Great Army soldiers had their humanity stripped away to be replaced by obedience. This man had been given something else entirely.

Liz no longer struggled to speak, nor did she attempt to make eye contact with her. The resignation of death was clear on her face as well. What regrets did she foster now, at the end? What wrongs did she lament being unable to make right?

“Few marks have been able to wound me,” the man shrugged his shoulder uncomfortably as he stepped away. “You should have aimed a little further to the left.”