“What is it you want from me?” Alyssa asked her. “Truly, what? Do you want to see me married? Do you want us to run from Veldaren, dragging Nathaniel with us so we might escape and leave the scum to pick apart our remains? Or do you want me to die fighting a war we cannot win, spilling blood as I have spilled it so many times before?”
Zusa took Alyssa’s hand into hers, and she squeezed her fingers tight.
“I’d have you know joy,” she said. “I’d have you feel safe. I’d see you smile again and give not a damn for what all others would think or do.”
Alyssa smiled at her, and it was so sad, it broke her heart.
“My hope for that is gone,” she said. “It left me the moment Stephen ripped the eyes from my face.”
She gestured to her dress.
“Am I presentable?”
Zusa swallowed down a knot in her throat.
“Beautiful as always,” she said.
“Good. We have left Victor waiting long enough.”
She offered her hand, and Zusa took it and led her down the hall. After asking a servant for Victor’s whereabouts, she found him waiting in the garden behind the mansion, nestled between the long east and west wings of the building. He sat on a cracked marble bench, chin resting on his fist as his eyes stared far into nowhere. As usual, he looked prepared for war instead of a casual conversation. When he noticed their arrival, he bolted to his feet, then bowed low.
“Lady Alyssa, Zusa,” he said, addressing each in turn. “Thank you for agreeing to visit with me on this fine morning.”
“Better sense would have had me send you away,” said Alyssa as she sat next to him on the bench. Zusa remained standing, lurking behind the bench with her fingers tapping the sides of her daggers. With each passing day, her trust of Victor had shrunk. It was more than just his stubborn display the last time he’d spoken with Alyssa, at how he’d laid his hands upon her. There was a hunger in his eyes, a desperation that belied his handsome smile. The morning sun might have lit up his blond hair like spun gold, but to her eyes, he was the rotting corpse of a beggar with outstretched hands.
“Better sense,” said Victor, leaning back and feigning being relaxed. “Now, when have either of us been known to be well in supply of that?”
“I’m not here for idle banter,” Alyssa said, not bothering to hide her annoyance. “You’re lucky to be in my presence after your last visit, so make this quick. You said you brought word from the Guard Captain … What is it, and how could it possibly change any answer I’ve given you before?”
Zusa slowly paced behind them, only half listening to Victor as he began making promises of Antonil’s aid. It was intriguing, of course, but she doubted it would influence Alyssa’s decision. Victor wanted her hand in marriage, and it’d take more than some extra soldiers and illicit coin to win that. Her eyes were on the garden, the soft violet columbines and pink roses buzzing with the occasional insect. She couldn’t shake the feeling that something was amiss. It was like a familiar presence in the back of her mind, no stronger than the buzz of the honeybees flitting from flower to flower.
Again she scanned the garden, searching for the source. It was as if the more primitive part of her mind had spotted and recognized something she did not. Somewhere lurking in the rosemary bushes, hiding behind one of the slender birch trees, perhaps? Or …
She looked to the rooftop of the mansion overlooking the garden, and there she saw it, the crouched specter of a faceless woman, the only one Zusa knew to still be alive.
“Deborah,” she whispered, and she felt ice chill in her veins.
Deborah leaped from the rooftop, and Zusa could tell she knew she’d been spotted. Drawing her daggers, she took a step, meaning to fling herself between Alyssa and the faceless, only to realize as the woman’s trajectory neared that her mistress was not the target.
She was.
Zusa backflipped away as Deborah slammed into the dirt, the impact seeming to have no effect on her body. Her pale cloak settled about her shoulders as she crouched there, daggers in hand.
“You’ve insulted us long enough,” Deborah said as the tall woman rose to her full height. “Today, you will go to Karak, and you will find no mercy in his fire.”
“What is the meaning of this?” Victor asked, leaping from the bench and drawing his sword.
“Stay back,” Zusa said, the muscles in her legs tensing. “You have no place in this fight.”
“Zusa?” Alyssa asked, and she clutched Victor’s wrist in alarm. “Zusa, what’s going on?”
She had no time to answer, for Deborah launched herself into an attack, her body turning in midair to add strength to her downward slashes. Zusa blocked one of the strokes as she fell back, the other coming up short so that it knifed the air before her chest. Instead of taking the opening before her, Zusa continued to retreat, wanting to gain space between them and Alyssa. Besides, she sensed if the fight remained near, that idiot Victor would try to get himself involved. Legs pumping, she leaped once, and then again, soaring through the garden so that her toes brushed the tops of the birches.
The air whipping the cloak about her body, she turned to see Deborah following, the pull of the world meaningless to her as well. As she fell toward another tree, she braced her legs, and upon slamming into its trunk halfway up its length, she kicked off, flying back into the air. Her body extended, her daggers reaching out, and with Deborah still falling, she should have been easy prey.
“Karak!” Deborah shrieked, and the word was like a thunderbolt. Zusa’s upward momentum halted, and she screamed as she felt her bones rattle from the sudden shift. And then it was Deborah who slammed into her feetfirst, blasting her abdomen. Together, they fell to the earth, the other woman’s weight atop her, and she knew upon landing she’d be crushed. Letting go of the dagger in her left hand, she reached out to grab Deborah by the elbow and then pulled with all her might. The motion tilted her just enough so that when they hit the soft grass, it was side by side. Zusa’s head struck dirt, and her vision blacked out as her stomach heaved its contents up and out her throat.
Panic overwhelmed her as she crawled on her knees, still struggling to see. If Deborah had managed the landing better than she had …
Something hard struck the side of her face, and out of instinct, she flung her other dagger in the way. The metal rang against metal, and as the scattershot stars in her vision gave way to sunlight, she caught sight of Deborah preparing another stab. Wishing she still had her other blade, she continued to retreat, twisting her body out of the way to avoid the thrust and then parrying aside a second and third from Deborah’s other hand.
“Did you think I would come unprepared?” Deborah asked as they stepped onto a cobbled walkway running through the center of the garden, the faded violet stones cool beneath Zusa’s feet. “The deciding hour approaches, and Karak has rewarded our faithfulness above all others.”
“That’s wonderful,” said Zusa, spitting out a bit of bile that had collected in the back of her throat. “A shame you’ll die anyway.”
Deborah stepped closer and closer, head tilted to one side, staring out through the thin white cloth covering the opened slit across her eyes.
“Still in denial,” she said. “Still a fool.”
Again she rushed in, and Zusa twisted and danced side to side, parrying whatever she could not avoid. Back onto the grass they went, the march of their combat taking them toward a shallow pond near the heart of the garden. Surrounding it were five rowan trees, tall and thick with creamy white flowers. Zusa tried to retake control of the engagement to fight her way past Deborah, but the woman battled as if possessed, denying her any escape, her daggers always there. Closer and closer to the pond they went, and Zusa knew if she were forced into it, it’d hamper her ability to dodge, leaving her trapped.