both fists. Ramson threw himself forward. Pain exploded in his chest as he rolled beneath the man, springing to a crouch by the wall behind him.
The bodyguard raised his fists again. This time, Ramson had nowhere to go.
A surge of wind blasted at him, so strong that even the huge bodyguard staggered, raising his hands to shield himself. A small dark blur shot at Ramson. He felt an arm lock around his abdomen, and then they were sliding across the debris-cluttered floor, propelled by the gale.
Hands gently laid him on the floor, and a face came into view. Slender and sharp, with short black hair and midnight eyes. He’d seen this face only across a crowded arena, and then in the murky shadows of a bar in Novo Mynsk, when he’d bought her contract afterward.
“Windwraith,” Ramson croaked. “Linn.”
“Ana,” Linn said. “Have you seen her?”
He had so many questions—had the Windwraith held her end of the Trade? But his head swam. “The Coronation ceremony,” he managed. “I told her I’d hold off these Affinites.”
She cast him a doubtful look. “You?” she intoned, and with the suppleness of a professional acrobat, she sprang to her feet. Daggers flashed in her hands. A leather belt strapped across her waist held a wicked assortment of throwing knives.
Wind exploded before Linn, knocking Kerlan back, screaming, against the bodyguard. The bodyguard raised a hand again, turning his face from the gale.
Linn flicked her wrist.
The bodyguard howled in pain. Blood seeped from his midriff, where a small knife had embedded itself in his flesh.
Suddenly, the wind died and a terrible silence fell upon the hallway.
Linn made a noise, like a small animal in pain. Ramson saw the white flash of a cloak against the wreckage of the hall. The yaeger had returned. He was blocking Linn’s Affinity. He strode out from behind a pillar, his eyes pinned to Linn.
Linn flung two knives at the man. He blocked them easily with his swords.
Beyond the pain of his bleeding wounds, hope fluttered in Ramson’s chest. He realized that none of Kerlan’s Affinites were trained fighters like Linn.
Over twenty paces from them, Kerlan clutched his expensive doublet, his face pale as a sheet. Interesting, Ramson thought, that a man who aimed to inflict so much pain could bear so little. Kerlan motioned to his bodyguard, who was bleeding profusely from his own wounds. The bodyguard stooped and wrapped a giant arm around Kerlan’s waist.
Abruptly, they turned and hobbled away.
Linn’s hands went to her thighs, and two more knives appeared in her fists. She crouched by where Ramson lay, her eyes trained on the yaeger. The man waited across the hall by a broken marble pillar.
Kerlan and his bodyguard’s fading footsteps were smothered by another sound: a rhythmic rumbling that echoed across the domed ceilings and broken marble façades. Ramson recognized these—he had heard them many, many years ago, at the Blue Fort. These were the footsteps of an army. He racked his brain for the security protocols of the Salskoff Palace. In the case of an attack, the Palace guards held the first line of defense until the reinforcements came. And the reinforcements were not just any ordinary guards. These were the Empire’s elite fighters and strongest warriors.
The Whitecloaks were coming.
“Can you move?” It took Ramson a moment to realize Linn was addressing him.
He pushed himself up, and his chest felt like it was on fire. A groan escaped from deep in his throat. “Yes.”
Linn plucked something from her waist: a small leather pouch, camouflaged among all the weapons. The contents inside clinked gently as she slipped it into Ramson’s hands. “Bring these to Ana. They are the evidence she needs.”
“You don’t expect me to leave you to fight alone?”
“Go,” she replied, without looking back at him. The yaeger advanced on them, swords held at his sides, reflecting the light from the chandelier above.
Ramson climbed to his feet, the broken pieces of marble and crushed flooring crunching beneath him as he stood. His chest bled where Kerlan had stabbed him, but the wound wasn’t deep enough to kill him.
He would live—at least until he reached Ana.
He glanced back. Linn remained in the same defensive stance, her knives steady in her hands, her gaze focused with sharp intent on the approaching yaeger.
It was a fight between a sparrow and an eagle.
For a moment, Ramson thought of calling back to Linn with a Kemeiran blessing. But blessings and prayers were for the fainthearted, and Ramson had never believed in leaving your fate