“Wrath, son of Wrath.” He did not hear the mother of the race approach, but then she levitated around such that her black robes never touched whatever floor was beneath her. “You have come unto me for what purpose.”
She knew damn well why he was here, and he wasn’t playing her game anymore. “I want to know if you did this to me.”
The birds fell silent, as if shocked by his temerity.
“Did what to you.” Her voice sounded the same as it had when she’d appeared at the Tomb with Vishous: distant and disinterested. Which kinda pissed a guy off when he was having trouble making it down his own stairs.
“My fucking sight. Did you take it away from me because I went out to fight?” He ripped his wraparounds off his face and tossed them across the slick floor. “Did you do this to me.”
In days gone by she would have lashed him until he bled for that kind of insubordination, and as he waited to see what came at him, he almost hoped she licked his ass with a lightning bolt.
There was no smiting, however. “What was going to be was going to be. Your fighting had nothing to do with your loss of sight, and neither did I. Now go back to your world and leave me to mine.”
He knew she had turned away, because her voice faded as she headed off in the opposite direction.
Wrath frowned. He’d come expecting a fight, and he wanted one. Instead? He got nothing to engage with, not even a row over his deliberate disrespect.
The radical shift in paradigm was so stark, for a moment he forgot all about his blindness. “What is wrong with you?”
He got no answer, just a door shutting softly.
In the Scribe Virgin’s absence, the birds stayed quiet, the delicate sound of falling water all that grounded him. Until someone else approached.
On instinct, he turned to the footfalls and assumed his fighting stance, surprised to find that he wasn’t as defenseless as he’d thought. In the absence of sight, his hearing filled out the picture that was no longer created by his eyes: He knew where the person was by the rustle of their robing and an odd click, click, click and…shit, he could even hear their heartbeat.
Strong. Steady.
What was a male doing here?
“Wrath, son of Wrath.” Not a male voice. A female one. And yet the impression he had was masculine. Or maybe it was just powerful?
“Who are you?” he demanded.
“Payne.”
“Who?”
“Doesn’t matter. Tell me something, you plan on doing anything with those fists? Or are you just going to stand there?”
He dropped his arms immediately, as it was entirely inappropriate to raise a hand to a female-
The uppercut slammed into his jaw so hard, it whipped his head and shoulders around. Stunned, more out of surprise than pain, he fought to regain his balance. The second he did, there was a whizzing sound and he was pounded again, the next blow catching him under his jaw and kicking his skull back.
That was all she got in with the clean shots, though. His defensive instincts and his years of training responded even though he couldn’t see anything, his hearing functioning as his eyes, telling him where things like arms and legs were. He grabbed a surprisingly thin wrist and wrenched the female around-
Her heel made hard contact with his shin, the pain spearing up his leg and pissing him off as something like a rope swung into his face. He grabbed it and hoped it was a braid attached to the female’s-
Yanking it hard, he felt her body torque backward. Yup, attached to her head. Perfect.
Getting her off-kilter was easy, but man, she was a strong motherfucker. With only one leg supporting her weight, she managed to jump and spin, clipping him in the shoulder with her knee.
He heard her land and start to scramble, but he kept a hold on her hair, reining her in. She was like water, though, always fluid, always moving, hitting him time and time again until he was forced to manhandle her onto the ground and pin her down.
It was a case of brute strength winning out over grace.
Panting, he looked into a face he couldn’t see. “What the fuck is your problem?”
“I’m bored.” With that, she head-butted him right in the goddamn nose.
Pain made him feel like he was on a merry-go-round, his hold briefly lessening. Which was all she needed to get free again. Now he was the one on the bottom, her forearm cranked around his throat and pulling back so hard, she must have had a grip on her wrist for greater leverage.
Wrath strained to get air down into his lungs. Holy shit, she was going to kill him if she kept this up. She really was.
Deep within himself, deep down into his very marrow, deep into the double helixes of his DNA, the response came. He was not going to die here and now. No fucking way. He was a survivor. He was a fighter. And whoever this bitch was, she was not going to issue him his ticket to the Fade.