“Did Daverik decide it was time for me to die?” Zusa asked.
“He still loves you,” Ezra said, crouching down as she circled her, looking like a strange animal ready for the pounce. Even her eyes were wide and wild. “But even he knows that the loyalty of our faith must come before those we love.”
“Some faith,” Zusa said, grinning to hide her exhaustion and worry. “Is that what they told you when they stripped you naked and forced you into the Faceless? Loyalty before love?”
Ezra thrust, but pulled it back when Zusa moved to block it. Another thrust, this one equally prepared for. Ezra was testing for an opening, gauging her reaction speed. Zusa felt her nerves fraying. She didn’t have time for this.
“You don’t deserve his love,” Ezra said.
“You’re wrong,” Zusa said. “He doesn’t deserve mine.”
Zusa took the offensive, and was surprised when Ezra did not move to block. Instead she remained still, even when the daggers closed in on her neck. But Zusa did not cut flesh. Instead her daggers moved right through, as if hitting a mirage. From behind her she heard laughter, and spun to find Ezra there, twirling her daggers in mockery.
“I have Karak’s blessing,” she said. “Behold his gift.”
As Zusa watched, Ezra’s form grew still, then blinked away, just an afterimage. It was like when staring too long at the sun, the seeing of something burned into the eye that wasn’t actually there. Zusa tensed for an attack, but could only guess where it would come from.
“I prayed,” Ezra said, off to her left. Zusa spun, but again just an afterimage. When Ezra spoke again, she was on the right. “All night I prayed for the strength to defeat you. And now I have it.”
The image of her shifted, and suddenly she was mere inches away, leering toward her.
“I can move faster than the eye,” she told Zusa, laughing. “What hope have you now?”
Zusa swung at her, and their daggers connected. For a moment it was an old, familiar dance, a give and take of position that Zusa knew she could easily win. But when she tried to finish her opponent, to thrust through an opening to pierce Ezra’s heart, Ezra’s form turned blurry, and then she was ten feet away down the street.
“Damn it,” Zusa whispered. She didn’t have time for this, but she had to remain calm, had to think. Slowly Ezra approached, reeking of confidence.
“Will you always run?” Zusa asked her. “Stand and fight, and stop using Karak’s gift as an excuse to hide your cowardice.”
Ezra shook her head, still walking toward her. Every slow footstep ate away another second, each one perhaps the difference between life and death for Alyssa. And Ezra knew it, too. Zusa could see it in the mocking glint in the woman’s eyes.
Zusa flung herself forward, a rash attack that Ezra would expect from her. With her skill, it might have been enough to overwhelm Ezra, but Zusa had something else in mind. At the last moment, just before their daggers clashed, she dove to the side, making a run toward the mansion. Ezra spun, and Zusa trusted her to react on instinct, to believe her frantically running toward her loved ones.
A mere two steps toward the mansion, Zusa flipped her left dagger so the blade faced downward in her fist, then dug her heels in so she might fling herself backward. It was a blind stab, a gamble, as her dagger thrust through her own cloak. Ezra collided with her, caught unaware of the sudden change in her direction. The blade of the dagger punched through cloth, flesh, then belly. Ezra gasped, her upper body collapsing against Zusa, her head on her shoulder. Zusa twisted, keeping the position awkward and their bodies entangled so Ezra could not thrust.
“Zusa...” gasped Ezra as her body shivered.
“You should have listened,” Zusa said, pulling her dagger free. “You could have found freedom. You could have prevented this.”
When she pushed away, the other woman had nothing to lean against, and no strength of her own to stand. Zusa ran on, leaving Ezra to die alone, slumped over in the dirt and darkness.
31
Alyssa lay on the floor of Nathaniel’s room, slowly breathing in and out as blood trickled down the side of her chest to the carpet. The small bolt had caught her right breast, and with each breath it flared with pain. Despite every desire to move, to scream and fight, she could do nothing, immobilized by the poison coursing through her veins.
“Don’t cry, Nathan,” Stephen said, a second bolt readied in the crossbow and aimed straight at him. “I know you’re young, but Melody’s said much of you. You’re a bright child, a wise child. I think you’re ready for this, ready to see the ugly truth behind the lies of this world.”