❛power isn't everything. it's the only thing.❜
[complete]
wattys 2018 winner ❧
Lin is a hunter, one of the magically enhanced witch slayers that roam a flooded world. Under the laws of four Kings and Greymark, who rules them all, Lin is unto...
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Had Shabina known that Lin cared about Janus, she would have been a little more tactful. Perhaps the bluster and cold shoulders had gotten into her mind and made her believe Lin was truly an impenetrable fortress of a person. The hours drew to darkness, then light again. Shabina waited by the mirror, hovering between guards' shifts and gnawing on her lip. Still nothing. Ealy and Zeke brought chairs and sat with her after the second dusk.
Ealy swiped her hand in Shabina's periphery and began signing. "We don't know what she'll do. What she might have already done."
Shabina rubbed her face and sighed, closing her eyes briefly before responding. "Something dramatic, probably. Without Janus to stop the order, she may simply kill Mara's court. She may have already."
"And we never talked to her about it." Shabina glared at Zeke, the meaning evident despite his words. You didn't talk to her about it.
Her heel bounced on the marble floor, skirts swaying. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do now."
Ealy leaned over and pulled her bag into her lap, fishing through the papers she kept inside. She set a page down in Zeke's lap, which he dutifully held in place.
"We mobilize. Now, if we can. Once Mara falls, the others will pounce. We need to be there first. I have several weak points mapped out that we can attack."
Shabina hissed to herself and dug her heel of her palm against her temple. This was the worst part of being in charge. Ealy and Reyna were perfectly willing to strategize all their attacks. Zeke managed the Citadel itself with Shabina's input. But they liked to hand the largest decisions to her. The ones that mattered. The ones that would make or break their lives.
Ealy leaned over and rested her hand across Shabina's, her eyes wide and tender. She lifted her hands to sign. "To do nothing is to kill anyone we might otherwise have saved."
"I'll be sending our allies to die."
"Not all."
"Enough of them," she sighed again, "and we lose our anonymity. It's such a risk."
"We're always at risk. And our anonymity may already be compromised."
Shabina frowned, straightening in her seat. "What?"
Ealy took the sheet back from Zeke. "The hunter's apprentice. You asked us to look into him, and we found some older reports our spies managed to connect to him."
Shabina's heart sank at that. She motioned Ealy to go on.
"We thought he was only present for King Wilson's meetings, but that wasn't right. He goes off on his own as a spy for his father. Apparently he's excellent at sorting liars. Our plant with the guards says he's constantly beaten down by Wilson, but he's never done anything to hint at being disloyal." Ealy ran her free hand over the page. "It wouldn't be the first time he's faked defection to gain information. I'd suggest eliminating him before – "
