Page 162

That word, Hunter, lashed like a whip-strike into the crowd, more powerful even than the throw of the blade. The gasps transformed into sounds of horror; the wariness turned into outright fear. Even Ed took a step back as he looked between me and Mara.

Because this was a terror that had long been branded into the bones of Daradonian Wielders.

The terror of facing a Hunter. A harbinger of death.

Mara gave me a pointed smile. “Rats will always run.”

Her arm whipped out again, this next blade hurtling straight for me.

I took a sharp inhale just as the blade stilled in midair, an inch from my nose. My breaths roared in my ears, my eyes crossing to take in its point.

Then the blade dropped, and Mara dropped with it. Her knees slammed to the ground and her head wrenched back, baring the column of her throat.

And behind her, gliding through the murky water like a sea serpent, was Valeria.

The water rippled around her mourning dress as she emerged onto the raised ground and stood at my side to stare down at the woman who had, for a month, been her torturer.

“Gods,” Mara whispered, her surprise twinkling into morbid amusement. “Is that my little doll?” A groan of pain followed the question; Valeria must have tightened her specter around Mara’s neck.

Water sloshed, and then Osana was on my other side, weary and soaked but as steely as I’d ever seen her. She retrieved the knife at my feet and hesitated.

Then she handed it to me.

I looked at the blade, its length gleaming. This was a Hunter’s blade, one of the many used to kill Daradonian Wielders. Used to kill Osana’s parents, and my own.

Though I wanted to be the one to end this Hunter’s life, I looked instead toward Valeria—to the ridges of the scar cutting down her profile.

Slowly, I offered her the knife. “She’s yours.”

Val’s eyes flicked to mine. There was no vengeance in her expression as she steadily took the handle. Only a sense of completion. Of justice.

She started forward, and Mara’s ugly humor died.

“Wait!” Mara squirmed in Valeria’s restraints; her eyes were pinned on the blade, but I knew she was talking to me. “Erik has you right where he wants you. Don’t you want to stop him?”

Valeria paused, looking at me in silent consultation.

“Oh, I know all the king’s dirty little secrets,” Mara said, bolstered by the hesitation. “If that creature can even be called a king.”

I straightened, stunned. The Hunters knew Erik was a Wielder? Then why were they still trying to earn his mercy? Why had Briar sent Mara here at all?

“What are you waiting for?” Zeke demanded. “Look what she did to this place—to these people!”

“You think I did this?” Mara’s laughter sent me bristling with fresh doubt. “Fires are for people who don’t want to see the blood on their hands.” She smiled at Zeke through her glassy-eyed pain. “But you’d know about that, wouldn’t you, coward?”

Zeke started for her again, but it was Osana who shoved him back this time.

“Stand down,” she ordered. Then she looked at me and nodded, something newly trusting in her gaze. “Get the answers you need, Paine.”

I swallowed hard and faced Mara. “What do you know?”

Mara bared her teeth in a grin, opened her mouth to speak—

And the knife flew out of Valeria’s grasp.

The crowd rippled as one more figure ascended the rise. Arun.

“Congratulations, ladies,” he purred. “You have successfully apprehended a Hunter of Daradon. We can take the reins from here.”