Fated Blades (Kinsmen)

The street gently curved around a narrow plateau rising from the city like a stone sword. They wove their way through the crowd until they reached the Kamen Gap, a narrow canyon between two plateaus. The crowd thinned. All those without reservations would be barred from entering the plaza, and for a moment they were alone, marching full speed through the passage, round amber lanterns sprouting from the living rock illuminating their way.

All her worries evaporated. The last traces of tension that had settled on her shoulders since she watched the recording of her husband’s betrayal left her. It was simple now. Live or die. Succeed and win everything, or fail and lose it all. Either way, it would be decided tonight. She felt light, strong, and ready.

Matias caught her hand and squeezed it. She gripped his fingers, searching for that same connection she’d felt when they danced. It pulsed into her, binding the two of them together, true, honest, without any subterfuge or pretense, and she leaned into the powerful current, eager to test it.

The entrance to the plaza loomed ahead, the two walls on its sides thrusting out like the jaws of some great beast. They walked toward it hand in hand.

A kissing couple lingered on the left, a blonde woman and a man half-hidden by a long pale cloak. As they passed, the man raised his head, and she stared at Karion’s face. They kept walking.

“My brother has a girlfriend,” she murmured, bewildered.

“Or at least someone willing to kiss him,” Matias said.

The enormous stone gates towered before them. The dancing troupe was already here, the couples milling to the right, just outside of the gate, wearing similar clothes. Matias and Ramona joined the dancers. A dark-haired woman nodded to Matias.

A drumbeat started, measured and light, a precursor of things to come. The first pair of dancers joined hands and strode through the gate in time to the beat of the drum.

Flutes joined in, weaving around the drumbeat. One by one, the dancer couples entered the plaza.

The strings caught the melody. The pace quickened.

The last of the dancers walked through the gate. It was their turn. Matias raised his hand. She put her fingers into his. The connection flowed between them, and they glided through into the plaza.

A square of paved stone thirty meters across greeted them. Textured walls rose on both sides, sheer until the top, where ornamental parapets fenced in the spectators seated in small groups at low tables. An older woman in a bright-yellow gown looked directly at them. Nadira, Matias’s aunt, sitting at a table with Adra’s mayor. Ramona glanced to her right and saw Uncle Sabor smiling at her from the other wall.

Directly ahead, the facade of the hotel emerged from the sheer cliff, its columns and reliefs carved with such care they seemed draped with velvet. Eight people sat on the balcony. Varden, two lieutenants, a large man standing behind them, and to the right, Gabriel and Cassida with two bodyguards.

At the base of the walls, the Vandals sat in small groups, on the traditional padded quilts. They were out of armor, weapons concealed, but their identical haircuts and rigid spines gave them away.

Where was Varden’s secare?

The first pair of dancers spun into the plaza, moving in a large circle. The second followed. One by one, the couples caught the rhythm and joined into a choreographed human whirlwind. The pair in front of them took off. Ramona counted to three in her head, and she and Matias twirled into the circle of dancers, taking their place.

Matias’s hand under her fingers was rock steady. He caught her waist, and they moved, turning, spinning, breaking apart, and coming together in perfect sync. She counted the Vandals by the walls as she and Matias dashed around the square. Fifty. The party guests were all here.

One circle around the plaza. Two . . .

She breathed in deeply and looked at Matias. Their gazes met. A hot, feral fire danced in his eyes. If he’d had fangs, he would have bared them and howled. Excitement filled her. If they waited too long, she’d burst.

They were about to finish the third circle. The music kicked into high gear. The pair of dancers in front of them slipped to the side, seamlessly escaping toward the entrance.

The group of Vandals was directly in front of them, four men drinking something from tall crystal glasses.

Matias gripped her arm, twisting her sharply, combining his momentum with hers. His fingers opened, and she almost flew at the four soldiers. The seco slashed out of her arms in twin blades. She sliced through the man on her left, and before his head slid from the stump of his neck, she severed the other trooper’s skull. Her seco caught him just below the ear. The top of his head flew, flinging blood into the air. Before the remaining two realized what had happened, she stabbed both of them through their necks in a single precise thrust and kept moving.