The Unbroken by C. Clark (ebook reader .txt) 📕

They were already dragging Aranen from the temple as Touraine sprinted headlong through it. It went against every instinct she had except the instinct to hurry. Sometimes, all you needed was a strong charge to break an enemy.

This wasn’t that time.

Touraine managed two solid cracks on one blackcoat with the heavy stick, and he fell. A third hit on a second soldier, and then her element of surprise was gone, and Touraine had to reckon with the eight other blackcoats in front of the temple.

She was ducking before the first pistol fired, running toward the pair holding Aranen between them. Another shot, though, and Touraine jumped back.

Aranen struggled weakly in front of her, lip swollen and bleeding. Touraine dashed for her again, but this time a blackcoat locked an arm around Touraine’s neck, yanking her back and off her feet. The stick fell with a clatter and rolled uselessly away.

“Take the witch and go,” Rogan snarled. His noble veneer was cracking. If he hadn’t recognized her already, Touraine was sure he would soon.

Let go of her! Touraine wanted to scream. She struggled to meet Aranen’s eyes as her vision splotched from hopeless tears and lack of air both.

Aranen shook her head and yelled to her in Shālan. “They want me alive. Run. Tell the Jackal.”

At first, the Shālan was too quick, but comprehension came. Aranen was a doctor. They wouldn’t hurt her, because they wanted what she knew. The magic. Luca wouldn’t need to make a deal if she could take it by force.

“Shut your mouth.” Rogan slapped Aranen across the face. “Get her out of here.”

As the other soldiers dragged the priestess across the plaza to a carriage, Rogan approached Touraine with a leisurely bounce in his step. The cold fear flushed out the heat of Touraine’s anger and froze her stiff. A smile of smug recognition spread across Rogan’s face, a dark eyebrow quirked up. She could see him again, that night, coming at her while she was pinned against the brick wall of the barracks.

No. Not now. Touraine forced herself back into her body. Focused on the heat of the soldier’s body behind her. The slick sweat between their forearm and her own neck. The sour smell of old cigarettes on their breath. Her body knew how to fight if she kept her mind out of it. Tibeau had put her into locks like this in their training all the time. The memory was in her muscles.

Touraine went limp in her assailant’s arms. Caught off guard by her suddenly falling weight, the blackcoat’s grip slackened, and she twisted herself free, then heaved a fist into their gut. She didn’t even stay long enough to watch them double over.

She realized too late that her scarf had definitely slipped. Not the biggest problem at the moment. There was nothing but the animal fear in her now. That and the flooding sense of shame as she obeyed the priestess’s orders.

She ran.

Touraine arrived at Djasha’s house winded and ready to be sick, her heart thundering in her ears. The Brigāni woman was frowning at her before Touraine had enough breath to close the door behind her.

As usual, Jaghotai hovered like a gargoyle on a cushion beside Djasha, arms crossed, but the others—Malika and Saïd, the ones least likely to gut Touraine first and ask questions of her corpse later—were gone. It looked like the two women had been talking.

“What happened?” Jaghotai hopped to her feet immediately, ready for a fight.

Touraine shook her head as she gulped in air.

“Someone’s coming,” Djasha said.

Touraine shook her head again. She couldn’t say it. The truth of it stole her voice more than sprinting from the temple had.

The single room still smelled of last night’s food, but the echo of ease and joy was gone. It seemed like the emptiness held danger in its corners.

“I was at the temple,” Touraine finally whispered.

Djasha’s dark skin went ashen. “Where is my wife?”

Touraine looked anywhere but at the Apostate. Dishes from someone’s breakfast waited on the low table for someone to pick them up. Crumbs or dried sauce still clung to them. She didn’t look at Jaghotai at all.

“Touraine. Where. Is. My wife?”

Jaghotai grabbed Touraine by the collar and shook her. A tremor ran from the Jackal’s hand up to her mouth. “Answer her,” she growled.

Touraine didn’t even fight Jaghotai off. “The Balladairans took her.”

“Took her but not you?” Jaghotai’s wide nostrils flared. “The missing traitor?”

“I tried,” Touraine croaked. “I’m sorry. I tried—she told me to go—”

“She saved your sorry life and you left her?” Jaghotai shook her again, and Touraine hunched her shoulders.

“Jak, put her down.” Djasha spoke quietly, but her voice was hard as the temple’s marble.

“But she—”

“Put her down.”

When Jaghotai put her down, Touraine knelt down in front of the Brigāni woman.

“I’m sorry,” she said again. “But she said they wanted her alive. And they did, or they would have—”

“Why?”

The whole mad sprint from the temple, this question had run through Touraine’s mind. Only one thing made sense.

“The magic,” she answered.

“But why now?” Jaghotai growled, grinding her stump into her hand.

“I’m sorry, Djasha.” Touraine ignored Jaghotai to meet Djasha’s gaze instead. Touraine wasn’t afraid of Jaghotai. She was afraid of the golden-eyed woman whose face was utterly calm in her grief. That calm steadiness that meant she was beyond the reach of irrational lashing out. Whatever came out of her would be calculated.

“I can’t do anything with an apology,” Djasha said, disgusted. “We lost half of our priests this morning.”

“What?” Touraine asked, startled.

“Malika brought word,” Jaghotai said, scowling. “Blackcoats are taking doctors and anyone who’s been seen lingering at the temples throughout the city. Half a dozen missing at least.”

“They know too much,” Djasha said grimly.

“I told you we should never have trusted that bitch,” Jaghotai snapped at Djasha.

Djasha closed her eyes, and for a moment, her illness and grief combined to make her seem impossibly fragile.

A new guilt rose. Luca was the only one