No amount of gold had convinced Maude to let Kess fight. It was bad for business. She would get caught. No amount of gold was worth bringing the Witchblades down on Maude’s establishment. The list went on.
Kess had even offered more than she had, figuring she might convince Rowan to loan her some of his money. In hindsight, it seemed foolish—an addict desperately hustling for one more hit of a drug—but clouds, she wanted to fight again. Maude’s reasons made sense, of course, but it didn’t make Kess feel any better. At least the Fulminancy is behaving, Kess thought. It was still erratic at best, but she was no longer too worried about it flying out of her control—particularly after her success at the Stormclap board. That controlled chaos mollified her slightly, but did little to take away her craving to fight.
Unfortunately, life had a way of giving Kess exactly what she wanted, only at exactly the wrong time.
Kess hadn’t missed the Shadow following her over the rooftops on the way to Maude’s bar, and she didn’t miss it now as she slouched through the crowd, keeping her head low. It seemed impossible that the Shadow could track her, but then, whoever it was had been doing so successfully for months now. She hadn’t seen the woman since Draven’s death, though.
Kess twisted down several side streets, certain that an unpredictable route through throngs of Whitering crowds would make her impossible to follow. After several attempts at this, she realized she was very wrong. The Shadow was true to her name. Kess paused outside a shop front, leaning against the stone building while a merchant hawked his wares and people streamed past.
Rain still fell, though it had lightened since Kess had begun her trek several hours ago. She sighed, resigned. There was nothing for it. If the woman wanted to attack Kess, she had every opportunity to do so, and there was nothing Kess could do about it.
She supposed she should feel some measure of fear, but her Fulminancy welled up, a calming and warm presence. Kess still hadn’t come to terms with the idea of it as an ally, but well…
She flexed a fist, feeling the crackle of her power deep in her palm, hidden from onlookers, and thought of the ring. In the ring there were rules, and a set way of fighting, but was there anything wrong with using her powers to protect herself on the streets where rules held no sway?
Kess was slightly horrified to realize that she couldn’t find fault with the thought. I’m not ready, she thought. But here she was, trapped under an awning, surrounded by people. The figure wasn’t going away, and it wouldn’t be long before she became impatient and attacked. Whether Kess was ready or not was irrelevant. She just had to hope that Rowan’s training and her own efforts had given her enough control to fight the woman off this time.
She stuffed her hand in a pocket and began walking again, this time making her way away from the manor. She wouldn’t bring her Shadow home with her—that much was clear in her mind. Instead, Kess chose a deserted route, heading towards neighborhoods where wet ash and the charred black frames of riots and Lightstorms alike were her only company.
She stopped in a square empty but for a disused fountain ripe with the rainwater and threw her hood back, waiting. A crack and a flash lit up a nearby roof, and the woman from before was suddenly a few feet away, a smile on her lips as Fulminancy crawled up and down her arms and legs.
“Hello again,” the woman said, cocking her head, that same smile at play.
“Why are you following me?” Kess asked flatly. The woman’s head cocked again, her mouth twisted sideways.
“Because you’re the missing Seat everyone’s looking for, of course.”
“Look, I don’t know where you got your information from, but I’m not who you’re looking for,” Kess said.
“My last attempt on your life begs to differ,” the woman replied in her strange, garbled voice.
Kess stood there for a moment, rain trickling down her back, her heart hammering against her ribcage. “Why would a Seat be down here in the lower city, mucking about with no real powers?” she finally asked.
“That’s what I’d like to know, though my patron would rather I just kill you.” Kess flinched as the woman shook her hand and brought to life her own crackling Fulminancy, hers a darker, grayer hue than Kess’s. “You’ve made it rather difficult for me, because I’m intrigued.”
“By what, exactly?” Kess began drawing up her own power from deep inside of her, ignoring some of Rowan’s lessons on limits, but not all of them—this woman wouldn’t come at her with half strength. The smile on her face deepened.
“By your ability to survive burnout that should have killed anyone ten times over. How do you do it?” she asked, inching closer. Kess watched her, her stance relaxed. She wouldn’t provoke the woman, but she would have to relax to react to her in time.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Maybe we should find out together,” the woman murmured, her voice close to Kess’s ear. Kess felt the power before she saw it, and threw her own Fulminancy into her legs with a crack that launched her, flailing back towards a tall building at the edge of the square. She got her feet underneath her just before slamming into the building, but Fulminancy didn’t save her feet from the pain of awkward impact.
There was no time to adjust. Kess twisted at the last second as the Shadow launched herself into the building, her fist surrounded by a zapping light that would have taken Kess’s head off without her roll.
Kess ran for the open air of the square, launching herself with some measure of success towards one of the smaller rooftops. The Shadow followed, her laughter carrying over the dampness of the night as she caught up with Kess and stood there, grinning.
“You’ve gotten better,” she said gleefully.
“A little practice does wonders,” Kess replied, grunting as she launched herself towards a taller building. She landed and stood there for a minute, panting, her mind frantically flipping through the possibilities. She was outmatched, unarmed, and less capable than her opponent. Running was the logical option.
But running wouldn’t save her either, she realized as the Shadow thumped onto the roof beside her. Fulminancy kept her hood drawn and her face dark, but that grin still lingered.
Kess drew her legs back in a fighting stance and willed her Fulminancy into her fists. She would have to fight. That, at least, was as natural as breathing to her.
The Shadow cackled and swung. Kess ducked the blow and returned one of her own to the woman’s gut, fortifying her stance with her powers. The other woman let out a hiss of air, but caught herself on the edge of the roof and used the railing to launch herself back towards Kess.
Kess caught the blow with her whole body, and she slammed into the stone roof hard enough to see stars. Fulminancy disregarded, she fell into the natural patterns that years of fighting had taught her, bucking her hips to dislodge the other girl while twisting to land on top of her. Kess drew a crackling fist back, but hadn’t accounted for the snapping energy that crawled its way through her body and forced her back.
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Kess slid away, keeping her body low to the roof, even as the other woman charged. The Shadow was an experienced Fulminancer, but less of a fighter than Kess. Kess wove her way under the charge, rolling and sweeping the other woman’s legs out from under her with another blow aided by Fulminancy.
It worked, but left Kess winded and unable to follow up on her advantage. Her powers gave her an advantage of strength and speed, and maybe more if she knew how to use them—but without practice, they were also a dead weight that would exhaust her long before she could win.
Furious, the Shadow charged at Kess again, her blows a flurry of light and color. Kess blocked and dodged what she could, but too many slipped her weak guard, and she knew she had lost this fight long before she stepped in the ring.
Still, there was something strange about the dance on the rooftop, as rain fell swiftly and the two women were enveloped in their own magic, the blue and gray the backdrop for ghastly flashes of energy.
Kess wasn’t afraid anymore. The Fulminancy which had cursed her now blessed her. Gone was the uncertainty, and even some of the awkward newness of her powers. As she and the Shadow danced together, Kess was suddenly struck by the feeling that this wasn’t so different from the way Lightstorms crackled around her in greeting, or how the thunder rumbled overhead with her anger.
It was a song and a dance. It was everything Kess had been looking for when she took her first steps into a fighting ring all those years ago. It was power, simple and true, and it remade her and forged her into something stronger and better.
Still, Kess’s elation didn’t make the fight easier. They left the buildings, meeting each other’s blows more often in midair as they hopped between them and as Kess became more confident in her own Fulminancy.
Several squares over from where they’d started, Kess landed a nasty kick on the Shadow that even Fulminancy couldn’t dampen. The crack that echoed across the buildings wasn’t just lightning—Kess was sure of that. She relaxed her guard, figuring the fight over for now, but she forgot she was no longer in a Downhill ring. Howling, the other woman charged at Kess. Kess instinctively tried to throw up a shield, but a burst of power erupted from her, streaming out in an uncontrollable light that threw them both into stark relief, reflecting off their faces and the surrounding buildings as the Fulminancy threw both women back towards opposite edges of the roof. Panicking as it left her at a rate higher than it had the last time Kess fought the woman, Kess snuffed it out.
Kess landed with another crack and blacked out momentarily. When she came to, her thoughts were sluggish, and she knew she had overdone it. At least her opponent was similarly slumped against the opposite wall.
Voices echoed off the buildings below, and Kess stumbled towards the edge, half crawling as her body protested the sudden movement. She slid down the wall, leaning against it with one shoulder, and looked over the edge.
Men in Witchblade uniforms led a series of carts Uphill. The carts were filled with—she squinted—people.
“What the hell is that nonsense?” a voice asked beside her. Kess jumped and winced at the pain in her ribcage, throwing her hands up instinctively, but the other woman waved her off. Her voice was still garbled.
“I’m not fighting you again yet, you cloudspawned curse.” Kess gaped at the woman, stunned.
“You could have saved us both the trouble and not attacked me in the first place,” Kess mumbled beside her. “Who are you?”
“Rae,” the woman said simply, though her mouth twisted slightly into a frown as she said the name.
“Well, Rae, I would appreciate it if we could avoid doing this entirely. Why attack me at all if you’re just going to let me get away twice?”
“I have to put on appearances or my employer will have a fit,” she said, looking put out. “As it stands, they think you’ve grown too strong for me, and I make a grand show of it when I return, for effect.”
Kess frowned. “I don’t think that’s going to last forever.”
Rae watched the patrols for a few moments, the Fulminancy still keeping her hood drawn, though Kess saw a mask around her eyes.
“Agreed,” she said softly. “I might need to find new allies soon. What do you think about attacking that convoy together?”
“We’re going to attack a Fulminant convoy like this,” Kess said, gesturing to both of them. Rae laughed darkly.
“Even like this, we’re still probably stronger than most of the Fulminancers down there. Hell, if I flip a coin, you might just accidentally blow them to pieces.”
“It doesn’t work like that, and in case you’ve forgotten, we just got through trying to kill each other—twice. Why should I trust you?”
“You probably shouldn’t,” Rae replied airily, still watching the wagons below. “But I haven’t killed you for years—I don’t see why I should start now.”
Kess considered the woman at her side, too exhausted to properly care about the danger she posed. She didn’t trust her, but she also wasn’t sure she could help the people below without help of her own.
“Who are they?” Kess finally asked. Rae sniffed, her hands gripping the edge of the rooftop tightly.
“Enemies of the state—of the Uphill. They’ve been hauling wagons like that away for weeks now.”
Kess watched the wagons as they turned the corner. There was no hum of energy around the wagons themselves—the people inside were Duds. Maude was wrong, Kess thought. Maybe Duds disappeared the same as anyone Downhill, but not in wagons with Fulminant guards. But what business would the Uphill have with Duds?
Draven could have protected these people—but Draven was dead. Kess’s cowardice had made sure of that. A sense of responsibility settled around her shoulders, heavy and solid.
“We have to help them,” Kess said, standing up with a wince. She tested her Fulminancy and found it still there, though it was reluctant to surface. Beside her, Rae stood and smiled.
“My thoughts exactly.”
Kess spent little time trying to figure out how Rae had gone from enemy to ally. She didn’t spend a lot of time thinking at all, really, whether it was due to too many blows or a blind desire to save the people below.
So, when she and Rae landed in front of the guards, both wearing their hoods for anonymity again, Kess did very little thinking at all as she tried to blast the guards with raw Fulminancy.
Nothing happened. Rae seemed to have no such issues and laughed at Kess as she flitted about, wielding her Fulminancy not quite like a ranged weapon, but certainly more ranged than Kess was capable of. Gritting her teeth, Kess gathered her Fulminancy around her legs and fists and attacked. She would have to use her powers the hard way, but she was used to that, at least.
Kess had little control or finesse, but she had enough fighting sensibility to take out the guards who didn’t stand near the convoy, while Rae finished the rest in a more tactful faction.
Kess fell into the rhythm of fighting again, and it was like coming home. For years, she had fought without purpose or meaning, but this time, she had something to fight for. She dredged up her Fulminancy with each blow, her thoughts on Draven, on Oliver, on the people in the wagons—all just property to the Uphill and the Fulminant. She fought to erase the fear of the men and women packed away in the carts like cattle. She fought against the injustice of it all, against a world where Draven’s body was considered Uphill property.
She fought for a city where no one would have to live in fear of the Fulminant, or of their minders.
Her idealism didn’t prepare her for the gore, and she had to lean against a nearby cart as she caught a Fulminancer holding his arm at an unnatural angle, the bone splintering through the skin. Kess forced herself into action, stomach lurching as she reached the door to one of the wagons.
“She saved us,” one woman in the wagon shouted. “Mariel came to rescue us!”
Kess froze, hand over a cold lock that kept her very effectively out. Oh no. Motion caught her eye, and Rae waved from a rooftop several blocks over, that stupid grin still on her face.
“Wait—“ Kess ran after her into the street, but she was already gone, leaving Kess with wagons full of people who believed they had been saved by the Seventh Seat. She swore.
The beginnings of burnout threatened at the edge of Kess’s senses, and her body seared with heat while her muscles shook in protest. A sharp pain lanced in her side and arm, both from poorly dodged blows from knives and swords. Something warm trickled down her cheek. Kess promised the people in the wagons she would return with more help and ran for the only home she had left.
If after this they let her back in at all. Clouds, Rowan was going to kill her.
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