❛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...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"So it all hinges on Janus," Shabina mused. She laced her fingers together in front of her face and watched Ealy flip through the reports. Ealy looked up.
"He will give in. They will kill him otherwise," she signed. "Or he will detach and form another enemy. They may be willing to risk it, but he is not stupid enough to go against them on his own."
"Would he ally with us?"
"We don't have enough to suggest that."
Shabina nodded and pressed her thumbs into the bridge of her nose. She freed her fingers to sign again. "Anything else?"
"Mara is oblivious. Her spy networks have always trusted the other Kings too much, they don't even have any placed with the hunters."
"Can we make a move here?" Shabina watched Ealy put her finger up and flick through the papers again, eyes moving far faster than Shabina could even comprehend.
"There will be a small window of confusion within Mara's external forced. Assuming that Wilson and Yelena will strike her resources as soon as they can, we should move before her death, but not so fast that the news reaches her and she takes defensive maneuvers." Ealy flexed her fingers, eyes blank.
Shabina sighed. "Do you not trust me?"
She hesitated. "I do. But this is dark work. Dangerous work."
Shabina beckoned. Ealy rearranged her papers and slid them into a drawer of her desk, untucking her skirts from the chair. She sat on the couch, leaning into Shabina's touch.
"I love you, you know that?"
"The huntress is a wild card."
"She saved your life."
"One good deed does not make a good person," Ealy made a face as she drew the signs.
Her soft face, how Shabina loved that face. Shabina flicked her wife's nose. "The situation calls for it."
"I understand Mara. She needs to die. But the huntress' orders were to kill everyone. We know she will." Ealy's head tilted. "She will kill innocents. We already know she has no trouble with collateral damage, our spies say she enjoys the kills."
"Maybe all she needs is a second chance," Shabina signed, "and maybe we're the ones to give that to her."
"Just because Ophelia and Raina want a fifth does not mean you should flirt with the first person you meet."
Shabina looked up when the door slammed open. Ealy's presence left her side, cold air rushing where her wife had once been. Shabina pursed her lips but didn't watch her leave. The conversation would have to wait.
