I hear Hat’s voice as she calls my name and races toward us, trying to push her way through but getting caught behind a surge of angry spectators.
I press down hard. It’s the only thing I know to do. I pull off her jacket, which is the cleanest cloth I can see, and I bundle it against her wound. Blood seeps through.
Esther’s hand goes up to her arm, where I’ve exposed her crown tattoo.
“It’s a bit late for that,” I say, my voice heavy and raw. Of course Belrosa knew about Esther’s tattoo. She tortured Esther’s father for years. He would have told her.
Rising above the yells of the crowd are Glenquartz’s and Belrosa’s voices as they fight each other.
Glenquartz, all rage and fury: “You are a disgrace to your position! You are a murderer!”
Belrosa shouts something in response, but all I can hear is my heartbeat pounding in my ears.
“Esther, Esther,” I say, as she searches the sky somewhere above me. “Come on, Esther.”
Esther’s tattoo fades to gray on her arm, and I grab her hand. “Stay with me.”
She shakes her head. “You need to take it.” She brings her hand up to her chest.
“Take what?” I ask.
She shifts to the side, turning her left arm upward to show me the fading ink of the tattoo.
“I need you to have this,” she says. She almost laughs. “It didn’t even occur to me that I’d be vulnerable today, just like you. But it makes sense, I guess, since our abilities are tied together. I wonder if Father knew when I first got the tattoo. Why didn’t he have me give him my tattoo? Or why wouldn’t he give me his? But now I see. It’s because we need this.”
I shake my head. “What we need to do is stop this bleeding.”
Esther says weakly, “You can’t let Belrosa get this tattoo from me. I’d speak your name if I knew it. Do this peacefully, if I could. But I can’t. The only way I can give it to you is if you’re the one to kill me.”
I shake my head. “Absolutely not.”
“If I’m dying anyway,” Esther says, “where’s the harm? I’m much too spiteful to let Belrosa be the one who kills me. Do me the courtesy of letting it be you, instead? After all, you could use some practice being courteous. You are meant to have this. It has to be you.”
“You are not going to die,” I command.
“I’ll do my best, Your Highness,” she says. “I believe in you, Coin. I know that sounds like on-my-deathbed nonsense, but it’s true. You’re my sister. And I love you. I don’t care if you don’t have a name. You are worthy of the crown, and you are strong enough to hold its weight.”
Hat arrives, and she skids to her knees beside Esther.
“How bad is it?” Hat asks me.
I fumble for words. “It’s really bad. But she’s talking and moving. That’s good, right? She’s…fading. Tell me you can do something, please.”
“I’ll do what I can,” she says, scanning the crowd. “Where’s Dr. Rhana?”
I try to give Hat space, but Esther reaches out and grabs my sleeve.
“Coin, I need you to do me a favor,” Esther says. And despite everything—the blood pooling up through Hat’s fingers and the colorless wash of her skin—she smiles. “Go kick the general’s ass, would you?”
It’s as if the tattoo knows its other half. As Esther lets go of me, pain stabs into my shoulder at my tattoo. Ink flows from Esther’s arm, down across her fingers, and onto my skin like a snake. The ink flows up my arm to my crisp black crown tattoo, and suddenly the tattoo is darker and burning with heat. The surge of energy courses through me. It is fire at my feet, as though I could scorch the earth with every step. Her tattoo has reunited with mine.
Impossible. Esther didn’t speak my name. I didn’t kill her. How can this happen?
Esther’s hand falls limp against the cold stones. Hat doesn’t look at me, but she works more quickly at Esther’s wound, and I feel Esther’s aura fading, overwhelmed and drowned out—emptied—by the anger of the crowd surrounding us.
I rise slowly to my feet and turn on a heel toward the open arena, where Glenquartz and Belrosa are still fighting.
I walk toward them.
Belrosa seems to have the upper hand over Glenquartz. He’s starting to slow down. I pick up the sword that Esther dropped, and its hilt warms quickly in my grasp.
“Glenquartz!” I shout, and I will my voice to reverberate through the air like a clap of thunder. He falters in his fight, and Belrosa herself staggers sideways, searching her arm as if the ink has crawled under her sleeve to hide from her.
In my periphery, I see Hat gesture for Glenquartz to help her. One look between Glenquartz and me, and he rushes past me, heading for Hat. I fix my sight on Belrosa.
Esther’s tattoo has fused with mine. I would be surprised or confused, except that everything about me and my life—about this tattoo and magic itself—is impossible. What’s one more impossible thing?
“Then it’s you,” Belrosa says, wielding her sword.
Every fragment of me that has ever felt fragile is like steel now, fiercer and sharper than the tempered blade in my hand.
I haven’t felt certainty like this in a long time. The strength of both tattoos fuels me. I thought I knew power before. I thought I knew strength. It was nothing as wild and untamed as what I feel now. Everything is different. I feel it in my bones. I stretch my arms, and the blade is like air, light and quick.
Belrosa advances.
As Glenquartz trained me, I know the stances expected of me now for a proper duel. I know the etiquette. But we are far past etiquette, and we are far past kindness and mercy.
I fight to have a steady voice, though I hear it shake with rage when I speak.
“General Belrosa Demure,” I say to her. “I speak as the sovereign of Seriden, queen of this city, commander of all that it rules, and a Nameless wretch in your court. You have broken every faith this city has placed in you, undermined its laws and treaties, and betrayed those who needed your protection most.”
Belrosa is stalking toward me now, as though she doesn’t want to give me the satisfaction of a long, drawn-out speech. So I meet her in battle.
This fight is nothing like the duel we had before. I swing with every ounce of strength I have.
“If it is you I must kill, so be it,” Belrosa says. “You do not deserve that power.”
One touch is all I need, or one touch will destroy me.