Chapter 39
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
I wrap my fingers more solidly around my scythe and stand as they come to a halt on the other side of the room.
We’re separated by the sandpit in the middle.
Tyrston smiles, and it reminds me so much of Maxim’s smile that I cringe.
He even looks like his dead master, both of them broad and hulking men with reddish-brown hair, though Tyrston’s face is clean shaven because wards aren’t allowed to grow facial hair.
But really, more than any physical likeness, he brings a similar energy, a malevolent presence that wrinkles the air.
I felt it around Maxim, and it’s here now, too.
Tyrston has several daggers strapped to his chest, but his main weapon is the same hammer he had in the clearing. Fenrir and Varek both prefer spears, and their weapons are strapped to their backs. All three of them are drenched from the rain.
You avoid Tyrston at all costs, Leina. He’s gifted. If he walks into a room, you walk out of it. Ryot’s warning echoes in my mind, but I don’t leave.
“Well, well,” Tyrston drawls. “If it isn’t the gods’ favorite.”
I tighten my fingers on my scythe.
Leif takes a step toward Tyrston. “We’re training here, Tyrston. You need to go somewhere else.”
Tyrston tsks , but he doesn’t take his eyes off me. “You’re not in here training. You’re hiding. Can’t handle a little rain.”
“Maybe they’re planning to get warm in the bathing chamber,” Fenrir says, a predatory smirk on his lips.
Tyrston’s smile widens. “Ah, I knew you were a naughty girl,” he whispers, shrugging out of his soaked coat. “Well, we were planning to break the rules ourselves and get warm. We’ll let you join us.”
My knees quake, but I hold my gaze steady.
“No,” I say, moving to take a wide stance in front of the door to the bathing chamber. “No one will be breaking the rules today.”
Tyrston’s face darkens, his hand dropping to the hammer hanging on his belt.
“Did you tell me no?” he asks, his voice a humming threat. “Did you hear that, boys? She thinks she can tell me no .” Fenrir and Varek both laugh. Tyrston indicates they should try to circle the room on the outer edges.
Leif pulls his sword, and the sound is a warning. Varek stops, his hands on his own spear. “Back off, Varek. This is dumb. You’re not an idiot, are you?”
Varek says something else, but I don’t catch it, because Tyrston steps into the sand pit, coming toward me.
No.
“I’m sure someone like you is well-accustomed to ignoring the ladies when they reject you, Tyrston, but you would do well to remember that this lady has a weapon.” I bare my teeth at him in a facsimile of a smile. “And I’m not afraid to rip you apart with it.”
Tyrston laughs. “You’re surprisingly confident for one so outnumbered.”
I swing my scythe up in front of me, recalling Ryot’s lessons in weapons training. A scythe is designed for wide, sweeping arcs. Use it to keep your enemies at a distance. I swing the scythe, and it’s enough to have Fenrir jumping back. “ Well, I am currently undefeated in duels to the death.”
Tyrston smiles wider. “You think you can defeat me because you took out an old, unarmed man? I’m like nothing you’ve fought before,” he says. “I’m better. I’m gifted . ”
Gifted … gifted …
Stay balanced on your toes to avoid telegraphing attacks. I change the position of my feet.
I snort. “I highly doubt that. In fact, everything about you screams ordinary. ” I shoot a mockingly compassionate look at his pants. “Some might even say below average. ”
He flushes red. “I’ll not accept any lip from you, bitch .”
“Haven’t you heard, Tyrston? I’m Thayana’s bitch. Best for you if you walk away now.”
“Ah. Yes, blessed by the goddess Thayana herself. Should we test the blessing of Thayana against that of the old gods? Thayana’s kiss against the raw magic of creation?
Against the gift bestowed on my bloodline long before the Altor were even a thought, long before they were so much as a murmur in Sol’vaelen. ”
He frees his hammer from his belt. One side has a blunt edge, like for battering, and the other side is like the bladed end of an axe.
The entire thing is made of adamas and is about as long as his arm.
The air around the hammer sizzles. My gaze swings up from the weapon to its wielder, whose anger is tangible, almost a living, breathing thing.
And he’s feeding all that energy into the hammer somehow.
It’s hissing, and wisps of smoke are rising from the end.
Like it’s … otherworldly.
Gifted . Bloodline.
Oh, my gods. My mind flashes back to every time I’ve heard that phrase.
Elowen—I’m a gifted healer.
Ryot—Avoid Tyrston. He’s gifted .
Nyrica—Ryot will be fine. He’s gifted .
They didn’t mean gifted, as in very talented or as in gifted with Altor abilities. They meant gifted, as in endowed with something else. Something magical.
I inhale deeply, trying to maintain my calm. There are rules about this in the Synod. We’re not allowed to randomly attack one another. We’re too valuable, each one of us is too instrumental in this war with the Kher’zenn. There’s a method to dealing with disputes, and this is not it.
By the Veil, this is not good.
Tyrston takes another step toward me. He’s at the base of the steps in the sand pit, and my scythe is within reach. “Leif, you can join us,” he calls back.
Leif pales. He keeps one eye on Varek, but steps into the sandpit with Tyrston.
“Fuck. Off,” Leif growls.
“Nah,” Tyrston says. “She wants this. Clearly.”
“No.” For some reason it sounds weak coming out of my mouth. “No!” I try again, and I’m relieved at the rage and venom that laces the word this time. “Let me be perfectly clear—no woman wants this. Wants you. Not. One.”
He growls at me.
“Tyrston, we’ll all be punished if something happens here. Let’s all take a step back and—” Leif tries to reason with him, but Tyrston is beyond hearing. Or beyond caring.
His eyes roll back in his head and then he’s letting that fury swallow him up.
When his eyes focus on me again, they’re crazed.
He’s gleeful with rage, drunk with it. Fenrir and Varek both look less certain now that this is actually happening, but they take their cue from Tyrston and edge in closer to me.
I swing out again in a wide arc, trying to get them all to back off. But Tyrston lunges forward and blocks the swing with his hammer. The force of it rattles my scythe and sets my teeth chattering, sending me slamming back into the stone wall.
The movement lights a match in the room, and Leif is on top of Tyrston with a roar. I block a strike from Fenrir and swing the scythe around like a staff to ward off Varek, who’s run at me, too. I keep my back pressed against the stone wall.
Ryot’s lessons spring forward. You can’t depend on raw force. Your strength lies in your speed and your control. Focus on precision.
I stay back, letting them come to me, and wait for an opening in their wild, aggressive thrusts with their spears.
It doesn’t take long—only enough time for them to strike four or five times each—before I find an opening.
Fenrir goes in for a wild jab, and I use the curved blade of the scythe to hook his weapon, yanking it from his hands.
I then drop to the ground, swiping my hook under Varek’s feet.
With a shriek, he collides with Fenrir, and the two of them topple into the pit.
Varek is screaming wildly but I don’t stop to see how injured he is.
It’s probably only been seconds, but it still took too long.
Tyrston is steadily driving Leif back with that hammer.
Leif is kneeling on the ground, his sword raised as a shield, as Tyrston drives the hammer down again and again.
Finally, the force of it sends Leif crashing into the stone steps, and his body collapses when his head strikes the stone.
“Leif!” I scream, jumping into the blood-streaked pit. My voice is enough to pull Tyrston back, and he abandons his assault on Leif, turning for me with a twisted smirk.
“Leina,” he purrs as he stalks toward me. “You say my name.”
“What was your name again?” I manage to gasp out. “I’m afraid I don’t recall.” Leif is prone at the base of the steps. Unconscious. Oh gods. I refuse to let someone else die while I watch.
Tyrston’s face twists, and he swings out with the hammer, just as I shove my scythe up in the air horizontally, holding on with both hands.
The hammer connects with my scythe, and the force of it shakes down my arms and all through my body.
In the last few months, I’ve had countless hours of weapons training.
Broadsword with Ryot, shredwhip with Caius, axes with Nyrica, spear with Thalric, a bow and arrows with Faelon.
Lances, daggers, even a battering ram. But nothing … nothing has felt like this.
Tyrston swings his hammer in an upward motion, knocking the scythe from my hands.
Thayana, help me.
Tyrston rears back, bringing that hammer down with otherworldly strength.
It’s not even the strength of an Altor, it’s something else.
A jagged, skull-splitting pain crashes through my body when the hammer hits Thayana’s mark on my temple and I go limp, weaving in and out of conscious thought.
I can’t think anymore. I can barely open my eyes.
But somehow, I do. I pull my face out of the sand to see Tyrston has been shoved backward to the other side of the pit—the scar repelling him.
He looks dazed, but he’s still coming to his feet.
I manage to roll, and slip one of my daggers out of the holster at my thigh and fling it into the shoulder of his hammer-wielding arm.
He screams, dropping the hammer, but he almost immediately calls it back up with his left. He’s more awkward with his non-dominant hand, noticeably so. My eyes snap back to Leif—still unconscious, still vulnerable. I struggle to my knees, sliding my other dagger free.