Chapter 20 Kaelen #2
I strike properly the second time, keeping my eyes low, and my blade slides past her shoulder as she shifts, dropping it just in time in a sudden, unexpected flow of movement.
My overreach costs me. Her daggers come up, one slicing against my ribs and the other brushing my neck. If they were real, I’d be dead.
More murmurs, and she gestures. “You do them no favors by humoring me.”
She’s right, and it annoys me beyond words. My teeth grit. “Fine.”
I try a horizontal cut. Lyra’s parry is sharper now, as if she’s settling into a familiar routine. Her feet shift in a pattern that creates a triangle in the churned mud, using the ground to maintain her balance.
My brows knot. If she plans in staying in one place—
Her daggers swipe for my chest as she throws herself forward. I catch a flash of a grimace, as if she’s overextended herself, but it’s gone when she turns to face me once more, the two of us switching places.
Eres is going to kill me.
Our next exchanges are faster, harsher. My blade meets her daggers again and again, Lyra adapting to every shift. She moves like a dancer, circling and forcing me to sink deeper into the mud. My next strike throws her off-balance, and I grin, pulling the sword back. “Are we keeping count?”
Her next lunge is a little more savage, lower as she aims for my abdomen. Twisting, I shove her away with my shoulder. Harder than I meant to, and my pulse jumps as she stumbles back.
She hits the ground hard, rolling in a single, graceful movement that brings her back on her feet.
Her damned stomach. I almost stop, but there’s nothing but focus on her face as she sizes me up. Again, and again, we push each other forward, and back, neither of us gaining ground.
My sword comes down harder than intended, slamming into the crossed daggers as she braces, her knees hitting the ground. For a moment, our eyes meet. Pushing down a little harder, I lift my eyebrows. “Ready to stop?”
She slips the daggers free with strength I didn’t expect, rolling away as I hit the ground. Hard. My mouth fills with mud, and I spit it out, expecting laughter that doesn’t come.
A dagger pricks the back of my neck. “Not quite. I thought you had a little more than that in you, Duskbane.”
For fucks’ sake.
“I didn’t want to hurt you.” I almost snarl the words into the ground. “Another round.”
When she releases me, I roll to my feet. Eldritch is frowning, but he’s not watching me. He’s watching them.
The boys are silent. Several are pale. The trained ones of the group look grim, some of them staring at the floor. One of them shakes his head. “What’s the point?”
A heavy fist clamps around my heart, twisting.
“It’s not as bad as all that, lad,” Eldritch says quietly. “Come on, now. Plenty to learn here.”
“Another round, then.” Lyra comes to stand beside me, her eyes traveling across the group. “Don’t hold back on my account.”
I didn’t. Not really, and she knows it. She’s better, quicker, more intuitive than most I’ve fought, and I’ve faced a lot of fucking Lightbringers.
The youths don’t stand a chance.
Not that we ever did. But stupidly, I’ve thrown it in their faces in the hope of giving them something to hold onto. Only instead of giving them hope, I’ve stolen it from them.
The edge of a dagger nudges my back. “Again.”
When I turn, she nods at my hands. “Fight as you would on the field, Duskbane.”
We train to fight without using our erevas. But they need something more than a lesson right now. And as her chin tilts toward the watching crowd, I understand the silent offer for what it is.
Tossing my sword aside, I face her with my palms up. Lyra treads back, putting more distance between us as I lift my palms.
My shadows pool in my hands slower than I would call them if this were a true fight, slow enough to make a show for those watching.
They coil through my fingers, spilling to the floor and spreading across the ground, pools of shimmering darkness.
From the first, a dark, voided silhouette rises.
The mutters behind me taste a little different as I coax the second free.
And then the third, my hands twisting and shaping as I wait for Lyra’s reaction.
Mirrors of my practice weapon flicker to life in their hands, their faceless features turning in Lyra’s direction and waiting.
Nothing. Not even a flicker in her fire-lit gaze as she studies the Voids with a detached curiosity, and it irritates me beyond reason. Folding my arms, I step back and wait.
The first duplicate moves without warning, striking forward in a lunge. Lyra twists her torso to the right, just enough to avoid contact and her sword hitting the joint of its arm.
When her sword hits a solid wall and bounces away, I see her brows crease. Her head whips to the side, sizing up the other two as they approach her with new concentration.
My attention focuses on their blades, preparing to soften them as needed.
The second and third attack her at the same time from opposite angles.
Lyra moves quickly, using their converging momentum to counter them.
A pivot puts her between them exactly when they commit, her blades dancing across the back of their knees and slashing at what would be muscle, if they were made of flesh and blood.
They don’t last forever. Even I’m not infallible enough to call unending Voids from my hands, but they last at least a few hits.
This time, I get to watch Lyra’s movements myself.
Her braid whips across her face as she spins low, one leg striking out for balance.
One of the Voids is knocked off balance, and Lyra flows upright, one dagger driving down into its chest.
It breaks apart beneath her, darkness curling into the air like wisps of smoke before disappearing from view.
She looks up at me with a small smile curling her lips. It looks like a challenge.
The other two attack at once. This time, I push them with everything I’ve got. She counters, parries, dipping and weaving between them in that fluid style, and I lose myself in watching her. And in winning.
Because this is a challenge. Neither of us are feigning now. Her breathing speeds up with her movement, and I pull forth another Void, followed by a fourth.
“I can do this all day, witch,” I call out when she slips in the mud.
Chest rising, she glares in my direction for a brief second darting back and flicking mud from her braid with her hand. More still is smeared across her face, coating her fighting leathers. “Easy enough when all you have to do is stand there.”
True enough, although my erevas is not limitless. Snickers echo from behind me. We’ve drawn additional attention from others passing, a handful leaning over the fence to watch. Valcor is amongst them, his face pinched and arms folded.
And beside him—
Fuck.
Eres glowers at me, his knuckles tightening where he grips the fence. My distraction costs me, some curses ringing out when I twist to see Lyra take down a second Void.
Damn it.
If I’m to leave the youths with any sense of possibility.
I need to end this. Her foot slips in a particularly deep patch of mud, and my taunt turns to ash in my mouth at the sound she makes.
The small, choked sound bites off abruptly, as if she’s been taught to hide her pain at any cost. My voice hardens. “Yield.”
Lyra shakes her head, pushing herself upright. “Make me, wielder.”
I can feel Eres’s glare against my neck even as my temper rises. “Don’t be a fool, witch.”
There’s a cut against her cheek beneath the mud. I made sure the Void’s weapons were blunt enough to strike without severe injury, so it must have happened when she fell. Her blood glints in the midday light, a golden trail trickling down her face. My anger ignites.
If she’s stupid enough not to see when she’s defeated, then I’ll teach her.
Two more Voids stand between us, the third closing in behind her. Instead of using the gap between them, I launch myself forward through the shadow, a dagger to match the two she carries on the verge of forming in my hand.
This, she didn’t expect. I slam into Lyra with full force as I emerge through the Void, my arms wrapping around her as we fall and twisting to take the brunt of the hit.
My right shoulder hits the ground first, the witch colliding with me in a tangle of limbs and hair and the Voids vanishing between one breath and the next as I wipe them away with less than a thought.
Our noses are almost touching, breath mingling. And my erevas dagger kisses the golden skin of her throat, just above the leather. It’s a killing blow.
“Yield,” I snarl up at her. My other hand presses against her back, holding her in place.
Her breath falls in short, sharp blows. This close, I could count the faint cluster of brown freckles that dot her upper cheeks and nose. The warm, solid weight of her presses into me. “You yield.”
Her plump lower lip twists, and I pull my attention away from staring at it. “What?”
“For the love of Erevan,” Eldritch bellows behind me, and we both start. “One of you yield, or get out of my training ring!”
Suspicion unfurls in my stomach when she wriggles. “What—,”
Something pushes into my stomach. Something hard, and sharp—almost as sharp as the flash of a smile she gives me.
Her dagger digs in deeper, and my head thumps back into the mud. “A draw, then.”
She smells like the training grounds. Both of us are coated in filth and sweat. Lifting my hand, I brush dirt away from the cut in her cheek, inspecting it. “Eres will look at this. And your stomach.”
“That’s not necessary.” She climbs off me, and I roll to my feet.
I don’t know where the words come from. “You’ll attend dinner tonight in the main hall.
She’s brushing herself off, but her shoulders tighten, tension filling her frame. “Why?”
Because I don’t want her to eat alone in her cell.
I’m not sure that I want her in a cell at all, not anymore. It feels… wrong. A punishment for a crime that I find myself struggling to define. And she’s Bound now, tied to Eres at the risk of her own life.
Vaelion’s daughter. Lightbringer. Lyra.
Eres sweeps past me. His hand brushes mine before he turns to Lyra, his eyes running over her and softening. “I’ll need to check your stomach. You shouldn’t have been in the ring at all.”
But she needed it. Her cheeks are flushed, her eyes glinting. “I feel fine. Whatever you did, it’s held.”
“As it should,” he grumbles. “You’re not the first to fight too soon after an injury. Kaelen is the worst for it.”
I find myself watching them both. At the way his body curves over hers, at the way he cups her cheeks, tilting them with a brush of his thumb over her skin. Her eyes dart to mine, cheeks darkening further.
Another thought. Swift, and heated, and gone before I draw my next breath.
I am not attracted to the witch.
Not in any way.
Impossible.
“She’s coming to dinner tonight. In the hall.” Eres pauses in surprise at my barked words. “Ask Sera to help her. Stay with her for the rest of the day.”
My escape is swift. Brushing off Eldritch’s questions with a muttered excuse about kitchen duties, I jump the fence, almost colliding with Valcor.
The rest of the watchers have floated away, called to their own duties, but he lingers, his eyes narrowed on Lyra and Eres in a way that sends unease creeping down my spine.
“You’ve managed to tame her, then. Has she told you anything? ”
I strongly dislike his tone. But if I tell him she’s Vaelion’s daughter, she won’t survive Nythen’s form of interrogation. “Nothing we can use.”
He sighs. “Pity.”
I’ll have to tell him. It will raise too many questions if I don’t. “She’s attending dinner in the hall tonight.”
At his raised brows, I turn defensive. “She can’t stay in a cell forever.”
“Hardly forever.” He looks her away again. “I’ll let Nythen know.”
Wonderful.