Chapter 28 Trew #2
Every meal tasted like soot. I sat through advisor briefings and heard nothing but her name. Gavelle had started giving me pointed looks each time I drifted off mid-sentence.
The group’s bonded creatures had moved over to wait near the wall, mingling together, watching in their silent, knowing way. Nexxa blinked her mossy green eyes, her head tilted. Ashmaw’s forked tail coiled as tight as a spring.
And still, I stared at Isi.
She turned her head and caught my gaze, daring me to look away.
I didn’t flinch.
Neither did she.
Standing across from her, Maddox growled like this was a battlefield. His shoulders squared, his fingers flexed, and eyes already narrowed on her in challenge. There was no pretense to him. He wanted to win, and he didn’t care how he did it.
Isi nodded his way. Her head tipped, her braid sliding over one shoulder as she rolled it back into place. This woman was dangerous in a way Maddox didn’t seem to understand yet.
The others had started sparring on their mats already, their boot falls thudding across the room, grunts echoing in the high stone ceiling. I watched them out of the periphery of my eye.
Moving around the outer aspect of the mats, I crossed my arms on my chest and tried not to be too obvious about how I watched Isi and Maddox square up.
Bryson moved quickly across from Derren, hooking his opponent’s arm in a lock and sweeping him flat onto the ground with a sharp exhale. Derren grunted, slapped the mat, and lay there for a moment staring at the ceiling as if reconsidering every decision that had led him to enter the Rite of Bonds.
Lexie tangled with Fenna on the far side, their movements like a dance. Fenna went for Lexie’s ribs, but Lexie turned the momentum, caught the other woman’s wrist, and spun them both down in a controlled fall. She pinned Fenna neatly, then offered a hand to help her up.
Kerralyn wasn’t so lucky. Crey had her on her back within seconds.
Her bright laughter rang out.
“You blinked, Kerr,” he said. “Didn’t I tell you not to blink?”
“Shut up,” she snorted, rubbing the back of her head.
As they finished and rose to their feet, they all turned to watch Isi and Maddox circling each other.
Maddox struck first, as I knew he would. A low kick meant to sweep her leg out from underneath her. Dirty, fast. He fought like someone who’d learned battle techniques in a back alley.
Isi shifted her weight, moving lightly out of reach, then pivoted and used his momentum to draw him forward.
He recovered quickly and lunged again, this time going high with a palm aimed at her throat.
I tensed.
She blocked it, her forearm swiping up, and slid in close, her shoulder catching him in the ribs. The breath huffed out of him, and before he could react, she twisted and brought her elbow up into the meat of his arm, knocking it wide.
Her movements were precise. Clean. She fought like a blade in motion. Sharp, with nothing wasted. Every pivot, every breath, and every blow had been calculated. She didn’t fight to overpower. She fought to win.
I tracked her stance, each calculated turn. She didn’t just react, she read Maddox three moves ahead, stripping him down with the same unhurried certainty I’d seen in assassins. But where they were cold, she was molten.
She fought to dismantle, and fates help me, but I wanted to watch her do it forever.
The others might see technique, but I saw art.
She didn’t waste energy on showmanship. No flourish, no needless spins.
Just the quiet, devastating efficiency of someone who knew exactly where to cut someone to make them drop.
Part of me wanted to spar against her myself, to feel the precision of those blows reach my own guard. The rest of me wanted to worship her for how she moved. She could kill me in ten different ways, and I’d thank her for every one.
Maddox snarled, his face florid. “Is this all you got? Stop dancing around.”
Isi didn’t answer. Her eyes remained flat. Focused. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of rising to the bait.
He charged.
This time it was messier, with fists flying, bodies lunging, but Isi ducked, turned under him, and drove her knee into the back of his thigh. He buckled. She spun with him and shoved him forward, his palms hitting the mat as he caught himself mid-fall.
She gave him space. Let him scramble up onto his feet again.
It was respectful. Almost.
The muscles in her back rippled as she moved, the soft sheen of sweat on her face and neck catching in the torchlight.
Maddox was panting now.
“Come on,” he hissed, gesturing with both hands for her to advance within striking distance.
She tilted her head. “Are you ready to admit defeat yet?”
Maddox snarled, but I almost laughed. Fates, she’d kill me one day with that sharp tongue and the way she never, ever gave ground. At least I’d die smiling.
A few of the warriors chuckled. Bryson grinned and nodded slowly. I bet he’d seen this in her all along.
Maddox cursed and leapt, aiming for her shoulder in a move that would’ve bowled someone else over. But Isi dropped low, spun behind him, and swept her leg out. He stumbled, almost fell, and she didn’t wait.
She was on him before he could regain balance. Her fists were a blur. One caught him in the side, the next in the shoulder. When he turned to block, she let him, and used his defensive shift to drive her heel into the back of his knee.
He went down hard, thudding on the mat.
A flutter to my left almost made me look, but I couldn’t drag my gaze from this match.
I’d fight the very fates themselves for this woman even if they demanded I let her go. She didn’t know it, but she’d already won me.
Maddox wheezed, rolling onto his back in time for her to straddle his chest and pin his wrists to the mat. Her knees bracketed his ribs.
He bucked.
She leaned in enough to remind him of who held control.
“Say it.” Her voice came tight. Her chest rose and fell, her lips parted as she breathed. Some of her hair had come loose, tendrils curling across her cheeks and throat.
Maddox squirmed beneath her. “Fucking get off me.”
“Say it,” she growled.
“Fine. You win.”
A pride-filled smile pulled at my mouth. She hadn’t only bested him, she’d dismantled him piece by piece. She could’ve humiliated him, but she didn’t.
Restraint like that was rarer than raw power. I’d fought beside warriors who could break armies but had no control over when to stop. Isi knew exactly where the line was and how to walk it without stumbling.
I glanced at the others, who were all watching now. Lexie was nodding to herself, a half-smile on her face.
Maddox might not have respected Isi before, but after this display? He’d be a fool not to.
Isi climbed off him fluidly, a cat who knew the kill had already been made. She didn’t gloat or preen. Only rolled her shoulders, her eyes flicking to me for the barest second, a glance that felt like a hand closing around my throat.
Heat flared through me.
If she ever turned that look on me in private, without an audience and without rules, I wasn’t sure whether I’d end up on my knees or flat on my back. I was open to either.
Maddox stood, wiping blood from the corner of his mouth, and stared at her like he didn’t know what she was.
Maybe none of them did.
But I did.
The room echoed with scattered conversation and shallow laughter.
Isi stood near the edge of the mat, stretching the tension from her shoulders like it hadn’t been a real fight. Like Maddox hadn’t come for her blood. Her braid was half unraveled, and sweat made her tunic cling to her frame. She tilted her head toward Lexie as if she was going to say something.
I forgot the warriors, the hall, the world. If I leaned in, I could follow the faint sheen of sweat there with my mouth, trace it to where her pulse beat hard and fast. I needed to know if it jumped for me or the fight.
And then I felt it.
A spear tore itself from the mount on the wall with a shriek of metal.
It ripped across the room, aiming for Isi.
Something in me snapped taut, and my body moved before my mind caught up. Stone underfoot shivered as my power surged, reflexive, ready to throw walls between her and the threat. I reined it in mid-stride. In a flash, I was across the mat, reaching for her.
One heartbeat Isi was standing, her spine exposed. The next, I slammed into her. We hit the mat hard. I wrapped my arms around her and rolled to place her beneath me. To protect her with my own body.
The wind was knocked from us both, and the wounds on my chest screamed.
My heart roared against my ribcage while the scent of her filled my lungs. Her breath hit the hollow of my throat, and my body decided the spear wasn’t the most dangerous thing in the room anymore.
The weapon punched through Crey’s chest where he stood on the mat beside Kerralyn, emerging out the other side. He looked down, blinking, confusion clouding his face. A choke, and blood bubbled out of his mouth, splattering on the mat by his feet.
Kerralyn groaned and reeled away from him, her gaze scanning the room.
With a sigh, Crey slumped forward, landing hard on the mat with a sickening thud, driving the spear the rest of the way through his chest.
Ashmaw shrieked, a high, mournful sound that was echoed by the other companions.
A pop, and he was gone.
I was still half on top of Isi, my arms wrapped around her, her breath fanning my collarbone in quick gusts.
Kerralyn shouted for a healer. Bryson swore. Lexie kept whispering, “No no no,” in a prayer she knew wouldn’t be answered.
Isi swallowed hard beneath me.
Above, the shadows behind the viewing glass shifted.