Chapter 53
Nizzara’s soul glows a brilliant gold as she readies her sword with a widened stance and tight core. Couple that with the lethal gaze she’s pointing at me, and I’m glad she can’t read my desires right now.
Having watched Nizzara’s trainings with Sorren through her memories, I see that he’s all brute, lethal skill, which is good. She’ll need that, but she isn’t going to achieve it before her next duel.
I materialize and pluck my fallen sword from the ground. “How much do you know about the King’s Duel contestants?”
She shrugs. “I know Kazem is the highest rank. The Zarr infantry soldiers are savage, and I hear the few Zos who made it into the championship this year are decent.”
I lunge my sword toward her, and she blocks. Not weak, but not as strong as it needs to be. “Use your core, like Sorren taught you. Try again.”
I swing the sword, and she blocks again.
“More,” I say. “Ground your feet. Put your weight into your block and lock every muscle you have.”
I swing again, and she blocks harder. “Good. Blocking will be your most important skill to learn in level six.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.” Her dark eyes solidify into the look I’ve watched a thousand times from hundreds of memories. Focused and resolved.
I swing again.
She blocks harder.
I swing faster, stronger.
She blocks at the last second, core engaged.
“The next important thing is to know your opponent. Like your little lover boy, Kazem. Do you know if he has a Mark?”
“No one knows if he has one.”
She swings at me this time, teeing our swords, pushing one against the other. She growls, “What about offense? And he’s not my lover boy.”
The swords, still holding tension, lower between us.
“No headbutting for offense. And I guess you’re right about Kazem”—I wink—“because you’re betrothed.”
She grits her teeth. “I belong to no one.”
She slides her sword away to deliver another blow, which I block and slam my pommel against her chest.
She stumbles from my blow, fire igniting in her eyes.
She swings.
I dodge.
She swipes.
I spin.
She lunges, and I evaporate.
Flailing toward open air, she catches her balance and spins to where I’m hovering behind her.
“That’s cheating,” she growls, and her fiery frustrated voice is one of the sexiest sounds I’ve ever heard.
I materialize, trying not to imagine that frustration in a very different setting. “Know your opponent.”
“What does that even mean?” Her chest huffs from exertion.
I step closer. “It means I know how to rile you. If you knew me, you’d remember I can disappear.” I linger on the flush in her cheeks and find myself committing the moment to memory. “It also means I’m easily distracted, under the right circumstances.”
“Distracted how?” she pants.
A knock sounds, and I disappear before the door swings open.
“A message has arrived for you,” Brunar says, eyeing my dropped sword on the floor.
Nizzara waves him in, and he marches toward her with a letter outstretched. I ignore his drooling desires, because—thankfully—they are nowhere as strong as Nightlight’s, which are forces of nature in mortal form.
She takes the letter and rips it open.
Her body goes rigid. I am trying to give her as much privacy as I can, so instead of looking into her memories, I ask, “What is it?”
She tilts the paper so I can see.
“If you survive to see the Last Duel, I look forward to killing you.”
—Kazem
Her hands curl into fists crumpling the paper.
“He has a childish flare, doesn’t he?”
She sputters a laugh before going silent again, staring at the note.
“What’s wrong?” I ask. “You already knew he’d try to kill you when you face him in the duel ring.”
It takes her a moment, her face trying and failing to pull up that regal mask before she says, “I’ve seen him duel.” She peers down at her sword, and a flash of doubt enters her eyes. “I should’ve learned the sword a long time ago.”
I move in behind her, not stopping until her caster shield hums from proximity as her shoulder blades meet my ghostly chest.
Leaning down to her ear I say, “He wouldn’t bother with a note if the thought of you and your daggers didn’t spark fear in him.”