The arm crunched with a dry pop. Amphie cried out.
Lady Wexyn let go of the ruined arm, spun behind Amphie, grabbed her other wrist with both hands, pulled her to the ground, as if Amphie weighed nothing, dropped to one knee, and broke Amphie’s left arm over it. The entire fight was over in two breaths.
“Goddess preserve us,” Karat whispered.
“Kosandion,” Dagorkun said.
Karat nodded.
Oh. Lady Wexyn had echoed Kosandion’s fight with Surkar. Same tactic: grab the wrist, pull the opponent forward, disable the arm. Except she didn’t stop with one arm the way he had done.
Amphie laid on her back and howled in pain. The Behoun delegation screamed with her, a chorus to her suffering.
Oond froze in his habitat and slowly turned upside down, his fins limp.
“Oombole down!” Sean called out through the earpiece.
“It’s okay, he just fainted.”
Lady Wexyn stepped over Amphie and stalked toward Prysen Ol. He bared his teeth in a grimace and snapped his whip-sword at her. The segmented blades pierced the air, ready to rend. Lady Wexyn sidestepped, and the whip sliced through the stage, scoring the stone.
Lady Wexyn pulled the golden comb out of her hair.
Prysen Ol swung again, sending the whip in a devastating horizontal curve.
Lady Wexyn didn’t try to evade.
The whip-blade connected. The whip-sword should have cut her in half, but somehow, she was still standing, the whip fully extended between the two of them.
“The hair comb!” Dagorkun spat out in surprise.
She had caught the filament of the whip-sword between the teeth of her comb.
Prysen jerked the whip back. The filament snapped, spraying half of its segments onto the ground. Prysen Ol backed away and flicked his damaged whip. The remaining segments slid together, forming a blade.
Lady Wexyn crouched, elegant as if dancing, laid the comb down, and picked up a single segment.
Prysen Ol watched, focused on her every move.
She held the segment between her thumb and forefinger, clamping it across its blunt spine, showed it to Prysen Ol, straightened, and started forward again, unhurried, relentless, unscathed.
He walked toward her, light on his feet despite the knife in his back and the trail of his blood following him. They watched each other as they moved, each step, each minute shift in weight deliberate and calculated.
Sophie, the ruler of her planet and George’s wife, once told me that she lived for the moment just before the clash, when both she and her opponent knew their lives hung in the balance. It was a world of possibilities, an infinite universe that shrunk to a single strike as soon as they moved. I finally understood what she meant.
Prysen Ol struck, a human blur too fast for the eye to follow. Lady Wexyn swept by him. They took a few steps past each other. She held his sword in her hand. Prysen Ol held nothing. A deep red line crossed his throat. His eyes turned glassy. He stumbled and collapsed.
Behind me in the second row of the observer section, the First Scholar let out a scream of pure anguish.
Lady Wexyn turned to the Sovereign. “Are you satisfied with the fulfillment of our contract, Letero?”
“Yes,” Kosandion said.
Lady Wexyn smiled.
“And that’s a wrap!” Gaston emerged onto the stage. “Please join us tomorrow for the exciting conclusion to the greatest spousal selection in the galaxy!”
He bowed.
Lady Wexyn sashayed toward her section. I dropped both Prysen Ol and Amphie through the floor right into the medward.
The screen in front of me showed Klook, one of the First Scholar’s two disciples. They looked almost identical, but the tips of Klook’s feathers had a slightly more pronounced pink tint.
“The First Scholar would like to inquire…”
“Would you like to see him?” I asked.
Klook disappeared, shoved out of the way, and the First Scholar replaced him on the screen, with his feathers in disarray and his eyes ringed by red, a sign of a koo-ko in acute distress. “I’m coming!”
I opened the door to his quarters and made a child-slide-style chute in the floor. A few seconds later, the First Scholar fell out of the medward’s ceiling, spread his wings, and glided to a landing by me.
I turned. In front of me, two square cells sat side by side with six feet of space between them. The back wall of each cell was reinforced concrete with a space-hull-grade titanium overlay, while the other three sides were transparent plastisteel. The center of each cell housed a med unit. The left one held Amphie, the right Prysen Ol. Both patients were sedated.
I had sealed off the werewolf in her own quarters. She was mostly sleeping, as her body did its best to heal. Occasionally she would wake up long enough to eat, and then she fell asleep again. Sean had visited her. They spoke for about an hour, after which she slept for 14 hours straight.
The First Scholar peered at Prysen’s relaxed face.
“He lives?” he asked in a hushed voice.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“He’s very lucky.”
I once heard a story about a hockey player whose jugular was cut by a skate during the game. He should’ve bled out, but he survived against all odds. Prysen Ol should’ve bled out as well, but for the medical cocktail he’d stabbed into his leg. Besides a booster and a pain killer, it contained a wound-sealing coagulant. He was trying to stop the bleeding in his back. Coincidentally, it had patched his jugular enough to keep him alive until the med unit could take over.
“What happens to him now?” the First Scholar asked.
“That depends on his motives. If he carries a personal grudge against the Sovereign, there will be a punishment. If he was simply a hired killer, perhaps Kosandion will find some use for him.”
The First Scholar’s feathers stood erect. “I shall beg the Sovereign for leniency! Prysen Ol is an unrivaled talent. He cannot be thrown away.”
Right. Funny how he ignored the whole “hired killer” part.
The First Scholar marched off, spun in a circle, looking around, and finally remembered I was still there. “Where is the exit?”
“Perhaps it might help to freshen up before you go to see the Sovereign?” I suggested gently.
The First Scholar slapped his head with his pseudohand, checking for his hat, realized it wasn’t there, and nodded. “A most wise advice.”
“I will return you to your quarters. Please let Tony know when you are ready to request an audience.”
I gave the inn a push, and it carried the First Scholar back onto the slide and to his quarters. I sealed the ceiling behind him.
The two prisoners slept in their cells. When they woke up, there would be hell to pay.
But neither of them would die. The Assembly wouldn’t be happy. I could just imagine the look on their faces. Still, up to now, we’d managed to keep all of our guests breathing. That had to count for something, right?
I reached through the inn, looking for Sean. He was still with Kosandion.
“Hey,” I whispered.
“Hey.”
“How is it going?”
“Busy. Behoun is trying to secede from the Dominion.”
Just what Kosandion needed.
“I’m going to get some answers,” I told him.
“Let me know how it goes.”
I paused before the doorway to Lady Wexyn’s quarters and tossed my voice inside.