VII
SOMEWHERE AT SEA SIX YEARS AGO
“Any day now,” said Lila, picking at her nails.
They were on the ship’s deck, the sails down and the tide still. The sun was just rising, and the night’s chill had yet to burn off, and the only mercy, as far as Kell could tell, was that she’d told the crew to make themselves scarce, though he assumed that they were watching from whatever perch they could find.
“Pointy end toward me,” she teased.
He glared, fingers tightening on the short sword in his hand.
Kell knew how to wield a blade.
He had been raised within the palace walls, with all the pretexts of a prince, but he was also raised to guard the royal family. More specifically, he’d been charged with Rhy’s protection. Rhy, who had no magic to arm himself, no power of his own to shield him. Rhy, who’d insisted on learning the sword, and so Kell had joined him as a sparring partner, until the prince was good enough to practice on the royal guards.
Kell knew how to hold a blade, and how to use it, and yet the weight of the steel in his hand felt odd, clunky. Far less elegant than the weapons he’d conjured out of wind and stone and ice.
Lila hopped down from the crate and spread her arms. “Come on, then.”
“You’re not armed.”
“Kell,” she said with a pitying grin. “I think you know me better than that.” Her fingers twitched in invitation. She had fought him once, back in Grey London, when he’d known her only as a thief, and she hadn’t known what magic was, let alone that she possessed it, and it had been her steel versus his spells. They had sparred more fiercely in the Essen Tasch, when he was pretending to be Kamerov Loste and she pretending to be Stasion Elsor, but that had been a game of magic, of fire and water and earth. A competition bound by rules.
Kell had never faced Delilah Bard like this.
He scanned the deck, taking in the ropes and boxes, the nets and nails, all the things he would have used as weapons once.
Now, all he had was the sword in his hand.
He marched toward Lila, expecting her to dodge back, retreat, but her boots stayed planted and her hands stayed wide, and the only part of her that moved was the corner of her mouth, which twitched in pleasure, right before he swung the blade at her head.
Steel against steel, the sound rang out across the deck.
Her hands had been empty the second before, but now a dagger flashed in one fist. His sword scraped free and he swung again, low and fast, a blow that should have carved a line across her ribs. But a second dagger appeared in her other hand, and she pinned the sword between her knives.
He freed himself and swung again, thinking she should have picked a longer blade, but instead of dodging back she lunged in, twisting around his sword and tucking herself against him like a lover as she brought one dagger up beneath his chin.
“Dead,” she whispered.
And then she danced backward, out of the embrace, and said, “Again.”
He ran a hand through his hair, slicking it out of his face, and readied himself, this time studying the way she balanced, turned her head to compensate for the lack of sight. If he could just— But this time she didn’t wait.
She struck first, vicious and quick, forcing him to retreat.
He dodged backward, and slashed again. And again. And somehow, despite the fact he had the longer blade, the better reach, she was always there to block, to parry. She wasn’t a graceful fighter, but she moved with all the speed of a whip, and no matter how Kell searched, there was no way past, no opening.
He danced back, or tried to, but he’d lost track of his surroundings, and instead of open deck, he slammed into the mast. The force knocked the wind out of his lungs, and the sword slipped from his hand, but Lila was still coming, daggers glinting, and there was no time to think, so he didn’t, simply flung out his fingers and called a nearby coil of rope. It rose, flying toward Lila’s wrist, even as the pain tore through him, jagged and deep, and in the end, it was for nothing, because her blade sliced through the rope before it came to rest against his throat.
“Dead,” she whispered. Her hand dropped. “What happened?”
The words slid like a gasp between his teeth. “I forgot.”
Lila studied the edge of her knife. “I forgot, too, at first. Ran into doors, fell down steps. It took me months to find my balance, to gauge distance. It was hard, but I learned. So will you.”
Anger bloomed inside him. He wanted to tell her it was different, that her eye was gone, and his magic was still there. A limb he felt but couldn’t use. A weapon he was forced to hold but couldn’t wield.