Which was why, as they circled each other now, Kell found himself holding a pair of small scythes, their edges curved, while Lila hefted a broadsword. Vasry and Tav exchanged a look, and Kell suspected they must have added that one to the lot more recently. Maybe they were betting on him after all.
Tired of holding the blade up, Lila attacked, and despite the weapon’s size, she still managed to move with unnatural speed. She swung and Kell lunged back, expecting the sword’s weight to carry her forward. But somehow, impossibly, she pivoted, reversing the weapon’s arc.
He got one of the scythes up and blocked, the force ringing up his arm as they crashed together, but his second blade was already carving through the air toward her chest. Her eyes widened, and he thought, I have you, right before she let go of the broadsword entirely and ducked beneath his scythe. She sprang back, falling in a crouch as the hulking sword crashed to the deck between them.
It was the first time Lila Bard had ever lost her blade.
Around the deck, the voices had stopped. The crew held its breath.
Lila looked up at Kell, a grin spreading across her face.
She had so many different smiles. Some happy and some cruel and some positively wicked, ones full of humor and ones full of hate, and he was still learning how to read them all. But this one he knew, not because it was common, but because it was rare.
It was pride.
But the match wasn’t over. She hadn’t surrendered yet. Lila rose, eyes going to the blade she’d abandoned on the deck between them. She dove for it, and so did he. But as soon as Kell tried to lunge forward, something forced him to a stop. He looked down to see a sheen of ice running up over his feet. His boots were frozen to the deck.
Lila caught up the sword, and raised it, letting its weight come to rest against his chest.
“I win,” she said simply, and he stared in shock at the blood dripping from her free hand. She’d used magic. Not even elemental, but Antari.
“You cheated,” he said, indignant, but Lila only shrugged.
“I’m not the one who can’t use magic.”
And with that she dropped the sword and strode away, leaving him to break the ice from his boots. From that day on, there were no rules.
Kell only fought to win.
* * *
THREE YEARS AGO
It took three tries to get the straps on right.
Kell cursed softly, adjusting the buckles over his chest.
“What in god’s name is taking so long?” demanded Lila.
Beyond the screen, she wasn’t so much sitting in the chair as sprawling across it, one leg thrown over the side, the horned Sarows mask twirling lazily around her finger.
“Unless there are corsets and skirts involved, you’re taking too long. If you need a hand—”
“Be still,” growled Kell, lacing up his boots. “This was your idea.”
In truth, it had been Alucard’s.
After all, he was the one who’d written, asking them to put the Barron to good use. Lila had been more than ready. The trouble, of course, was Kell.
Thanks to Lila’s ruthless sparring, he no longer fought like a prince, but he couldn’t change the fact that he still looked like one. Everywhere they docked, heads turned toward him. Clocked his eye, his hair, his bearing. If he was ever going to be someone other than Kell Maresh, Antari prince, he needed a disguise.
Lila had pointed at the coat, with its infinite number of sides, and asked if there was one tucked in there, something that made him look less a noble and more like a pirate. Less like the fire and more like the dark.
Kell took up the mask, and settled it onto his face.
It had been a month since her suggestion, and in the intervening time, neither had brought it up again, until tonight, when he told her to come with him into the captain’s quarters, told her to sit there in the chair facing the wall, and wait.
“Are you almost done?” Lila called out, but this time, he did not answer. She glanced over her shoulder. “Kell?”
Her leg slipped from the arm of the chair and came to rest against the floor. She was about to stand when his hand came down on her shoulder.
Lila almost startled.
He smiled. It was hard to get the jump on her, but she clearly hadn’t heard his boots ringing on the cabin floor. Hadn’t heard the sigh of fabric, or the shift of weight. She rose and turned toward him, and he braced for some snide remark, but for once in her life, she seemed to be speechless.
Lila stared at the stranger in her room.
Once upon a time, he would have shifted his weight beneath the scrutiny, tugged at his clothes as if they did not fit. But tonight, he did not. Tonight, he stood perfectly still, letting her study him.