“You won’t be showing your face in front of anyone for at least a week once I am through with you.”
Chapter 25
The Nightmare Prince
Skadi was wholly irritating.
On the fifth set, I landed twenty paces away, skin cold from the lingering mists as they faded into nothing, breath knocked from my chest.
Hands in the air, I closed my eyes. “No more. Gods, no more.”
I hadn’t even landed a decent strike and had sparred since I was old enough to hold a knife. I was not the only one. Von held a cold herb press to his brow after landing on his head.
Isak’s mesmer was cruel and dreary. He could blind the mind into darkness. Skadi half-swallowed him in her affinity before he came close, his legs visible, head in the mist, until he kicked viciously enough she released him.
Tova abandoned the field, insisting she had to see to Kåre.
Junius laughed and declared she was not mad enough to face the woman.
Fiske was a Hypnotik, he could bleeding see flashes of future moments, and Skadi still leveled him after she’d feigned a need for reprieve, then kicked out his ankles and let her mist toss his sword beyond the gates of the field.
“All right, lovey.” Raum spun a dagger in one hand, a short blade in the other. “Shall we?”
Skadi crouched, taking note of Niklas prowling on the opposite side of her, and Lynx and his thick body on the other. Three on one. For the first time, Skadi seemed uncertain.
I slunk to where the defeated were lined near the water, licking my wounds.
Sander propped his chin on his fist, studying the set up. “If Lynx can get behind her, he could calm her to sleep.”
Another Hypnotik, the man could soothe the mind so fiercely, his victims fell asleep before he robbed or slaughtered them, depending on the scheme.
“It’ll take Nik tossing some fire powders. Maybe venom clouds to choke her a bit.” Von offered, no doubt, seeing the potential marks. “Distract her, you know?”
“She might mist them away before they even fall,” Fiske grumbled, wiggling his fingers.
“Raum could see her moves and maybe stop her.” Sander shook his head. “Ack, doesn’t seem likely. May the gods bless their souls.”
I grinned, sitting on the grass, and let my head fall back against the leg of the table.Come on, Fire.
Smugglers, thieves, warriors, the three men were not simple foes. Raum snapped his teeth once, then threw his dagger toward Skadi’s heart. It wasn’t to strike her, the way they closed in, it was clearly a distraction.
Skadi closed her darkness around the blade, and had to spin quickly to block Lynx’s strike with his sword. He tried to swipe at her head, likely planning to use mesmer, but she spun away. Niklas was there to meet her.
Sly and vicious, Niklas had coated his palms in one of his elixirs. In most spars, he tossed things. With this, he had another trick—he wanted to touch Skadi. Incapacitate her, perhaps? Did he have something that could block her power like the herbs she’d worn during the negotiations?
Sander and Nik had read more than anyone on elven folk, it was possible.
“Forgive me, Princess,” Niklas said as he attempted to close his hand around Skadi’s wrist.
Her face burned with levity, free and bright. “No. Forgive me.”
Niklas disappeared in the next breath.
Von sat straighter. “Where the hells did he go? Usually there’s another cloud of her magic.”
“She’s holding him.” Three hells, she was utterly mesmerizing. “Her affinity works like a door opening and closing if she desires. Whatever void is in her magic, Niklas is being held there.”
“I mean, she’ll let him go, right?”
