“We still can be,” I said, descending the short flight of stairs to the terrace. Res crooned, ruffling his feathers nervously as I stopped before Elkona. She towered over me, nearly as tall as Kiva, though she was all wiry muscle compared to Kiva’s broad frame.
“Friends must trust each other,” the princess replied. She had the voice of a snake charmer gone rancid, as if she might have once been able to talk a man out of coin and drink, but something had twisted and rotted.
“I could learn to trust you,” I said. “In fact, I’ve been told I’m rather good at trusting people I shouldn’t.”
Her dark eyes evaluated me. The fire from before had vanished, replaced by an emptiness that sent a shiver skittering across my skin.
Without warning, she struck out, backhanding me across the face. The blow stung, pain radiating through my cheek and jaw. I tasted blood at my lip.
Res cawed loudly, his wings flaring wide. I threw up a hand, warning him away.
I’m fine, I told him.Let me handle this.
Unbothered by Res’s response, Elkona considered me with a tilt of her head, as if waiting for me to turn tail and run. I didn’t. I faced her, not raising so much as a finger to the spot of growing soreness on my face, and met her gaze.
A challenge sparked in her eyes.
I struck first, but she dodged with a spin, counterstriking. Knocking aside her punch, I barreled inside her guard, forcing her to stumble back. She spun with a kick to my head, but I ducked and stepped to her side, driving a fist into her unprotected ribs. She let out a hiss of pain laced with delight.
We were in the sparring ring now, hard-packed earth beneath our feet. Her hands were quick. Quick to strike, quick to retract, quick to block. All her motions flowed into one another, a steady stream of strikes and counterstrikes, ground given and ground gained.
I recognized early that she was trying to grapple with me. From what I knew, a lot of Jin fighting styles relied on using the enemy’s strength against them. Avoiding her grip proved half the battle, knowing that if she got me to the ground, I was done for.
“You’re better at this than I expected,” she said through heavy breaths as I escaped her near hold.
I grinned. “I know a trick or two.”
I made her pay for every missed hold, striking her ribs, her stomach, her back, until something closed around my wrist, jerking me to a halt. In one smooth motion, she had me on the ground, stray rocks digging into my back. My shoulder screamed in protest as her knee found my chest, driving the air from my already laboring lungs, and the hand on my wrist twisted painfully.
I struggled to dislodge her, but she weighed too much, and her position was too sturdy.
“I should snap it,” she snarled at me, twisting my wrist harder.
The pain and lack of air made my vision blur and blacken. I felt the frantic thrum of Res’s fear skittering along the line between us, and it took all my focus to hold him off.
“Go ahead,” I wheezed. For a fraction of a section, surprise splintered through her ferocity. I forced more words out. “If it will help you heal, do it.”
She recoiled as if my words had stung, but her grip didn’t loosen. “It is no less than you deserve,” she growled, and fear prickled in my chest.
Yet despite her words, she twisted no farther. Her grip slackened just the slightest, and in that moment, I drove my hips upward and twisted, throwing Elkona off me. She let go of my wrist as she went tumbling to the ground.
I sat up, my wrist raw and aching.
She pushed herself to her knees, her chest rising and falling in a mirror of my own. My heart skittered wildly as I fought to regain my breath.
“I don’t suppose you’d teach me that move?” I tried for a smile, but it made my cheek hurt.
To my surprise, she grinned.
* * *
A servant brought me ice for my bloodied lip, and though several spots of Elkona’s exposed skin were turning purple with bruises, she didn’t bother to tend to them. We sat at a small patio table, an assortment of fruits and spiced cakes shaped like flowers and leaves on a platter before us. The familiarity of the scene made my chest ache for home and the patio table I’d grown up eating breakfast at every morning.
Elkona sprawled in her chair, her posture lazy and unkempt, ignoring the bits of her braid that had escaped and now dangled in front of her face. She’d returned her ring to her left hand, and she spun it absently around her finger.
I tossed Res a piece of cake, which he gobbled down. Elkona watched him with barely concealed fascination.
“Want to touch him?” I asked.
