“You should learn to use your size to your advantage,” he said, selecting a curved blade the length of my forearm from his bandolier.
I actually laughed aloud. But I also came to my feet.
“I barely reach your shoulder.” I stepped closer to him to prove the point.
He did not move, nor lift his blade from where it hung in a deceptively loose grip at his side. “Opponents will underestimate you because of your height.”
I’d been underestimated my entire life. Human, woman, witch.
“Use your weight as a weapon. Put it behind your punches and your stabs, and you will be able to take down opponents much taller than you.”
My fingers tingled with power, but I did not reach for the dagger tucked into my belt. “Like you?”
His eyes narrowed, the turquoise flaring impossibly between cerulean and emerald. “The day you can take me down is the day your Dark God walks upon Velora.”
I forgot that I was determined not to use my power. It was so much a part of me that I summoned it without thinking, letting it form the dagger of ice in my hand from just that morning. How had so little time passed, and yet so much occurred?
I let the hilt melt just a little, reforming around the shape of my palm. “Cocky words for a human.”
That infernal smirk curled the corner of his mouth, lifting the little half-moon scar near his eye as well. “You have not yet shown me a part of yourself that I fear, witch.”
He swiped up with his blade, catching my wrist and knocking the ice dagger loose with ease. I cursed, jumping backward just in time to prevent that dagger from coming down on my shoulder.
I did not have time to create another before he was on me again. I sidestepped, but Garrick used his height to yank me back by the neck of my leather tunic. I was so grossly overmatched that it was pathetic. Unless I was willing to unleash my full power, he would always best me.
He might even then, a small, hateful part of me whispered.
I had already proved myself a coward once today. What did it matter if he thought me one now? His next jab skated off my cheek. I’d barely tried to sidestep it.
Garrick pushed into my space, annoyance building on his face. The tightening of his jaw. The flicker by his eye. I did not even flinch as he pulled another blade from his bandolier and pressed it into my palm. “Fight me like you mean it.”
I curled my fingers around it because I was afraid that if I didn’t, it would fall to the ground and stab me in the foot. Not because I liked the way it felt to have a blade that close to him.
I should have been cold. I’d barely moved, and the fire wasn’t throwing off much heat. But my entire body tingled with awareness. Another natural reaction. And instead of hating myself, I turned that hate back on Garrick. How dare he make me feel alive when I’d sentenced that woman to death?
“I don’t want to fight you at all,” I hissed, my breath clouding the cold air between us.
He did not retreat, lifting his curved blade so that it was positioned just beneath my ribcage. With one shove, he could have hit a vital organ that would have me bleeding out in the snow.
“Because you blame yourself for their deaths?” he pressed the tip of his blade into my tunic along with his words.
I did not move. Let him fucking kill me. He’d die, too, thanks to the brand inked on the inside of our wrists. And maybe the world would be a better place because of it.
But Kyrelle would die. The curse would linger over Velora. I would die a disgrace and disappointment to my coven.
When that wound did not work, Garrick pressed against another. He understood perfectly what Alize had meant. “Aren’t you afraid? You’re too clever not to have figured out that those crimes belonged to the supplicants.”
He should be scared of me. I’d ruined my sister’s life—a sister who’d ignored me for years, but who had lost just as much as I had. Rylynn had not been innocent, but she certainly had not deserved the life I’d condemned her to. A man she married out of love, who would forever blame her for what had happened to him. A marriage that turned to duty and then to something much darker.
“You cannot kill me,” I reminded him, even as he pressed the tip of his knife through the first layer of clothing with precise pressure.
Past the leather, then through the wool underdress. “The other supplicants can.”
I shoved him away, two fists to the middle of his chest. He moved quickly enough to avoid the end of the dagger he’d placed in my hand. I tucked it into my belt. I did not need a blade to do damage.
I ripped off my leather gloves, throwing them down into the snow. I did not technically need my hands bare to access my power, but it always felt more real, more visceral. More powerful.
I threw my hands out, plumes of ice flowing from my palms to encircle his legs and hold him in place. But Garrick moved quickly, anticipating the move like he’d seen it before. He shifted his center of gravity lower to keep his balance and used the same ice I’d laid down to increase his speed, sliding toward me with inhuman speed.
