I step between them. “I’m fine.”
He looks at me with barely restrained fury—and says nothing.
Without warning, Seraphina lunges again, her blade angled for my ribs.
I roll, palms scraping stone as I evade the blow.
“You don’t belong here,” she spits. “You’re not one of us. I was trained for this. Born for this. You’re just his favorite plaything.”
Heat roars through my arms. I kick the back of her knee. She staggers; I surge. Steel sings as our blades meet. The training ring contracts to breath and edge and choice.
Her blade nicks my arm. “You really think he’ll pick you?” she hisses.
I drive an elbow into her shoulder. She shoves back; I go down and roll with it.
“Pathetic,” she snarls. “Maybe I’ll do the keep a favor and end you.”
She raises her blade, but I catch her wrist and twist it viciously. She stumbles and hits stone, her sword clattering uselessly to the side. I jolt forward and press my blade to her throat.
Her eyes widen. The room stills.
My pulse is a drum. The world narrows to a bright point. Icould.
It doesn’t matter that it’s a training blade; enough force, and it will crush her throat for good, if not skewer it.
“Do it!” she screams up at me. “Show him what you are.”
Hands lock around my waist and haul me backward.
“Enough!” Keiren bellows.
My blade clatters to the ground, and air floods into my lungs in ragged breaths. The drum in my chest won’t stop.
“I had her,” I snarl, fighting his grip.
“We’redone,” Keiren says. The command cracks through the chamber like lightning. Even Seraphina flinches. He slings me unceremoniously over his shoulder like a sack of grain.
I pound on his back, screeching, “Put me down!”
He doesn’t. He storms us up a narrow stairway, through a short corridor, into a private room lined with books and blades. A study. A war room.
He shuts the door and sets me back on my feet.
“You didn’t need to interfere,” I snap.
“Didn’t I?”
“I won.”
“You nearly killed her.”
“She wanted to kill me.”
“And you almost let her. Not by dying. By becoming her,” he accuses.
Pain spears behind my eyes, and I sway. He anchors my elbows.
“That’s Noctyras,” he says. “The blood here lingers. Spill it in rage, and it roots. Blood rage. A sickness. It’s all part of the curse, Fire. Don’t let it taint you, too.”
