“I said to first blood,” Magdala snarled. She jammed her elbow into his ribs and he released her. They circled one another for a moment, like lovers at a dance.
Magdala struck first, slashing low, but he caught her arm below the elbow and tugged. She slid forward, her chest striking his. Quick and decisive, she brought up her knife and touched the blade to his throat.
Asherton froze, a half-smile on his lips. “Here we are again,” he breathed.
Magdala knew she’d made a tactical error because she didn’t trust herself to draw blood so close to his artery.She moved to stomp on his foot instead, but he jumped back, releasing her. He backed away, then turned on her with a series of rapid cuts and jabs. She brought up her knife to meet his. The blades sang a staccato duet, steel on steel, a flurry of silver and sparkle. Then Asherton parried,knocking her hand aside, and his left arm twined her waist. She could have ended it, cut him and walked away, but she let him whirl her off her feet, like they really were at a ball. She imagined ghostly music echoing off the walls, the susurration of silk gowns, the clink of crystal wine goblets.
She surrendered to him as her feet touched the ground again. His hand was open on the small of her back. He bent his head, his lips, slightly parted, brushing hers. Magdala raised her eyes. He was gazing at her with such powerful yearning, it cut her like a knife. She wanted to press her lips to his and forget who she was, who he was, why every law of the universe forbade this simmering passion.
Magdala was clutching her knife so tightly that the ridged antler-bone handle chafed her hand, and she remembered that this was madness. She needed to keep her head and her distance. One of them had to be sensible.
Gathering her scattered wits, Magdala flicked her blade against Asherton’s side. He hissed and staggered away from her with a shocked smile.
“Don’t get distracted,” Magdala said coldly.
Asherton shook his head. “Oh, you’re like the goddesses in the books I read as a child. A force of nature, a divine bolt of lightning.”
Magdala’s cheeks reddened. Was this the truth serum or was he toying with her?
He pressed his hand to the scratch at his side and stepped toward her. “I wish you would let that fire out. I wish you would run with me, barefoot over the grass, andwe could be free of this obstacle between us. This pane of glass that keeps us apart.”
Magdala backed away from him, her horror rising with each word. “Stop it.”
“I can’t,” he said. “The words are spilling out, and it feels good, like lancing a boil.”
Magdala’s heart thrummed in her ears. “You are the crown prince of Allagesh and I am nobody.”
“Then why are you here, lovely, fiery Magdala? Did you come to torment me with your cunning smiles and that wit that makes me want to kiss you more than I want to breathe? Did you come here to torture me with your powerful, beautiful body that lights me up whenever you move?
“Stop it,” she murmured.
“Tell me why you’re here.”
“Did you kill Julian Davenport?"
Asherton laughed. “Is that it? No. I did not.”
Somehow this was both a relief and a blow at once. If he didn’t kill Julian, then she had failed. No abdication, no house for her father, and no answers for Huxley.
“Then who did?”
But he swayed, reeled sideways, and collapsed on the floor.
Chapter 26
Magdala gasped. She’d barely scraped him. He was faking, messing with her head.
But Asherton struggled to his hands and knees and then sat back on his heels, his breath coming quick and shallow. His face was flour-white, sheened with sweat.
“Ash?” She walked to him, half expecting him to jump up with some secret dagger, proclaiming he’d won. “Ash, what’s wrong?”
She’d only scraped him, hadn’t she? Had her addled brain miscalculated?
Dropping to her knees in front of him, Magdala fumbled with his shirt. The cut was shallow, barely bleeding.
“Why, you vixen,” he said, voice breathy with shock. “The blade … you poisoned it.”
“No!” she cried. “No, I didn’t.”
