They spin, cutting out their sharp weapons fast enough that I hear the hiss of the blades slicing the air.
The blades strike with a burst of frost and sparks.
Then again. And again.
Glued to the puddle, my wide eyes can’t tear away from the constant strikes and blocks, the swirling mist of crimson and frost.
Mika cuts through my line of sight like a sword.
Her glacier hair whips with more sharpness than what’s in her tired eyes. The fatigue clings to her, slowing her down. It’s in her staggered steps, her low lashes, the weight of the weapon in her hand.
Steel chases her. A warrior brandishing a greyish metal sword, longer than my arm, slashes and slashes too close to her middle.
He battles her out of her space, throwing her back with every near miss of the blade.
Arwyn stiffens.
Tension runs up his spine.
The sudden turn of his clenched jaw angles his cheek to face me. He watches Mika stagger back from the near-strikes.
Shark and the orange fae blow past in a billowing cloud, stealing my gaze from Mika’s lethargic retreat.
But as he passes, Shark takes a heartbeat to kick out at the scarred fae closing in on Mika—
The scarred warrior hits the ground.
Mika gets her bearings, hoists her blade, then rushes at him.
But it’s all moving so fast.
Faster than my human eyes can track.
It shifts into moments of blurred whirling clouds sweeping over the road, in and out of my torchlight, and each time I blink, the fight has shifted.
Shark blasts into the orange fae with fisted blows, no weapons in either of their hands.
It takes me a moment too long to find the blades glinting in a puddle, dropped and abandoned.
Then a boot lands in that puddle.
Water splashes up a leather-sheathed leg.
I trace it up the muscled, sculpted body to Samick’s sharp face. His eyes are as white as the snow we left behind in the northern winter.
There’s a cut on his brow. It bleeds that white liquid again, blood that used to turn my stomach.
Now, my stomach is turning for other reasons.
Rust ducks before Samick’s blade can slice apart his throat, and as he ducks, he boots out and catches Samick in the middle.
That blows Samick back a few steps—
And my insides lurch, because I know Samick could have dodged that kick.
I’ve seen him fight before, I’ve seen him fight Rust.
Samick moves with the cold in the air, like he’s one with all things winter, and the way he moves—it’s shuddering, it’s alien, static shifting through space.
