INCARNATE
YSIRA
Cold steel against Ysira’s throat jolted her back to lucidity. The silver halo of the eclipse flashed against the surface of the blade.
“Stand up,” said Casandra Semira.
Damir strolled up beside his sister. Their two kirikil, burdened with gear and provisions, followed. The twins looked a bit worse for the wear, with cuts and bruises and an ugly gash across Damir’s forehead, but they were alive. Andangry.
Ysira had hoped they would go running back to Zivora. She had not anticipated that they would be smart enough to retreat and wait on the off-chance Neri succeeded. She rose slowly, calculating her options.
“All the way,” said Casandra. “Hand over your weapons.”
As the kirikil approached, water sloshed in one of the packs, torturously tantalizing. Ysira’s knees went weak.
“He actually did it.” There was awe on Damir’s face, tinged with fear as he stared at his brother. “He has the demon.”
Neri had not yet regained consciousness. He shivered as though wracked with fever, skin glistening, hair matted with sweat.
Casandra’s voice trembled as she told Ysira, “Get away from him.” “I’m trying to protect him,” Ysira bit out. “This might kill him. Do you understand that?”
Of course they did. They simply didn’t care.
“We’re taking Lurchy,” said Damir. “Step aside or die.”
Rage built in the back of Ysira’s mind like an itch, harder and harder to ignore, compounded by thirst and exhaustion. She wrestled it back, leashed it where it couldn’t interfere. For what she’d done in the canyon, the twins would kill her. Their father wouldn’t have suffered an insult like this.
This could only end one way.
Damir had to go first. He had a long reach, probably forty pounds of muscle on Ysira . . . every advantage. He was ready, too—eyes glinting with bloodthirsty glee for what they both knew was coming.
It remained a sad fact of life that brute strength would win most fights; the one thing that could reliably beat it was the element of surprise. Ysira had long come out on top by being less scrupulous and more decisive than everyone around her, and today would be no different.
She went still. The moment crystallized.
Ysira jerked sideways, out of Casandra’s reach, as she whipped out her glaive. Damir’s gaze dropped to Ysira’s hands. She toed a burst of sand up at his face. He blinked and coughed, off guard for a fraction of a second. She leveled her glaive and buried its blade in his heart.
Surprise registered in his expression.Wait, start over, not fair—she’d seen it dozens of times on scores of faces. Blood dribbled out of his mouth. Pain came next, then mortal terror.
Casandra stood in shock long enough for Ysira to wrench out the blade and thrust it at her. With an anguished cry, Casandra parried. She pivoted and swung at Ysira’s neck.
They clashed back and forth, dangerously close to the canyon’s edge. Casandra rained blow after blow on Ysira’s head with a savagery born of rage and grief. Ysira adjusted her strategy. Gave ground quick enough that Casandra overshot and stumbled. Ysira swept her feet out from under her with the blunt end of her glaive. She flipped it around in her grip and drove the blade down, toward Casandra’s chest—or would have, had the girl not lashed out with a foot and knocked her to the ground.
Ysira landed on her back. Breath slammed out of her lungs. She lost her grip on her glaive. Her head hit nothing but air, hanging over the edge of the cliff. Her stomach lurched. She rolled out of the way just in time to avoid Casandra’s plunging sword—and see her glaive go spinning into the depths.
Casandra’s blade stuck in the earth. It bought Ysira an instant. She tackled Casandra by the waist. Threw all her weight behind it. Both of them now weaponless, Ysira managed to pin Casandra in a tight hold.
The girl shrieked in helpless rage. She tried to bite, but Ysira snaked an arm around her neck, pinning her tighter, locking her jaw.
“I’ll kill you if I have to,” Ysira panted against her ear. “You won’t win this. Your brother gave me no choice, but you don’t have to be that stupid.” Despite herself, her voice wavered. “Please.”
Casandra wrenched free with a yell. She scrambled away, boots slipping in the sand. She faced Ysira in a crouch and ripped a dagger from her belt.
“Walk away,” Ysira said. “Go home. Leave Neri with me.” Casandra stared at her, distraught. “Who are you?” “Please” was all Ysira said, again.
Casandra’s sword arm shook. She looked sideways at her twin’s body and sagged to her knees. “I don’t know what to do,” she babbled. “I can’t— Oh, gods.” The reality of her circumstances seemed to settle in.
Perhaps, next, she would have dropped her sword. Perhaps she would have surrendered. Ysira never found out.
