Anger filled me. When my hands reached for my sword and dagger, my palms were sweaty with anticipation.
From the dais, Skartovius Ashfen spoke a single word, so familiar to me after the many years.
“Begin.”
Garroway abruptly had two swords in his hands, shocking me with his unsheathing speed. His face was a mask of indifference—gone were the crooked smiles and knowing glances.
It all happened so fast.
Garroway charged at me with inhuman swiftness, closing the fifteen-foot gap in two strides. Rather than setting my foundation with my legs as I’d been trained to do, I was forced to somersault to the side to avoid getting sliced in half.
The sounds of his swords cutting within an inch of my body overhead displaced the air in a greatwhoosh.
I popped up standing—
And he was on me, scything and weaving his blades in expert cuts. I slammed my blades against his, backpedaling fiercely, gritting my teeth.
Two cuts burned on my arms before I knew what struck me. Blood spilled, trickling to the ground and into Rirth’s cage and the jail below.
The fight was not fair, and everyone knew it. To spectators, it must have been like watching a wolf and a mouse. Though half-blood dhampir were supposedly unequal to the strength of fullbloods, they were still noticeably stronger and swifter than humans.
Lukain was a good example of that. Garroway carried the same severe expertise. Every slice was well-placed and timed perfectly. His movements were graceful. Though tall, he was slick with his attacks, never overextending or leaving his guard vulnerable. He struck in quick jabs, using his twin swords like they weighed nothing.
Our swords clashed and sparked, my dagger-hand barely able to hold off his strength, and the bones in my arm jarred from the impacts.
I seethed at him, face-to-face.
His mask of indifference broke, baring his teeth. His pointed fangs glinted in the red-blue light of the room. “I said not to go easy on me, honey badger,” he hissed.
I kicked out, forcing him back. My vision tunneled, locking into his gait, trying to pick up miscues in his style. I saw no apparent weaknesses, but he did favor his front leg more than his back. It enabled him to lunge constantly, going on a fierce offensive.
Since he wasn’t human, I assumed he would never tire.Does his blood pump the same way as mine?
I tried to expose the vague weakness by carving around him, circling rather than going back and forth like fencers. I would never beat him in a straight-up duel. So I tried to get creative—
And earned another shallow slice across my thigh, a mere inch from the vital artery there. It ripped my leathers, exposing pale flesh and a thin, surgically cut line of red. Blood spilled and I ignored it to keep fighting.
Problem was, no oneelseignored it. With every new drip of blood, the sounds from our vampire partygoers rose into hisses and delicious murmurs, until it was becoming a ruckus out there. Much different than what I had heard during the other two bouts.
They can scent my blood,I realized,and it’s doing something to them. Arousing them or emboldening them, perhaps.
When Skartovius Ashfen sat forward on his throne, hands gripping his armrests, my eyes reflexively dashed over to the tall vampire lord.
I caught sight of Jinneth, now standing next to the nobleblood whose lap she had been hoisted on minutes before. She was off to the side, brooding. Her arms were crossed as shewatched Aelin, who now hadherass planted on the man’s lap and was giving Jinneth a haughty smirk.
The distractions of those three nearly cost me my life. I whipped my eyes back to Garroway just in time to watch him angle his blade past my guard and stab into my side.
I grunted, forcing my burning legs topushme past him, sliding my dagger along his inside as I lunged forward.
He stepped aside with a rasp, a spray of black-red blood spurting from him as I tore into him with my momentum.
Fumbling to my knees, a wave of dizziness swallowed me. This wound was deeper than the other shallow cuts. My insides twisted from the harsh pain.
Lukain had trained me to take punishment from blunt weapons across every inch of my body—clubs, sticks, wooden instruments battered me until my resilience was sound and I’d become immune to the sensations, the pain.
I had never been trained to take steel swords in the gut.
Coughing, I fell to my knees. When I looked over my shoulder, Garroway kicked me in the chest and I flopped onto my back. My dagger went skittering across the grated floor. I held my sword up weakly.
