Remnant tilted her head, her black and blue hair trailing over her bare tattooed shoulder. “Your eyes are old, they do not see things correctly. Allow me to help you with that.”
Releasing her blade from my chest with a flourish she lunged for the swordmaster who grinned in the face of her assault. Raising his blade at the very last second to defend himself, he parried and thrusted back. The sound of their blades echoed in the dimming light.
“She is very good.” My father stepped next to me to watch their physical prowess.
“You haven’t seen anything yet.” I said wryly. “But if he so much as nicks her, his head will be on a pike outside Finlandia gates.”
He snorted. “I do not doubt that, my son.” He nodded at my arms. “New pets?”
I followed his gaze to the now docile shadows curled in my arm. I hadn’t even realized I had been holding them to me like a slumbering cat.
I shook my head, smiling fondly at them. “They seem to have claimed me.”
“As much as their owner has it would seem.”
I grunted. I knew he had seen the truth the moment he laid eyes on Remnant.
“That series was sloppy Dark!” Bane chastised loudly as he shifted into an offensive attack.
“Don’t mistake originality with your stiff regimented forms, Steelhead.” She responded casually back.
Remnant wasn’t wrong, Bane’s movement, while graceful, was carefully placed footwork designed for power and positioning. Remnant’s was more fluid and she slid on the terrain, allowing herto use Bane’s advances against him. It was an ebb and flow that was simple and beautiful.
Remnant Ezra Solaire Dark danced as she fought.
“A blind person could see how loose that grip is. You’re out of shape Dark and you will tire eventually.”
She laughed and I savored the sound.
The dead dirt kicked up in a smoky cloud of dust around them as their paces quickened along with the constant clanging of their blades. Remnant’s shadows snapped to attention in my arms and then leapt forward, quickly slithering across the deadlands to hover closer to their mistress.
Devoted and ready, just like I was.
My father shook his shaggy head. “I am happy you are here, my son. When should we expect the others to arrive?”
“Before sun down I expect, if the deadlands have not grown since the last report.”
“Unfortunately they have but not enough to cause them to be much longer than that. I suppose Penina is one of them.”
I flashed a wide feral grin at him mischievously. “Of course.”
He grumbled. “That’s a dangerous game you play with Bane, my cub. But then again, the sour old goat needs a little unsettling in his life.” My father nodded at Bane and Remnant. “Those two look like they will be at this for a while.”
“Yes.” I said simply.
“You expected that…hoped for it even.”
“Yes.”
“This sounds like a conversation that requires a seat and a drink,” my father remarked before gripping my shoulder, turning me to face him. His blonde brows rose high on his handsome face. “Let’s go inside my cub and tell me what weighs so heavily on your heart when it should be light with your soulmate standing just mere feet away from you.”
I barked out a short laugh. “I see you haven’t lost your power of truth.”
He grunted and guided me to the manor. “Sometimes I wish I had. To see beyond the falsehoods of the fae and the words they spin, to see the truth and need in others—it’s more like a curse at times.”
I couldn’t agree more.
Chapter 60
