My sabre makes a clean, chillingly sweet song as I unsheathe it. “Defend.”
It's all I say before I launch at him. I won’t use Skills in casesomeone’s watching—and there are always eyes. My fingers flex. He wouldn’t have come alone, and I won't let the enemy learn what I can really do.
You do not need Skills against this one,Darkan says, almost bored.Your training is far superior. Hmm. . .what is Tata Fatma making for evening meal? I can almost taste food with your mouth now.
Tybien curses and yanks his sword out; too slow. I catalog his weaknesses. He fights like coward prey, trying to tire me out rather than engaging directly.
I slip a blade down from my arm sheath and throw; Tybien shrieks, stumbling back, clutching his bloodied eye. Weak, soft-bellied male. The dripping blood arrests my attention, feral satisfaction and. . .thirst. . .rising up my throat. My shoulder blades flex, the beds of my nails aching.
Darkan makes a disgusted mental huff.Baroun has grown lazy. This is nearly an intolerable insult.
“It will heal,” I say, “if I don't kill you. You are too noisy.”
“That's enough,” a deeper voice says, smooth and edged with the upper caste’s intonation.
Chapter
Ten
MY BROTHER’S BETRAYER
Stiffening, I turn. I know that voice. A tall, brown-skinned male dressed in plain midnight blue leathers, with wild dark hair and gold eyes stalks towards us. Lord Baroun of Montague, second only to the princeling, Embriel.
Yeah, I figured.
Ah.Darkan rouses from his bog of boredom.Now we begin.
He flicks his gaze at Tybien. “Go.”
Tybien stumbles out and I expect Baroun to resume the fight, but he just stands there.
“What do you want?” I ask.
He looks over my shoulder; because I hear soft footsteps I shift to keep him and?—
High Lord Embriel.
My brother's best friend. My father's University colleague.
I see.Darkan is no longer bored.I tire of this child's mischief making.
Embriel's presence is a blow. “Traitor,” I say in a low, strangled voice.
The only son of the Prince of Everenne stops an arm’s length from me. His frosted blue eyes are calm, his hair a spill of white gold paler than Danon and Maman's down his back. He's an angel come to life, the most beautiful male in Everenne, though Maman once told me he's a shadow of his father. He's dressed for University in a fitted dark blue suit with a frothy white shirt, but no faculty robes, and is weaponless as far as I can see.
“I'm sorry, Aerinne,” Embriel says. “I needed you present.”
This is the first time he's talked to me. Danon refused to introduce us.“Stay in your corner of your world, little thorn. You want no attention from these males. Once you have it, your life will change in ways neither of us will like.”
Because dark worry shadowed Danon’s usually stern but mischievous gaze, I'd listened. Well, mischievous with me. Anyone else and my older brother is an unsheathed sword. A broken sword these days, broken and re tempered.
Like me.
“But we will not hurt you,” Embriel adds.
He would never dare. Aerinne, when I command, leave.
I stare. I'm not dumb, and I think quick. “It isn't me you want.”
