Her foot hooks my ankle causing my balance to vanish.
The world flips and my face slams into the stone hard enough to make my vision flash white.
Pain explodes through my nose.
Behind me, Moe gasps… then starts laughing.
I shove myself upright with a growl, blood dripping from my nose. “Again.”
Lis gestures lazily. “Proceed.”
I attack harder. This time I feint left before cutting right, shadow snapping toward her ribs while I aim a kick at her knee.
She catches my ankle. She just catches it.
Then twists. Once more, I hit the ground so hard the air leaves my lungs in one violent rush.
Moe laughs louder.
“You are enjoying this far too much,” I wheeze.
She wipes at tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. “You made a very strange sound when you landed.”
“I did not.”
“You squealed,” Lis says in that serious voice of hers.
“I did not squeal,” I protest.
Moe nearly falls off the broken pillar she has claimed as her viewing perch as she keeps laughing.
Humiliation burns hotter than the bruises forming across my body.
“Glad I can provide some entertainment,” I say drily.
Then I throw myself at Lis again. And again. And again.
Every attempt ends the same way.
She sidesteps my strikes with infuriating ease, redirects my momentum, and plants me into the ground before I can so much as brush her sleeve. My shadows never touch her. Every strategy I form is anticipated before completion, every feint read before I commit to it.
By the tenth time I am once more flat on my back, staring at the crimson sky, my chest heaving and every inch of me aching.
Lis stands over me, not one speck of dust on her clothes.
“You overcommit every strike,” she says. “You rely too much on strength and not enough on positioning. Your footwork is atrocious. Your domain use is predictable. Your stance collapses whenever frustrated. And you communicate your intentions with your shoulders before every attack.”
I stare up at her. At last, I force myself upright despite my trembling limbs.
“You gathered all of that from ten exchanges?”
She arches a brow. “Nine. The tenth was redundant.”
Ugh! I hate her.
Moe is still giggling under her breath. Now I know why she suggested this. She needed her personal show.
Alas, I am happy to deliver.
