“I am my father’s daughter.”
Their swords rang out again, and Amarande called out to Luca over the girl’s shoulder. He’d just kicked the Eritrian back to the ground, sending the boy sprawling and more blood spurting. The sky was suddenly a shade brighter, everything coming to light. The Myrcellian charged at him, and Luca held his knife out against the boy, who had no obvious weapon except those meat-paw fists at the bases of his long arms.
“Don’t kill him! We need him! Fists only. No daggers.” The Eritrian blubbered from the ground, trying again to get to his feet but dizzy enough he swayed every time he nearly got there.
“Dunixi, if you haven’t noticed, we’re fightingthe princess,so I don’t think we need him any longer!”
“Ula, and here I thought we were friends,” Luca said, and it almost sounded like he was laughing.
Amarande thought she saw a whisper of a smile as the girl met her latest blow. “Nothing personal, but you’re worth the same to us alive or dead at this point, Luca.”
Luca dodged a running swing from the tall boy, the Myrcellian’s long arm finding nothing but air as Luca rolled. Through the movement, Luca’s blade slashed the boy’s shirt from his skin, blood blooming under his rib cage as he shrieked, “If you don’t need me, let us go. I’d rather not hurt any of you.”
That surprised Amarande a little, considering what they’d done to him, but Luca was nothing if not kind to the most difficult creatures—human, equine, or otherwise.
“If we don’t have either of you, we don’t get paid,” the Eritrian bellowed, finally getting to his feet. “Ula, Urtzi, capture them both and let’s collect.”
“Capturing would be much easier if it werethree on two,” the girl spat through clenched teeth as she crossed swords yet again with Amarande. Up close, her eyes flashed, furious despite her sarcasm. If Amarande were her, she’d be furious, too.
“Hold the stableboy, Urtzi,” the Eritrian ordered the lanky boy, forearms and hands bloody with more direct slashes from Luca’s knife work. Luca danced around, pulling the Myrcellian toward Amarande, as the Eritrian came their way, drawing a flaming stick from the fire and coming toward Amarande and the girl as if brandishing a torch.
Amarande’s eyes rolled.Just like an ineffective leader—kill it with fire.
Middle guard and cross, and she pushed the girl back toward the advancing boy, so that he’d have to work around the swing of their swords to do any damage. At some point, he’d wiped the blood from his nose into his eyes, and with the change in blocking he misjudged, swinging and nearly catching the tips of the girl’s long hair with the flames. The girl wrenched herself away, giving up ground on Amarande’s advance, and the princess’s sword came down at an angle that grazed her forearm.
As she cried out, the Eritrian tipped off-balance, hitting only air and tumbling forward into some brush, spinning as he fell to keep from landing on his flaming stick. It dropped out of the boy’s hand as he hit the ground with a smack, a violentoooof,and a hiss.
More than one hiss.
“Dunixi!” the girl yelled, her slashed arm really bleeding now. But the boy was slow to take her warning, the air and all his motivation vacating as he landed hard.
And just beyond his far shoulder was the reason for the hissing—three snakes unsettled and unfurling.
Amarande’s eyes widened.
Squat body, zigzag-patterned scales, buzzing hiss—unmistakably Harea Asps.
Owners of the deadliest venom in all of the Sand and Sky.
Able to strike and reset within a tenth of a second.
And very, very easy to anger.
Suddenly the princess was in motion, lunging for the stick andits remaining flame. She scooped it up in her right hand and tossed it at the snake just as it struck at the Eritrian. At the same time, the girl yanked him hard and pulled him toward her. He tumbled into her and in an instant they were both flat on the ground, him pinning her, as the flaming snake hissed back.
The asp’s brethren scattered—right toward where Luca and the tall boy still exchanged blows.
“Luca!” Amarande yelled as he ducked from a long swing of the tall boy’s fist. She ran toward both Luca and the fire. “Move, move, fire incoming!”
The Myrcellian boy just grunted, his attention squarely on Luca.
But Luca had his wits about him, and just like during those faux battles back home in their little meadow, he knew everything Amarande was thinking before she did it.
When the tall boy’s next automatic punch sailed toward Luca’s face, instead of ducking, Luca grabbed his opponent’s fist in both hands and used it to swing them both out of the way. As they stumbled in the opposite direction of where the girl and the blond boy were trying to untangle themselves, Amarande scraped the fat edge of her sword through the fire, scooping up embers and ashes on the thick Basilican steel. In one broad heave, the flaming kindling sprayed the advancing asps with a crackle and hiss.
The snakes shuddered and retreated, scales smoking.
And, suddenly, Amarande and Luca’s window of escape was open.
