Page 91 of Autumn Queens & Shadows

Elias’s sword whizzed straight in front of my face, cutting a few strands of my hair before I could manoeuvre back enough to avoid it. Without even giving me a chance at taking a single breath of air, he whirled around, knocking me on my back with the handle.

Dropping to the slippery gravelly ground of the training court, I held a hand to my abdomen, trying to catch the breath the hit stole out of me. Every time we had these training sessions, I regretted asking him to not hold back on me. I was useless with a sword.

Unlike usually, he didn’t reach out to help at all. Instead, he sat cross legged before me, stabbing his sword on the ground and giving me a berating look, which then softened to politeness when he peeked a quick glance somewhere behind me. “You’re relying too much on magic and neglecting training.”

“I’m sure I’d be saying the same thing to you if we had used magic instead of swords.”

“What is distracting you this much?” he asked, looking behind me again.

Groaning, I looked back at where he’d been stealing glances for the past half an hour.

Malik leaned on the balcony ledge, watching us.

“He’s watching you,” Elias carefully announced, like Malik did not have an ear on every shadow.

“He can watch,” I said, throwing my jacket off.

“Put that back on,” Elias gestured, moving away from me like I was a forest fire.

“Man up, Lord Venzor.” If I heard the leather squeaking one more time, I was going to have a stroke.

“I’m about to be manned down.”

“He won’t touch anything I don’t give him permission to touch.” Turning round, I looked up at him, mindful of the Isjordian soldiers around us. “Right, honey?”

Leaning back on a wall, he crossed his hands over his chest and gave Elias a wicked smile like only Malik Castemont knew how to give. “If I find a single bruise on my brand new wife, I’m going to pluck your soul out, tie it up and make it my bitch.”

My cheeks burned. “He doesn’t mean that,” I said, patting his shoulder.

Very reluctantly, Elias picked his sword back up and stood, waiting for me instead of going in first like he usually did. “Is he the one distracting you?”

I shook my head. Not very strongly though because it was partially true. “Remember the noise I told you I’m hearing all the time?”

He raised an almost entirely translucent blonde brow up. “Got Visha to give you drops for that.”

I went in with my attack since he usually got weak in the knees when he said her name, but he easily blocked me. “Not a case for some simple drops.”

“Visha doesn’t do things simply.”

Could almost roll my eyes, but my heady sword was dragging all my muscles down. “Didn’t work, Elias. I keep hearing it more often than before. Louder. Sometimes it’s like I'm inside of it.”

“Have you told him?”

“Not all of it.”

“Why not?”

“Because I am waiting for it to go away.”

“What if it doesn’t?”

I frowned. “I keep that yellow head of yours intact with that body so you would agree with what I say and pleasantly flatter me here and there.”

“Thought that was the job for the men you tie up to your bed,” he said, blocking another of my attacks and pushing me back until I was stumbling on my feet and lost my balance in the gravel. He flashed me a perfect grin and pointed the tip of his sword to Malik. “I guess no more of them now that you’ve tied that knot.”

“I could have your tongue cut for that.”

“The lesser evil at this point.”