Page 116 of Ship of Smoke and Steel

There’s a brilliant flash, and crack like the world’s largest branch breaking. Heat rolls over me. For a moment I can’t see, my vision full of flaring afterimages. Green lightning crawls across my body, earthing itself in long arcs to the deck.

The kick comes out of nowhere, slamming into my stomach. Even with the Melos armor, it would be enough to knock me off my feet, with all the Butcher’s weight behind it. I go limp, letting it carry me, ready to hit the deck and roll—

—but the Melos armor doesn’t flare. There’s no crackle of green fire or spray of lightning. Just a thump of bone-cracking impact, and an abrupt spike of pain.

I don’t even notice when I hit the deck, skidding across it to sprawl on my back. The world spins around me, the sound of the crowd an oceanic roar in my ears. Every breath is an agony, not the familiar pain of powerburn but something sharp and nauseating.

Rot, rot, rot. Get up, Isoka.

I raise my head, expecting to find the Butcher bearing down on me, but she’s still several yards away, propped on the hilt of her oversized sword. I force myself to roll onto one shoulder, gathering my legs under me. Blood gushes from my midsection, splashing across the deck. I put my hand to my stomach and find a neat hole in my leathers and the flesh beneath, torn skin hot against my fingers. The Butcher has one of those sharp, triangular teeth on her boot, too, and it’s now dyed red.

She makes no move to attack as I shakily regain my feet, one hand still pressed against the wound. Once I’m up, she straightens, stretching her shoulders and heaving that monster sword into the air again.

“Bit of a shock, isn’t it?” she says, conversationally. “Not used to having holes punched in you.”

I close my eyes, concentrate. My blades shimmer to life with a crackle, but the warmth that my armor should conjure doesn’t follow. When I open my eyes again, the Butcher is holding up a closed fist, wreathed in sparking green energy.

“Won’t work,” she says. “Not until I let go. I never had enough control in Melos to protect myself, but I learned this trick from a Jyashtani boy. Interference, I think he called it.” Her grin turns vicious. “How do you like being mortal, you rotting bitch?”

Then she comes forward, sword swinging, trailing the golden light of Rhema as she moves with preternatural speed. I back up, dodging, not daring to parry a blade that heavy. Every move tears at the hole in my stomach, the leather around it now sodden with blood. I can barely think through the pain.

When we reach the edge of the Ring, I have to do something or get backed into the barrier. The Butcher is coming at me with big sideways swings, all power and no finesse. I slip in behind one, feinting low and then jabbing one blade right at her face. She takes the feint strike on her thigh, Melos energy crackling over armor, and blocks the high strike with her off hand. As I spin away, she pulls back, and the tooth on her gauntlet leaves a long cut along the length of my arm. Fresh pain blooms, and blood spatters the deck.

“Getting a little weary?” she says, watching me sway. She slaps the spot on her thigh where I cut her and grins. “I can keep this up all day.”

She’s rotting right. Even if I could trade cut for cut with her, I’ll drop long before she does. Sooner or later I’ll be slow enough that she’ll catch me with that sword, and without armor one hit would cut me in half.

I’m backing up again, staying out of range. Something roils in my gut, around the pain, that’s so unfamiliar it takes me a moment to identify.

It’s fear. It’s been a long time since I was afraid in a fight. I’m suddenly aware of my body, not just as an instrument for delivering death, but in all its horrible fragility, its soft skin that parts so easily beneath a blade, its bones that break under pressure. There had been a moment, when the hammerhead had me pinned, but then it had been do-or-die. Now I’m faced with this grinning monster, and I’m practically running away, feeling thick, hot blood squirt between my fingers.

I feel like I’m twelve years old again, before my powers came to me, when all I had to defend me and Tori from the next slaver or rapist was a two-inch knife and whatever strength an underfed kid could muster. We were always, always running. In my dreams, we were cornered by laughing shadows.

I try to force myself to move. To fight, rot it. But the Butcher’s blade whirrs, and the razor teeth on her armor gleam, and I fall back.

Blessed’s rotting balls. Is this how Meroe feels all the time? Is this how Berun felt, when we guilt-tripped him into coming with us, fighting monsters without the benefit of magical armor? I feel like I would go and hide in a dark corner and never, ever come out.

The Butcher is right. I’m only brave because I’m strong. Take that away and I’m falling to pieces.

To the Rot with that.

I dive sideways as we reach the barrier again, the Butcher’s sword whirring over my head. She kicks out, the tooth nicking my leg, but I’m already rolling away. I get back up, breathing hard, my vision starting to swim. Not long left, now.

But if she thinks I’m going to give up, she’s wrong. I might have been scared, before I gained my power, but I kept going. The scars that mar my skin are a record of beatings, knife fights, frantic scuffles in the dark. Every time, I got back up, standing between my sister and the world that wanted her dead.

She’s still behind me, somewhere. So is Meroe.

This rotting monster has to have a weakness. She’s too confident, for one thing. She could have cut me down while I was surprised by her trick, ended this in one strike. But she had to lecture me first, make me understand how badly I’d lost. What else?

She’s practiced this style of fighting, the slow, brutal cuts, wearing an opponent down until one connects. She’s comfortable with it. When I get in close, she relies on her armor to keep me from doing serious damage.

—relies on her armor—

A slow smile spreads across my face.

The Butcher isn’t the only one who can make the Melos Well do tricks.

I concentrate as I back away, letting one blade vanish, shortening the other into a vicious spike. Melos energy builds up in my arm, bringing it to an uncomfortable pitch of heat. I hadn’t considered this before—against most human opponents, it would be too dangerous, reducing my reach and leaving me no way to parry. But now—