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Not Daimis, not the last piece of my past. I refuse to let it happen. My heart races and sweat runs down my spine as I sprint through the cave. The mantra, not Daimis, not Daimis, not Daimis is like a war drum in my heart. Before I realize what’s happening, my magic responds to my panic, a manifestation of my desperation, and a tendril of darkness leaves me. Racing like a dark spear through the curving cave and out of my sight. Before I can call it back, I feel it hit something pliable. I gasp, horrified over what I might have just done.
Did I hit Daimis or the creature?
The tendril disappears into mist at the thought. A screeching scream that could only be the beast echoes from up ahead, putting my fears to rest. I’d struck the creature, not Daimis.
The sounds of fighting reach me: grunts, growls, a blade striking, shuffling and screeching. I stumble in on Daimis battling the two creatures. For a moment I just stare, admiring Daimis’s expert fighting skills. He ducks out of the way of a stinger, strikes the first creature, spins, blocks a tail lash from the second, and then strikes out at that one.
He isn’t fighting the way he has been for the last week with me in the training room. He’s holding nothing back; his movements are just as fast as the creatures’. He slices into them with each pass, while neither creature can land a blow with their sharp talons, jagged teeth, or spear-pointed tails. What’s more, is thewayDaimis moves. It’s not the fighting style of the Steel Guard that I’ve seen him fight in. No, he’s displaying a completely different form of combat that is much superior, and he’s mastered it beautifully. I watch him, mesmerized by the powerful grace of his movements. Fluid and precise. A beautiful, deadly dance. It’s the fighting art of thefae. No wonder he didn’t fault me for learning it.
The creature on the other side of Daimis lashes out at his head, he blocks it, and turns to face the one by me, but his gaze meets mine and the distraction allows the beast to knock Daimis’s legs out from under him. He goes down and I break from my trance.
The creature closest to me readies to spike Daimis with its tail, taking full advantage of him being flat on his back. I run, take two steps up the bookshelf to give me height advantage, then push off and spin, using the momentum and trajectory to slice my blade clean through the beast’s tail. The creature screams out and recoils in pain, but I don’t give it a chance to recover, and sink my second blade into its head just before I land next to Daimis. I immediately twist my body and throw one of my blades, it flies end over end until it sinks deep into the other creature’s tail, pinning it into the bookshelf. I wasn’t only trained by a fae, I was also taught by pixies, who taught me to spot the best advantages from up high, and trolls, who are expert knife throwers.
Daimis, now back on his feet, follows suit by slicing his sword through the second creature’s neck, severing its head. It falls with a thump, followed by another, louder thud of its body. The wrongness I’d felt fades with the creature’s life.
Daimis and I both breathe heavily. I recover my blade, wipe the yellow blood from both blades with the bottom of the cloak and slide them back into their holsters at my hips.
“Thanks for joining in, Demon-slayer. I thought you might just sit there all night, watching.”
I shrug. “I was waiting until you needed me.”
“Which is why I decided to take a fall, figured it wasn’t nice to hog all the fun.”
I turn to him, trying to hide my smile. “You did not fake it.”
“I did. I wanted to see you fight. You watched me,” he gives me a smile of wicked delight. “It was my turn.”
And even with the demonic dead bodies around us, my stomach does a flip at his innuendo. “You like what you saw?”
“You fight well,” Daimis says, then shrugs. “For a thief.”
“I guess you fight well, too.” I copy his shrug. “For a princess.”
He chuckles.
“Want to tell me where you learned to fight in the fae form?” I ask.
The fae are not known to share their secrets, their fighting style being one of them. So how the hell did the Prince of Thaaryn learn? And I find it even more interesting that he hasn’t shared those secrets with the Steel Guard and pretends that he’s a lesser fighter than he is.
“My uncle taught me.” It sounds rehearsed and I know better than anyone that he didn’t learn from another human. I must have my suspicions written on my face because he adds, “My aunt and uncle live close to the border, near fae territory and when we were at peace, before the Blood Moon, my uncle had fae friends who taught him.”
It might be true, yet I feel that there’s much more to it than what he’s saying.
“I knew you were holding back in our sessions,” I say.
“From what I just saw, you were too,” he counters.
“But I didn’t lie about how I fight.”
“You don’t have to like I do.” He sighs. “We both know that there are many in the castle who would use the knowledge of my connection with anything to do with the fae against me.”
It’s true. And I imagine the Regent might be the worst of them. I decide to drop the topic. I nudge one of the dead beasts with the toe of my boot. “Have you ever seen anything like this before?”
“Never.” Daimis crouches down and examines the dead creature. He wrinkles his nose. “It stinks something vile.”
“I don’t think it’s from our world,” I say, thinking of the way I felt the wrongness with both the shadow demons and these things.
“I think you’re right,” Daimis says. He stands back up and looks at the bookshelves closest to us. “But I want to know what it was guarding.”
