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“Or what?” I challenged. “You’ll try to have me killed again? It didn’t work the first time and I sure as hell will—”
She moved quicker than I anticipated. Bracing herself against the wall, she lodged one knee against my pelvis and pushed me backward. It wasn’t a surprise that she had freed herself from her bonds, but when her fingers clamped onto Amnesia, pulling it out of the scabbard with the cacophonous shriek of steel, my bewilderment was palpable.
It was done within a fraction of a second. My very own blade was pointed in my direction, the polished tip glinting in the noon sun.
“For the record, I have no wish to harm you,” Olympia stated, adjusting her grip on my sword. Her fingers looked much too pale against the dark, worn leather, and I knew she was fighting to find purchase in the imprints my bigger grip had left in the fabric over the past two decades.
Her knuckles were almost white, standing in stark relief against the leather. Red lines scored her wrists where the ropes had cut into her.
“You have a funny way of showing that,” I said, adjusting the knot of muscles on my shoulders.
“Because you aren’t listening to reason,” she parried, bending slightly at the knees and bobbing forward. Her step was light, the stance of a practiced warrior.
Perhaps shehadgotten better at combat over the years.
Watch yourself, Zo.
“I trust actions, not words,” I said, deliberately letting my gaze fall on the brandished weapon.
“I don’t want to harm you,” she repeated. “But you need to listen to me, Zoei.”
“I tire of this game. No more words,” I asserted. “I don’t believe a single thing from your lying lips.”
“Then you leave me no choice,” she declared, breath huffing from her chest.
I raised a brow, unamused. “You think you can harm me, Olympia Summerstream?”
An intensity dawned in her gaze, searing fire wherever it touched my skin.
“I vow to try if it means my freedom,” she whispered fiercely, setting upon me with a hard grunt of effort.
I dodged the first blow by dropping to the ground and rolling quickly, rising on my hands and knees in the opposite corner of the room.
She charged forward, the sword more at ease in her grip than I’d expected. Yet again, I had underestimated my opponent, and she wielded Amnesia in a blaze of mockery.
Sparks flared to life along my fingertips, flames rising into the air with the glow of arcane energy.
“Fight fair, Zoei,” Olympia cautioned, chest rising and falling quickly. “My powers are useless here—you made sure they would be. There is nothing from our Goddess-given earth that I could use to protect myself.”
“I never claimed I would fight fair,” I smirked, sending several tendrils of jagged fireswirls her way.
“Goddess damn it,” I heard her curse as she fought to dodge each one, letting them ricochet off Amnesia’s fire-proof coating.
The small tower with its high ceilings and frivolous wall coverings was not meant for battle. Almost immediately, the smell of singed fabric and the echo of fire on steel swirled around us—both a warning and a motivation.
My limbs moved of their own accord, familiar with this dance of wills.
It was not a fair fight—it would never be a fair fight. Not unless I was battling a stranger. But I knew Olympia and had trained with her for years. I knew she preferred to defend herself against an attack and rarely parried first. She held off on inflicting anyrealinjury in hopes that she could talk her opponent out of a bloody end.
In other words, she was stupid. Weak. Magnanimity made her a spineless pushover.
I’d have her on the ground in an instant, confessing to her sins. And her life would be mine to end as I wished.
The thought came to a speedy conclusion as Olympia angled the sword sideways, tearing through the leather arm covering of my armor in one fell swoop.
I fell back with a snarl, watching blood spray from the gash on my left arm. The pungent smell of iron mingled with the acrid stench of singed wall coverings, lacing my tongue with a bitter tincture.
It wasn’t a deep wound—merely a scratch to the surface, but it ignited my Alpha like a tinder spark.
