Page 13 of Fallen Stars

Perhaps it was a gift from someone greater than the gods that she’d be able to exact vengeance on the three men who had harmed Astra before her as well as send her message to Eli.

Two snakes.

One stone.

She glanced once more to Astra, the wolf slumped, breathing shallow, then focused on the scarred prick creeping nearer. He’d taken her pause as a weakness, fear no longer gleaming in his eyes. A beginner’s mistake.

She approached, her two curved knives trailing across the ground.

As predicted, the scarred man struck out the moment she was in range. But Elara hadn’t compensated for how strong the brute was. She raised both knives, crossing them as steel met steel. She gritted her teeth as his weight bore down on her, her arms shaking as he forced them down.

She staggered back, raising one knife once again.

Never let your guard down, Enzo had told her, time and time again during training.Never drop that knife.

The man was beginning to grow in confidence, leaving Astra as Elara drew him out back into the centre of the pit.

With a dark laugh, his sword swooped down upon her again, coming for her left—her weaker side. She raised her weapon at the last moment, deflecting it as her shoulder wrenched. She cried out, and the crowd went wild.

“Gut the bitch,” someone in the crowd screamed.

“Get her!” another yelled.

On and on, the man’s blows came until Elara had to move into the defence, her attacker’s onslaught merciless. Again and again, she parried, dancing him around the pit even as her arms began to shake, threatening to buckle with each jarring wrench of his sword upon her knife. She panted heavily, making a show of stumbling as the crowd laughed.

He took another swing, and this time, one of her knives flew from her hand, skittering across the floor. She cried out.

The man laughed. “This is what happens when little girls try to play with knives,” he said. His mouth displayed blackened teeth as he grinned. “Stupid little cunt.”

He slammed his fist into Elara’s face before she could bring her other knife up, and she took it, falling as her head snapped back.

He loomed over her as she lay in the dirt and dust, head lolling. The man straddled her, forcing the hand still gripping her curved knife above her head.

“Drop it,” he growled, sweat coating him. She squeezed her eyes shut as droplets of his perspiration fell onto her face. The man was tired, panting heavily.

“Drop it,” he roared again, pressing his thumb into the bone of her wrist. She cried out, jerking as she dropped her knife.

“After I’m done with you, I’m going to carve that wolf up and wear its fur as a coat,” he snarled into her ear, his scar ugly and mottled up close.

Elara’s other hand, the one that wasn’t in his grip, was jammed between them.

She took measured breaths as the man scrambled for his sword, raising it to deliver the killing blow.

And with that arm raised, he formed a gap between them.

As she drank in the near feral screams and cheers of the crowd, all wishing upon her downfall, Elara hid her smile behind her hair. Because another thing Enzo had told her?

Use your own weakness to your advantage. Lean into it so that the opponent thinks they’ve won, and at the last moment, show them who has been leading the dance all along.

Her hand worked around the hilt of her dagger—her last weapon left, in its snake holster around her thigh—and with a cry, thanking the brief space between them, she drove it up with her free hand, right through the man’s eye.

The man screamed, the dagger protruding from his head as he reeled back. Elara rolled out from under him, picking up her fallen blades and sheathing them as he wailed and wailed, clawing at his eye as his body spasmed.

She ignored the shocked gasps from the crowd as she straddled the man, his strength nothing now. With a grimace, she yanked her dagger from his socket, the eye detaching with it.

The man screamed again, falling backwards as he slumped with the pain. He had maybe minutes before his life would slip from him, and Elara wanted to make every second count.

Swinging her arm back, and gripping the hilt of her dagger tightly, she flicked it powerfully and swiftly so that the eyeball detached from her blade. It soared through the air into the crowd that shrilled a symphony of screams.

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