Page 133 of House of Dusk
Yeneris flung one of the daggers. Mikat blocked it, moving confidently. She knew how this would end. Knew everything about Yeneris. Because she had shaped her, honed her, trained her, turned her into a living weapon to slice the heart out of their enemies.
Yeneris weighed her last blade in her hand. She knew what she had to do. She flung it straight at Mikat’s face.
The woman batted the blade aside as if it were a fly, laughing. “You’re out of weapons, girl.”
Yeneris held her ground as Mikat stalked closer. “Look at what she’s done to you.” Her lip curled. “Did she have her handmaidens give you those ridiculous braids?”
A faint squawk of protest came from the pavilion. Yeneris breathed in, one hand lifting to touch the braids, sweeping over them as if they were a talisman. Her fingers brushed the amber hairpin.To keep a loved one safe. Let’s hope the wind-spirits are paying attention.
“I’ll give you one last chance,” said Mikat. For all the bitterness in her voice, her brown eyes held something softer. “Prove that you still hold true and I’ll spare you. You’ll be a hero, instead of a traitor.”
“No. I’d be a traitor to the kos,” said Yeneris. “If there is a world soul, then Sinoe is part of it. She’s part of my heart. I will not cut that out just to please you. I’m not your blade anymore.”
Mikat took a long, slow breath in. Then let it out, sharp and quick, as if she were blowing out a lamp. Her sword slid under Yeneris’s chin. “Then you will both die.”
“You’re wrong about another thing too,” said Yeneris.
Mikat frowned. “What?”
“I still have one weapon left,” she said, and jabbed the amber hairpin into Mikat’s arm.
The woman shrieked, stumbling back, but Yeneris had already seized the hilt of her sword, twisting it away.
A heartbeat later their positions were reversed. Now Mikat was the one with a sword tip resting gently against her throat. Yeneris held her gaze coolly. “You have a choice, Mikat. You can swear by the kore that you will not harm Sinoe, or you can die.”
Mikat looked as if she were chewing a mouthful of thorns. She glanced toward the palanquin, then to the cedar reliquary lying a few paces away. Finally she swallowed, and nodded. “I swear by the kore that I will not harm the princess, nor will any other here. She’s free to go. Stand down,” she called to her people.
The Bassaran agents lowered their weapons, retreating slowly, releasing Hura and his people. Yeneris paced back a step, nodding to the cedar chest. Mikat went to claim it.
As she hefted it into her arms, her gaze found Yeneris again. “I will keep my word, Yeneris. But you will regret this choice. I will see that everyone knows what you’ve done. We will restore Bassara, but there will be no place for you there.”
Then she turned and stalked away, accompanied by the others. A few glanced back at her. Some with that same outrage and disgust, but others less certain.
“Yeneris?”
She barely had time to lower Mikat’s sword before Sinoe slammed into her, arms wrapped tight. “Fates. I thought...” The princess dragged in a long, shaking breath.
“You thought I was extremely competent and talented,” Yeneris suggested. But she gripped Sinoe’s shoulders as if daring the world to tear her away, and the words were rough.
“Yes,” Sinoe’s voice was a strangled mixture of laughter and relief. “That’s it exactly.”
A darker thought occurred to Yeneris. She pulled back, searching Sinoe’s bone-pale face, finding her hazel eyes in the dark rings of kohl. “You didn’t think I would do it, did you?”
“No. Never.” Sinoe slid her hands up, lacing her fingers into Yeneris’s tightly. “But I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to have to make that choice.”
“I’d do it all over again,” said Yeneris, steadily, clearly, so that Sinoe would see the truth of it. “A thousand times over.”
Sinoe’s lips parted around a soft sigh. Lifting Yeneris’s hand, she pressed a single kiss into her palm, then winked. “I’d thank you more properly, but you really don’t want to be covered in face paint. It’s horrible stuff.”
Yeneris was entirely willing to take that risk, but she was also keenly aware that this wasn’t over. The kore was free, but Sinoe was not. Which was going to make challenging Hierax and Lacheron even more dangerous.
CHAPTER 37
SEPHRE
The water shimmered under Sephre’s fingertips. Not the bright leap of flame, but a silvery gleam, like starlight. Beautiful. And deadly.
But not to her.
