Page 161 of Master of Storms
She was smaller, leaner, technically weaker than mostdrekimales, but if she’d ever had a hope of holding her own, her mother had explained, then she would have to bebetterthan they were.
“Close your eyes, Solveig,” whispered her mother’s voice. “And sense my attack. Don’t see it, read it in every fiber of air that sweeps past you.”
Solveig closed her eyes and stepped into a defensive stance.
Air was her strength. She opened herself up to her powers, and suddenly she was a gust of breeze in the world, feeling every little current sweep over her skin. And as those currents touched her, she could feel what they were saying.
Left.
He was to the left of her.
A sword whined, and Solveig brought her own up to meet it. Steel shrieked on not-steel—or whatever the hell that metal was. Solveig followed up with a boot to Tyndyr’s chest and heard his gasp of shock as he staggered back.
He was used to wielding illusions and trickery to win his fights. But technically, his sword work wasn’t as good as hers. And after centuries of relying on his illusions, he’d forgotten what it truly meant to wage battle.
Solveig lunged forward, their blades clashing again. He recovered quickly, and she twisted as she sensed a second attack, moving as if she was the air itself. Again and again and again.
Blood sprayed hotly across her face as the tip of her sword cut through his shoulder as if his flesh was made of butter. Solveig opened her eyes, no longer relying on them, and saw fear flicker in his odd-colored eyes as he clapped a hand to his arm.
Suddenly, a half dozen images coalesced over him and then settled into one.
“Iron hurts, doesn’t it?” She crouched low. “It affects your magic. Not so easy to play games when you’re bleeding.”
“You bitch.” Mottled color spread across his cheeks, and then he attacked with a viciousness that surprised her.
But the air told her he wasn’t in front of her anymore.
She lunged forward, sweeping her blade through the glamored form of him, pretending to fall for his feint. The trick was not overextending. A slight twist of the wrist, and then she captured the hilt with her other hand and stabbed it backwards, beneath her right arm.
A hard weight drove onto the sword from behind, a gush of breath wetting the back of her neck.
Solveig spun low beneath a counter blow, taking the bastard’s feet out from under him.
He collapsed with her sword still buried in her gut, both hands clutched around it. Shock painted itself across his face in delicious strokes.
She’d think of him like this in the aftermath. Scrabbling in the dirt like a turtle on its back as he gasped and tried to wrench the steel of her blade from his body’s embrace, even as his hands burned at its touch.
Solveig reached out and jerked her sword free of him. “There’s something you should know about me. I learn quickly. And I never make the same mistake twice. Get up.”
Gritting his teeth, he moved to push to his feet, and she kicked him right in the face.
He flipped backwards, scrabbling to roll away from the blow that never came. “You said—”
“I didn’t say I was going to let you make your feet.” Solveig laughed. “When you fight wyrms, you don’t grant them honor. Honor is for a worthy foe, and you’re a piece of shit beneath my boot.Crawl.”
Tyndyr growled at her through bloodstained teeth. “I will make you—”
She drove the heel of her boot down on his fingers, smiling viciously as he screamed. The crunch his bones made was the best sound she’d ever heard. “Beg me,” she whispered. “Beg me for your life.”
Tyndyr scrabbled toward his fallen sword, and she let him go, stalking forward slowly. His broken hand clutched his gut wound, and he hissed at her through bloodied teeth.
“Not so pretty now,” she taunted.
He drove toward her in a desperate attack and Solveig dodged the swing of his sword and brought her clenched hand up. Tyndyr was swept off his feet in a gust of air and flung into a mini whirlwind. His scream sounded like music.
“You thought I was going to be an easy throat to slit. You mocked me. You tried to make me crawl. You forget who you’re fighting,” she hissed. “I am adreki queen, and I will make you beg for my mercy.”
Bringing her hand back down, she slammed him into the ground.
