Page 46 of Brimstone
“Hold it up. You’re dropping your guard.”
The sword came crashing down, its edge slicing through the air dangerously close to my face. A thrill of adrenaline buzzed right below the surface of my skin, making me break out in a cold sweat.
Lorreth probably didn’t want to be here. How selfish of me not to have considered it before: The warrior had come close to being drained by three rogue feeders once and had nearly died as a result. Fisher had needed to bind a piece of his soul with Lorreth’s in order to drag the male back from the brink of death. That had been centuries ago now, but you didn’t just get over something like that without it leaving a mark.
Ammontraíeth was a place of shadows—an element I had grown trusting of lately. But the dark that welled in the corners of the Blood Court’s palace was not made to caress or seduce as Fisher’s shadows were, at least when he used them onme, anyway. Ammontraíeth’s shadows hid danger and watchful eyes. I wasn’t the only one who noticed that when we’d arrived earlier, shortly after dusk.
Lorreth was on high alert, his gaze everywhere but on me as we sparred. The training facility was lit by evenlight, the strange, lazy flames swaying like tall grass in a light breeze as the warrior and I wheeled around one another.
There were no windows here. The walls and the floor were made of slick, polished obsidian, which blunted the air somehow. My quickened breath and the sound of our bare feetslapping against the cool black surface seemed too loud. Too close.
Lorreth launched himself forward, grunting as he brought Avisiéth swinging down. The sound echoed once and didn’t come again. I spun away from the blow, light on my feet, careful not to take my eyes from the warrior lest he bring the god sword’s pommel down on my head in a backhand.
“I should have gone,” I said, bringing Solace’s guard up. “I should be withthem.”
Lorreth easily sidestepped the thrust I aimed at his shoulder, batting Solace away. Hetsked through his teeth, shaking his head. “Sloppy. Higher. Like this.” He demonstrated how I should hold my sword, making a point of raising his elbows so that they were in line with his jaw. He nodded when I had mimicked the posture to his satisfaction, then attacked. “You couldn’t go with them,” he said, rushing forward. “In case you’ve forgotten, your old home has two suns and no night.”
“I could have worn a cloak.” I ducked a slashing strike he aimed at my stomach. “Kept my skin covered.”
“Sure. That wouldn’t have made you stick out like a sore thumb. And what about the exhaustion? You’re weaker at midday here—”
I straightened, lowering Solace. “Hey!”
“I said weaker. Not weak. Guard!” The flat of his blade landed on my upper arm—a punishment for dropping out of my stance. Pain jarred my shoulder and shot straight up into my head. My teeth cracked together so hard that I bit my tongue and tasted blood.
“That wasn’t very polite,” I grumbled.
“Oh, damn. I didn’t realize we were doing this to be polite. Sorry. Let me fix that.” He snapped his bare heels together, adopting a stiff-backed stance. With his chin lifted, he peered down his nose at me and fixed me with an imperious stare. “Ichallenge you to a duel, Saeris Fane. Would you please stab me with that shiny sword of yours? It would besuchan honor.”
“Fuck you, Lorreth.”
He made a face. “You kiss my commander with that mouth?”
“I’ve done far worse thankisshim with it.”
His mouth pulled down at the corners, his eyes going wide. “Okay. I don’t need to hear aboutthat, thank you very much.”
“I wasn’t going . . . to tell you.” I gasped for breath as I spun around again, twisting at the ankles, then the knees, then the hips as I brought Solace arcing through the air. Sword fighting was much harder than fighting with daggers. A dagger was an extension of my hand. I was quick with a set of daggers. Nimble. The sheer size and weight of Solace made moving hard.
Lorreth tracked me as I spun; he took a step back, raised his boot, and kicked me in the side.
I went down hard, the air rushing out of me as I slammed against the floor.“Ooof!”
“Form was good. Shame about the lack of speed,” the warrior mused, pacing in a circle around me.
“I was just . . . thinking . . . that . . . myself.” Shit, my ribs hurt.
Lorreth crouched down by my head, laying Avisiéth flat across the tops of his knees and then resting his elbows on the god sword’s blade. The bastard wasn’t even out of breath. “You’re right where you need to be, Saeris,” he said. “Well. Not on the floor. You definitely shouldn’t be on the floor. But here, I mean. If you stayed away from Ammontraíeth any longer, one of the other Lords would have declared the throne abandoned and claimed it for themselves. They’d call it a dereliction of duty or something. People think the Blood Court’s all debauchery and blood-soaked orgies, but it’s mostly bureaucracy and political backbiting, from my experience.”
“You sound disappointed.”
He shrugged, offering me a hand as I got back to my feet. “I mean, who doesn’t love a blood-soaked orgy?”
“Can’t say I’ve ever participated in one.”
He shrugged. “Not missing much, honestly. They get . . . sticky.”
“Can we pause this super interesting conversation for just a moment? I think my shoulder’s dislocated.”
