Page 7

In the hours that preceded the assembly, Kat found herself seized by an absurd hope.

The war had been long enough, hadn’t it?

Weren’t they all sick of fighting by now?

Mira’s briefing was mandatory, but the demonstration bout was scheduled as a prelude.

Surely the rest of the century would rather have the free time than be forced to watch something so base and violent and, frankly speaking, unnecessary.

She should have known better. The beaten dirt patch ahead of the Third Century’s command tent was clotted with more than a hundred people—easily close to two hundred, by Kat’s war-honed estimation—which meant that not only had every rank turned up early for the briefing, but other soldiers from the greater legion had gotten wind of what was about to happen and decided to packin.

“I should have let that shock knight finish the job,” Kat groaned.

At her elbow, Ziva smirked. “Don’t act like you’re not going to have fun with this.”

“I’m not,” Kat whined, only half lying. She agreed with Mira’s assessment.

Emory had made a staggering mistake, one he should have been far above as the decade’s hinge shield.

But though Kat’s pride demanded she show him just how stupid it had been to come after her, it was waging outright war with the part of her that craved another bite of him.

To humiliate him badly enough for the lesson to stick was to threaten her own prospects.

Ziva seemed to find it all invigorating. “What’s the worst that could happen?” she asked with a shrug and a grin that told Kat she knew exactly how out of hand this could get.

“Maybe if I knock him down fast…” Kat muttered, but she knew that was just wishful thinking. Mira wanted a spectacle—ateachable moment for the whole century. Kat would have to take Emory out of commission entirely to earn them an early reprieve, and the healers could only fix so much.

Also, as she knew from dueling him many a time before, Emory wouldn’t go down easy.

She risked a glance across the circle that had been chalked in the dirt to mark the bounds.

Emory stood on the far side, turning the wooden training sword he’d been issued over and over in his hands as Carrick shook him by the shoulder, muttering in his ear.

He looked relaxed, almost contemplative, but Kat knew better.

The motion was the tell—his desperate attempt to adjust to the unfamiliar weight of the waster before that sword became his sole defense.

He knew what was coming, and he knew his dignity—as a soldier, and especially as a hinge shield—was on the line.

He caught her eye, and even from this distance, Kat could see the smile he was fighting to keep down.

It’s not funny, she wanted to shout, but maybe it was.

A bit. Maybe that’s why this whole thing felt surreal.

Just days ago, she couldn’t fathom finding joy in fighting ever again.

That desperation to use her body for something else, something far less brutal, had gotten them into their little predicament in the first place.

And now here she was, a war at her back, unable to deny the part of her itching to step into that ring.

A sharp whistle rang out over the assembled crowd, and every eye snapped to the wooden platform that stood at the front of the command tent, where Mira towered resplendent in her officer’s kit.

Kat suppressed a frown at the sight of her centurion so polished.

She hadn’t seen Mira dressed up like this in years, and nothing about this occasion warranted it.

She wore an intricate ceremonial chestpiece—not the battered one that saw battle—and her pauldrons had been polished to a shine that matched her ten tokens, which she wore on display instead of safely tucked beneath her shirt.

“Third Century!” Mira called over the crowd, and roughly half the assembled soldiers thumped their chests in acknowledgment.

“And guests,” she added, drawing some good-natured cheers from the interlopers.

“We’re leading off today’s excitement with a little demonstration.

A reminder that though we may have downed the High King of Hell and sent his foul servants back to the heart of the abyss, that’s no reason for our fighting prowess to lose its legendary edge. ”

Ziva and Kat exchanged a long-suffering look. Trust Mira to make a bout like this sound like duty, rather than performance.

“Our duel today will be fought spear to sword. Our combatants hail from the first decade among our ranks. Our sword, Emory!”

On the far side of the ring, he hoisted his weapon, drawing a wave of frothy shouts and applause from the crowd.

“And our spear, Katrien!”

Kat lifted her sturdy wooden spear, and the noise doubled.

It was hard not to let it go to her head.

She knew part of it was simple logic. In a duel between spear and sword with no shield in the mix, spear was always the favorite, and people liked sure bets.

Most of these soldiers barely knew her beyond the token that hung from her neck—a rarity among infantry—and the fact that she towered over most of them.

But maybe some of them remembered the training bouts where she’d put on a good show or her turns on the front where she’d led her decade in thralls dispatched.

Maybe she had a smidge of a reputation to maintain as her decade’s hinge spear.

It couldn’t hurt to build some credit with her comrades, especially not in this moment where she risked very little.

She just wished it didn’t have to come at the expense of Emory’s dignity.

“Combatants, take your places,” Mira announced.

Kat bent low enough for Ziva to knock her knuckles against the leather helmet that protected her skull. “Don’t get too carried away,” Ziva warned with a knowing look.

Kat fought back a grin as she stepped up to the edge of the ring.

She levered down the point of her spear, bracing one hand against the heel.

The tip was blunted, but it didn’t do anything to calm the shudder of nerves that nearly overtook her as she trained it on her opponent.

They were both clad in padded practice armor, but they’d weathered enough bruises and fractures in training to know how much good that did against a properly aimed blow.

Emory squared to her, both hands firm on his sword grip. He looked off-balance without a shield to even him out. Vulnerable, even. With a shield in his hand, she’d be hard-pressed to keep him off her.

Without one, he was going to have the fight of his life trying to get past her reach.

“Ready!” Mira shouted, then blasted once on her whistle.

Emory was the one with something to prove here.

He wasthe one who lunged before Kat had a chance to step forward off the boundary line.

The crowd roared as he swung hard, shunting thetip of her spear aside, but she planted her feet and countered his strength, the length of her weapon giving her the leverage she needed to make it easy.

He was forced to dance back before the dull spearhead could catch him in the gut, but he didn’t have time to reset his stance before Kat was springing forward.

She caught him square in the chest.

The whistle screeched, the soldiers jeered in approval, and under the cascade of noise, Kat mouthed Sorry.

Emory grimaced, but there was a dangerous, playful spark in his eyes, one that promised to get back at her one way or another.

“Again,” Mira called, and again the whistle sounded.

Kat took the initiative this time, her spear held low as she sprang at him.

Emory blocked with a fluidity she fully expected.

For the three years they’d been partnered, they’d trained these movements over and over, sparring, honing, dragging each other through exercise after exercise, all in the name of coming back alive, and they had.

The absence of that weight now made the fight feel surreal.

With the stakes removed, it was more of a dance than anything.

A dance with two hundred pairs of eyes watching their every move.

Watching as Emory tried to step in through the deflection and move up into her space. The sudden surge of noise from the crowd nearly drowned out Kat’s instinct as Emory plunged down her shaft, his sword cocked back. Too close to block. Too close to do anything but—

Kat ducked her head and threw herself forward.

The headbutt caught him right on the rim of his own protective helm, and it took everything in her power for Kat to keep her feet as the force of their collision rattled through her brain.

Emory wasn’t so lucky. The impact knocked him down to one knee, and before he could get his wits about him, she had her spear pulled around to square the tip over his heart.

His surprised grunt was swallowed by the crowd’s eruption. Mira’s whistle barely surfaced over the noise.

Kat blinked. She’d been trying to catch him off guard, but she hadn’t expected to succeed so spectacularly.

Had getting in close thrown him off that much?

In penance, Kat bent, offering a hand, and Emory let her pull him back to his feet.

“Sorry’s not gonna cut it for this one, huh? ” she muttered in his ear.

“I might have seen the hosts for a second,” he replied, dazed but still smiling. Kat clapped him on the back, and he knocked his shoulder into hers. “Think she’s had enough, or—”

“Again,” Mira barked.

They exchanged a rueful look. Kat had a sneaking suspicion one of them would have to break a bone to get the centurion to call it—as well as a far more certain sense that Emory wasn’t learning a damn thing from this.

As they retreated to opposite sides of the chalk circle once more, she racked her brain for something that would convince Mira this farce didn’t need to go on any longer, but the crowd’s shouts and heckling made it nigh impossible to think.

Unless…