Page 96 of The Queen’s Shadow

“Yuh need medical.” I pointed out. “Mi sista Meredith a powerful healer.” I offered. I stopped speaking abruptly, unsure why I was offering my enemy any sort of help.

This was a grey area my grandmother had not prepared me for. What did you do when your enemy was also a victim? I had been raised to protect those who could not protect themselves. Nytara was more or less the definition of that term. But she had also quite literally tried to murder me not too long ago. Though, after seeing the slavery bond in action, I could no longer even feel certain that she had any agency over her own actions. Too many things were uncertain.

“I have been forbidden to seek medical attention.” She said, her voice flat. Another wave of rage rolled through me, and I found myself grinding my teeth together. I didn’t know how to respond. I wanted to find Blackwood and shove so much water down his throat that his lungs exploded. He was a cruel, inhumane piece of -

“You’re holding the blade too tightly, for starters.” Nytara said, interrupting my internal dialogue. She drew her own blade, and I reflexively tensed, remembering what it had felt like when she had ruthlessly buried it into my neck. I would never forget the feeling of the looming press of death as I watched my own blood pool on the floor before me. All I could think was, ‘mi nah ready to die.’

Sensing my spike in wariness, Nytara’s expression grew colder. She sneered down her nose at me, clearly unimpressed.

“If you’re going to hold onto every small trauma you suffer through, Obeah Man, you are not made for this, and I cannot help you.”

“Why yuh want to help mi anyway?” I snapped. “Mi nah ask for yuh help.”

She frowned, as if unsure herself. Finally, she shrugged.

“If I’m going to be forced to kill you, it would be nice if you didn’t make it so easy. I’ve never enjoyed slaughtering the helpless.”

“Mi nuh helpless.” I snarled. She raised a dark eyebrow at me, her black eyes falling to the scar on my neck.

“Could have fooled me.”

I opened my mouth to retort, but no words came out. She just watched me silently, until finally, I shut my mouth and nodded.

“Fine. Show mi.”

The corner of her mouth twitched up and she gave me no warning before she came at me full tilt. My eyes widened in shock, and I leapt out of the way, feeling the whoosh of her blade as she ripped past me. She spun around and was on me again. I barely had time to raise my sword, the cold steel of her rapier clanking against my shadowstone sharply.

“Slow down! A yesterday, mi just barely start learnin’.” I huffed. She pressed down harder on my blade, not giving up an inch.

“Do you think that will matter, next time we come against each other? Do you think I will take into consideration how much training you have, when I’m trying to kill you?” She asked flatly. Before I knew what was happening, she drew her leg up in between us and kicked me square in the chest. I stumbled back several steps.

“You’re thinking too much. You’re trying to remember stances and moves. Form doesn’t matter when it’s life or death. You don’t need to get it perfect; you just need to keep me from stabbing you. The technique will come in time.”

“Dat is not what Dossidian told me.”

“In any normal situation he would be right. However, you don’t have time to learn things the correct way.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “What dat supposed to mean?”

She didn’t answer, she just ran at me again. I was immediately on the defensive. I needed to take two steps back for every one step she took forward. I was barely using my blade to block her. All of my focus and energy was going into moving my body out of the way to avoid getting sliced open. She was not holding back at all, and I knew she would cut me if I let her.

I tucked and rolled to evade a particularly well-aimed strike but tripped on my way down. She didn’t slow or give me any time to recover. She just kept coming, and for one long moment that felt stretched out in time, I saw my life flash before my eyes.

Instinct took over, and the wetness that slicked the stones we sparred upon came alive around me. Thick liquid ropes wrapped around her ankles and ripped her feet out from under her. I leapt to my feet and slammed my boot into her chest, pointing the tip of my rapier at her throat, right where the gentle curve of her shoulder met her neck.

Both of us were panting hard, adrenaline rushed through my body and my heart hammered in my chest. We stared at each other as water snaked and flowed through the air around us in agitation.

Her dark eyes were as serious as ever. She stared up at me from the ground, but the corner of her mouth tipped upwards. It was the only indication she gave me that I had done something interesting.

“Yield.” I said, my voice rough. She stared at me for one more moment, and I thought she might actually do it, when the ground beneath my foot was suddenly coated in ice. She kicked my leg out from under me and I went down.

Without missing a beat, she rolled on top of me, straddling me at the waist, the tip of her rapier hovering above the scar she had given me. A dark smile curled across her full lips as I scowled up at her.

“Yield.” She purred.

We stayed like that, frozen for a moment. Her eyes searched mine. She was challenging me. She didn’t want me to yield. She wanted me to impress her again.

Without warning, I called the water that snaked around us to rally to the side of the ring. It rushed forward, flooding around us with the force of a tidal wave. It crashed into her, blowing her off of me and into the air. She floundered for only a moment before the wave turned to a large drift of snow. She flipped expertly; so that she landed on her feet on the other side of the ring.