Page 49 of Pawns of Salistya

Mazyr scoffed. ‘I think you’ve been hanging out with your sister a little too long, Val. You’re starting to sound as delusional as her.’

When he found me outside the palace after Ramone left, Mazyr stayed with me before I had to put my Queen hat back on and head to the meeting room. He used his knowledge of the fight to lash out at me now, intending to spark my rage. And it did.

I launched towards him. He raised his hands to defend himself before returning to engage in some old school hand to hand with me. At that moment, I felt Rynelle come up behind me so I stepped to the side and watched in amusement as he fought to stop himself from barrelling Mazyr over.

Capitalising on the distraction, I landed a punch under Mazyr’s jaw, splitting the skin and sending him to the floor right as Rynelle approached me. I noticed he was stumbling. Maybe I’d hit his legs a little hard. Oh well. I executed the same move as before, homing in on his weakness, knocking him down.

When it seemed they both wanted to stay on the floor, I allowed my bruised body to sink down too. I lay on my back trying to catch my breath, grinning as the two men groaned. I had missed this.

‘They may have won the best of five, but I think overall performance has to be handed to you, Valare,’ Amire called from the stands, casually filing her nails, not even bothering to look up at the spectacle. She’d been here the whole time, politely declining to make the match three versus one. She claimed tonight was her night for self-care, not self-destruction.

‘Please, you just want to say you won the bet. Hand your coppers over, Amire,’ Rynelle spat out.

‘I specifically said that she’d have you on your asses crying like little schoolboys while she walked away relatively unscathed. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but from my vantage point, you’re lying on your asses moaning in pain and she’s rather casually trying to level out her breaths. Plus she’s got that sadistic smile on her face,’ Amire stated as she moved on to painting her nails.

Mazyr managed to roll onto his side to face me. The blood running down his chin didn’t stop the tired, sloppy grin on his face. ‘Do you feel a little better?’

A sound of contentment left my mouth. ‘I feel amazing,’ I replied.

His eyes crinkled at the sides, warm adoration shining in those mossy green depths. ‘Good,’ he whispered, resting his head to the floor.

‘Another round?’ Rynelle joked, tucking his anger away and getting a round of laughs.

‘With all due respect Valare, you’re out of shape,’ Amire commented when the laughter had died. You can always trust her to say what you don’t want to hear. And it’s always the truth.

‘Yeah, yeah. I’m getting weak in my old, queenly ways. Still managed to take these two losers down though.’ Brushing off hercomments was usually the best way to end the conversation. But not tonight apparently.

‘How are you planning on defending yourself against your enemies if you’re not training? Yes, you have your magic, but eventually you will need to rest and regenerate. Maybe not as quickly as us, but you don’t have infinite power. You need to keep up your hand-to-hand combat as well,’ she finished.

She was starting to sound like Varqel with how she was lecturing me.

‘Says the assassin who chose ‘self-care’ over training,’ countered Mazyr.

True to form, Mazyr had my back in these situations. With words, at least. With action? He was a bit useless on the best of days.

‘It’s a very important part of maintaining one’s body. Which, if you’d attended the classes instead of hooking up with anything that had a pulse, you would know.’

Well damn, Amire. She wasn’t playing.

‘Alright, well, it’s been a pleasure,’ I interjected loudly, cutting off any further conversation. I’d reached my quota of sibling spats for the day. ‘But I have places to be, people to see. You know how it is.’ I brushed off my pants as I stood up.

‘Why don’t you ever stay around to hang out with us like the old times?’ Rynelle whined.

‘I promise once this is all said and done with Eliasson, I’ll make time for us to hang out. I miss you guys, I really do. I know we see each other fleetingly but –’ I cut myself off before I got emotional. ‘It’s not the same. And I acknowledge that. But I appreciate all your hard work. And there’s only just over a week to go with the Forum, so we’re almost there.’

It was true. I wanted nothing more than to find a rowdy Solistan bar and forget about all of this, even if it were just for a night. Just me and my Sol kicking it like the good old days.

‘I’m sure you could make a bit more time for us,’ Rynelle scowled.

Amire frowned, unimpressed with his comment. ‘No need to explain yourself, Queen. Go do what you need to do. We’ll be here when you need to let off more steam,’ said Amire, shooing me away.

I looked at the boys, ignoring Rynelle’s comment. ‘Same time, two nights from now?’

‘Can’t wait,’ Mazyr winced, clutching his rib where I had landed a nasty punch earlier. I think I may have broken it. Ah well, he’s been through worse.

‘Your bacon and eggs were bang on today. Keep up the good work, chef,’ I quipped.

The last thing I saw was a raised middle finger aimed straight at me.

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