Page 143 of Lady of Ashes

Scarlett drew the sword from her back, then pulled a long knife from her belt.

“None of your fancy magic tricks, Sister,” Nuri said, pointing one of her scimitars at her.

“No biting,Sister,” Scarlett crooned back.

The two had already begun circling each other, their eyes assessing the other’s movements, watching for weaknesses that may have arisen since they last sparred.

“No coddling from your underlings,” Nuri countered, with a nod of her head in the direction of Sorin, Eliza, and Cyrus.

“I did not realize you needed so many rules in place to best me,” Scarlett taunted.

At her words, Nuri bared her teeth, her fangs absent, as she shot forward with the speed of her kind, but Scarlett was ready for it, meeting her blade with her own.

“Are we going to let this go?” Cyrus asked, his eyes on the females.

“I dare you to try and interfere withthat,” Eliza replied, her grey eyes bright with excitement at watching two of the Wraiths of Death spar.

Sorin crossed his arms, leaning back against the stone wall of the pit. They’d made their way over here, trying to give the females space as they’d reconnected. Every primal instinct in him was roaring at him to go ?ght for her, but considering he’d seen Scarlett pin the female to the ground with a dagger through the forearm, he wasn’t inclined to intervene at this particular moment.

“She can handle it,” Sorin ?nally said, a soft smile lifting his lips as he watched her duck to avoid a blow, before landing a clean kick to Nuri’s side and causing the Night Child to curse.

“She’s leaving her right side unguarded too long,” Cyrus murmured.

“I noticed,” Sorin said, having caught the same small mistake Cyrus was referencing. “If Nuri doesn’t capitalize on it, I will the next time we spar.”

Cyrus snorted a laugh. “She’s not wrong, you know. You’re going too easy on her. You need to push her, Sorin. Mikale won’t go easy. Alaric won’t—”

“I am well aware of what they will do to her,” Sorin snarled, embers ?ickering in his vision. She’d told him a little more over the last few days. Things that had been said to her while she waschained to a wall. Things that had been done to her when she was growing up, when she had been training to become Death’s Maiden. But not enough. Not enough for him to know her the way Cassius would. The way maybe even the Night Child she was currently sparring with would. In time, he would learn all those stories, but time was not a luxury they currently had.

He lurched forward as Nuri’s blade skimmed across Scarlett’s shoulder. If it weren’t for the leathers she was wearing, it would have been a deep slice into her skin. Cyrus’s hand clamped onto his shoulder, reminding him that this was a sparring match between friends.

“These are new!” Scarlett hissed in outrage, lunging forward.

“Obviously,” Nuri drawled, dancing backwards from her attack. “They need to be scuffed up a little.”

A soft snarl came from Scarlett as she attacked again, but she didn’t let up this time. She came for her again and again, forcing Nuri to block and retreat. And when the Night Child tried to dodge her next strike, Scarlett’s knife snagged on the collar of her tunic.

Nuri dropped one of her scimitars, reaching for a dagger instead, as Scarlett suddenly said, “I yield.” Her weapons hit the ground, and Sorin was running because Nuri didn’t have time to slow her attack. Her dagger was still coming down, and Scarlett was stepping into the blow.

“What the fuck is she doing?” Cyrus ground out, keeping pace beside him, but they wouldn’t be fast enough.

They were both raising their hands to use ?ames to stop what was about to happen, but shadows latched onto Nuri’s wrist, halting the dagger a mere inch from piercing Scarlett’s throat. Scarlett just reached up, brushing the dagger aside as though it were an annoying insect. Nuri had started laughing like the insane female she was, and Scarlett was reaching towards her.

Sorin opened his mouth to yell, to rage, to saysomething,but nothing came out, because what the fuck had she been thinking? He didn’t even know where to start.

Another raging female didn’t seem to have that problem, though. Eliza pushed between him and Cyrus, gripping Scarlett’s arm and spinning her around. “Have you lost your godsdamn mind?”

“I’m ?ne,” Scarlett said distractedly, trying to turn back to Nuri,who had managed to stop laughing like a godsdamn maniac. She was watching Scarlett with curiosity, but Eliza wasn’t done.

“You are clearly not fucking ?ne,” Eliza snapped. “You nearly had a dagger shoved into your throat.”

“But I didn’t,” she replied, her eyes ?xed on Nuri.

“Scarlett,” Sorin ground out from between his teeth.

She shrugged out of Eliza’s grip, turning back to fully face Nuri. Her hand came up to wrap around a necklace that had slipped out when Scarlett’s sword had snagged on the female’s collar.

A spirit amulet.

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