Page 224 of Golden Eagle

Nikita thought it was to his credit that he didn’t flinch away or shut his eyes, as moonlight slid down the wicked edge of the sword coming at him. He lifted his own sword, and the two blades came together with a metallicclang. Fulk did something with his wrist, and Nikita’s sword twisted out of his grip and went sailing away, clattering across the gravel.

Fulk gently touched the very tip to the center of Nikita’s chest. “And I’ve run you through.”

Nikita swatted the blade away, convinced he’d end up with a nasty slice, but Fulk had anticipated, and was already pulling it away before he could make contact. “I’ll say it again,” he said, trying not to let his temper show too badly. He was furious – mostly because he was mortified. Unarmed in one move, unable to do more than block the first strike. “No one at the Institute is going to come at us with swords.”

Fulk rested the flat of his blade over his shoulder, other hand landing on his hip. “Which is precisely why swords will be an advantage forus: they’ll have no defense against them. Swords have a longer reach than knives, and they can inflict more catastrophic damage. By all means, carry a gun as well; fight with your fists, and your fangs, and pure brute strength. But learn this, too.” He went to retrieve the fallen sword, and offered it again – without the mocking smile this time.

Before he could refuse, Sasha said, “Nik, what could it hurt?”

My pride, Nikita thought, sourly, but one glance at Sasha – as usual – put everything back into the proper perspective.

He took the sword.

“Do you want me to show you the proper way to hold it?” Fulk asked.

He sighed. “Yes.”

And so he did.

~*~

“You shoot well.”

Trina did not startle when Kolya appeared as if from thin air in front of her, nothing but a face inside his black hood, but it was a near thing, and her heart gave a few unsteady bumps.

She swallowed a gasp and said, “I’m sorry?”

“You shoot well,” he repeated.

“Oh. Thank you.”

“But do you have any skill with hand-to-hand?”

She thought of what she’d seen of him this morning – God, had that been this morning? It felt like weeks ago. Just realizing that made her tired all over again. But she thought of him, of the way he’d whirled, and ducked, knives sinking into skin, quick as any of Lanny’s better punches, his movements twice as graceful. It had been obvious, even amongst the arterial spray and the death rattles, to see that he’d been a dancer in another life.

“Some,” she said. “Self-defense training, a little jujitsu. But nothing like what you do.”

“Pretty sure nobody does what you do,” Lanny put in, tone admiring. “I’ll take a good bare-knuckle brawl any day, but that was impressive this morning.”

Kolya absorbed the compliment with quiet passivity. He looked at Trina. “Do you want to learn?”

“Oh. Um.” For a moment she was surprised by the offer – and then she remembered a vision she’d seen with Val’s help. A snow-dusted clearing. A young woman – Katya – and Kolya with his too-long hair, and unsmiling mouth, sending her reeling and spinning away, again and again, ducking too slow, forgetting her footwork. But then another memory, this one of a dark forest, a few shafts of moonlight filtering through the evergreen boughs. A quiet recollection of a past lost, and the same brutal hands gentle, now. A dance.

She met his gaze, his eyes dark, tilted faintly at the tips; a shrewd, miss-nothing gaze that was somehow sweet all the same.Safe, she thought. In the woods that night, decades ago, as he moved like Fred Astaire, like a ballerina, Katya had leaned into the press of his hands and known that they would stay chaste. Safe.

Trina wondered if those same memories were unspooling in his mind, now; if this offer wasn’t just for her, but for his own sense of self. A reclaiming of a past kindness.

Behind her, she heard the clang and scrape of metal on metal, Fulk’s calm corrections and Nikita’s occasional growl of frustration.

“Sure,” she said, “why not.”

“Okay,” Lanny said, when she shrugged off her jacket and handed it to him, “but I want a turn after.”

Kolya magicked a knife from each sleeve, and offered one to her.

“Whoa, nobody said anything about hand-to-hand with knives,” Lanny protested.

Trina took it; the grip was warm from being pressed up against his skin.

---