Page 51 of Tales of a Deadly Devotion
My grip on my blade became white-knuckled, the voyav’s smile sharpening with the threat. Heat rolled through me. My magic seeping into my limbs, building strength it knew I’d need. The house sensed it, giving a weary creak, before every table, chair and desk were pushed to the far corners. Creating a clear space between us.
‘Shut up,’ I snapped. Trying to find my sanity. The hilt in my hand changed to a sword in response to my anger.
‘That’s what you should have done … before you broke poor Alma’s heart so carelessly.’ There was a hard, cold nature to their eyes.
Alma’s face flashed in my vision. How carelessly I’d told her the truth. Told her of Hale’s lies. Of his death.
My rage was a wild thing tethered inside of me that snapped free in a moment as I swung my blade. Only the voyav was quicker. Summoning shadow blades in their palms, meeting my blow and trapping my blade between their own.
Their fangs gleamed. ‘Careful, darling, that antique looks quite sharp.’
I bared my teeth, forcing my weight into Thean so they stumbled back into the panelling of the study walls, having no choice but to release my blade. I swung again, only for them to twist out of my reach. Their speed only fed my anger. Anger at myself. At my own stupidity. I attacked, over and over again. They met each of my strikes with the efficiency of the killer they were. The challenge of it would have given anyone else pause. All it did was fuel my rage. Awakening that ancient part of my blood that needed victory.
I became nothing but a vessel for my strength, blow after blow. Ducking and weaving, every limb remembering its purpose like a well taught dance. Again and again, I struck out at the voyav with deadly blows. Grunts and cries leaving my lips, bursts of emotion I rarely let out. A side of myself they’d mocked too long. An aggressive, monstrous thing – and I revelled in it. Relishing in the tension lifting from my limbs with each strike and blow. The impact of hitting the ground, rolling and surging back to my feet, listening and feeling Thean’s blows cut through the air. The brutality of each one and being able to match it no matter how hard or fast it arrived.
No matter how weak I’d allowed myself to become.
Sweat stuck the lose strands of hair to my brow, breath panted harshly through my lips as my slip stuck to my back. My limbs burnt from exertion, the weight of the sword more noticeable, making my footing clumsy as I was backed against the sideboard, raising my blade just in time to keep Thean’s from my throat.
‘Tired darling?’ The voyav taunted, barely panting, their eyes alight with the promise of a fight.
‘Shut up,’ I spat. I didn’t want to listen but those words dropped into my murky thoughts like stones into a lake. Settling too easily.
I was so tired. Too burdened by my own lies.
‘I clearly overestimated your intelligence,’ Thean laughed, dark and mocking, peering down at me with disdain.
‘You don’t know anything about me.’ I ignored the frustrated burn of tears in my eyes. The flare of panic from the silence of my magic, the hollow echoing inside of me where it should be despite how my body surged to fight, despite the power of the blade I wielded.
‘No darling, you don’t know anything about yourself,’ they corrected so softly, as if addressing a child.
I bared my teeth, surging forward but Thean was ready. They were always ready. Pushing me too easily. Moving too quickly, every strike rattling through me. Too strong. My grip too weak.
I clung to my fraying pride, that after all this time, I still remembered. My body remembered every lesson my father had given me. Barefoot in the field beyond our cottage, feeling every groove and divot of the dry earth beneath my toes for balance. The smell of dry cut grass, the sweetness of the flowers crushed every time I was knocked onto my back.
The rough texture of his hand as he pulled me back to my feet.
Again, Tauria, he commanded softly in my memory. The sword warming in my grasp as if it could hear those words echo through my memory.
I went faster and harder, letting the blade guide me. Thean’s eyes went wider with surprise, struggling to match my new bloodthirsty pace. Good.
Only, just like my magic, I burnt too quickly. Each turn and block slower. My limbs sluggish as if moving through water.
When I met the voyav’s eyes in the fury of our spar, I didn’t see hate or disgust. No, they were studying me closely. Trying to pass a message without words. Where they knocked my leg to correct my stance, or hit the underside of my arm to strengthen my block when they could have used my weakness against me.
I tried to focus. Tried to see it, and that was my mistake. It slowed me enough to almost miss a block, to stumble and let the voyav’s foot knock me to my knees.
I panted wildly, winded as I stumbled back to my feet. Surging just in time as Thean’s blade slashed passed my head. My sword too loose in my hand, the blows reverberating through my bones.
I was losing. I was done.
‘Stop,’ I commanded, fear taking a vice-like grip of my heart as weakness spread through my limbs.
‘You thinkthey’llstop?’ The only sign of sympathy came from the sharp arch of their brow as they pulled back, not to release me but to strike another blow. Harder than all the others.
Who?I wanted to sneer but I was done.
My legs gave way, knees slamming into the floor. A horrid weaksound leaving my lips as my body failed me. As the blade slipped from my grasp, sliding across the floor. Leaving me to my fate.
