Page 116 of Through Battle and Blades (The Wolf Queen 2)

There: that needed to be our focus. That.

Of course, Aurora could never allow us that something be more important than her and her machinations, though, could she?

“The duel.” My heart felt like it dropped through the floor as she said the words, my body feeling too heavy to keep upright. “This little bitch… No son of mine would become a kin slayer except for the girl. She came into my room, placed a blade on my neck and challenged me to a duel!”

If I could’ve gone back in time and put my foot up the younger Darcy’s arse for that impetuous decision, I would’ve. I’d had no way of knowing what was coming but… My eyes slid closed, just for a second, the need to do that and keep them closed for several hours burning in my skull. I’d put that need to one side the whole ride back here and I’d keep doing that until this was done.

“The duel must take place, Majesties,” Mother Aeve said. “The Morrigan must have her due.”

She’s got it! I wanted to scream. She’s taken and taken and taken until I don’t think there’s anything left to give.

The death goddess chuckled then, making a mockery of my assumptions.

“She’ll get it,” I snapped as my mates began to argue. “Give the queen a sword.”

“No, Darcy. You’re exhausted!” Gael said, crowding into my space, but I looked past him to the queen and her very pretty male guards.

“You, with the fetching face.” I unsheathed my own weapon and pointed to the guard on her left. “Give her your sword.”

He obeyed, of course he did, with the habitual response of someone bred to compliance, to obey a dominant command from someone in authority and, right now, that was me. His sword was drawn and then offered to the queen with an apologetic look. She just stared at the silvery pommel, as if wondering how the hell she’d gotten here, despite the fact she’d been the one to force the issue. She snatched it away, holding it out from her body with an awkwardness that made me feel slightly sympathetic to her plight.

She wasn’t used to this, I was willing to bet. The stylised combat of court was done with fangs and claws, not blades, their own personal strength as fighters put on display. But I was a woman and trained to use weapons before I ever became two-souled, so while the wolf in me rose, her fangs bared at the queen, the woman was in control. I stepped backwards, into the now empty square, drawing the queen with me. Because she couldn’t turn tail and run, not in the way she longed to. She was conscious of the spectacle she was making before this tiny audience, even now. Both hands went to the hilt of the sword and she held it out in front of her, the tip following my movements.

So far, so good.

“This duel takes place under the dark of the moon,” Aeve said. “The Morrigan’s time. Her divine hand will guide your bodies as you fight, determining who has the right of the issue. Her judgement is absolute. One lives, one dies; or, if you both have erred, you’ll both die. But none may leave until the dread queen takes her due.”

The view of things Aeve presented me, it made it all so alluring. That I could just fight this fight, put Aurora into the ground and then all would be well. But the ‘dread queen’? She had her claws in me and she wasn’t letting go any time soon. So I faced Aurora down filled with a kind of emptiness that stank of ashes.

“Imagine them dead already,” Nordred had explained to me once. “If you have to kill a man, imagine them in the ground, open-eyed and staring. See that, fix it in your mind, because you can’t hesitate. The only time you’d consider that is if your back was against the wall, when it’s down to you or him.”

He’d clapped his hand on my shoulder then.

“Always choose you. See them dead and then do what you need to ensure that happens, lass, though I pray to the gods you’ll never need to follow through on my advice.”

Could either of us have predicted this? Would he have trained me any differently if he knew I would face down a queen?

I slashed out without warning, seeing her lying on the cobblestones below us, the vision almost precluding the reality in front of us. My blade went slicing through the air and hers was raised up to block it.

Evidently seeing her dead did not make it so.

She jerked the sword up without thought, knowing what she had to do, but not knowing how. My blade sliced along both of her forearms, leaving a stinging cut that blood seeped from seconds later. Her sword was dropped, her scream ringing out through the square as her hands sought to stop the blood flow.

“Pick it up,” I growled.

The wolf inside me was dissatisfied with this fight. This woman had to have achieved her standing in the pack structure through subterfuge, because she was no physical match for us.

“Pick it up and fight!”

I advanced on her swiftly, ready to end this if she was just going to wail and gnash her teeth at such a paltry injury. How weak, how pathetic she was, to react so. We had endured so much more than this and would go through more before we could rest. Danger, real danger was coming and we were forced by arcane human rituals to tarry here. With fingers slick with blood, she snatched up her blade and scrambled to her feet, but the sword-tip wavered as the woman fought to control her body.

This was not a wolf, this was prey. She stank of fear like a deer does when you run it down, like a rabbit does before you crunch it in your jaws. She bared her fangs at us, attempting to intimidate, and we just laughed. We struck out at her idly, making her move, run, like the little mouse she was. Weak creature, just like this ‘king’ who had set himself at the head of the pack.

Unfit.

We slashed and slashed, cutting her pretty, pretty dress to ribbons, batting away her own strikes with little effort before going back for more.

Unworthy.

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