A Beast's Tale

Chapter 24

"I'm beginning—to think—" Clavis blocked my strike and grunted as he shoved my sword back. "You're—mad at me."

I swung again, missing his ear by a narrow margin when he ducked. A few strands of midnight blue hair drifted to the ground. "Stop talking and focus."

Jin laughed from a safe distance. "What'd you do this time, Clavis?"

"You mean tod—"

My foot caught Clavis in the gut, dropping him to the dirt. He rolled away from the edge of the cliff as my sword hit the ground where he had collapsed, leaping to his feet and launching an attack I caught when I jerked my sword up out of the soil.

"I really think you boys should switch your real swords out for training swords," Jin commented.

"Ha ha! When we're—ugh—battling on the edge of—a cliff? Why bother?"

Despite his panting, Clavis was grinning from ear to ear. Licht had made several upgrades to this training course to increase its difficulty, and it was a pleasant diversion from the indoor arena. Having to hike up a lengthy trail and climb a cliff face to reach this location also reduced the risk of anybody overhearing something they shouldn't.

"Well, it's your neck. Anyway, LeBeau started this little side venture before Bloodstained Rose Day, and he was careful to keep it small, which is how he stayed under the radar for so long. Only a handful of guards were in on it. He paid them well, let them use the girls for free, and threatened them within an inch of their lives to keep them quiet. Once someone made a deal with him, the only way they could get out of it was if they were dead—and that went for the girls, too. When they got pregnant or stopped making him money, he killed them."

Clavis danced back and reached into his jacket. I watched the flexion of his wrist, calculating the trajectory of the small vial he tossed in my direction and holding my breath as I charged through the cloud of noxious smoke it released. He lunged and met my sword with a clang of metal.

"You were supposed to dodge it, not go through it," he said, grunting with the effort of holding my blade away from his face.

I smirked. "And leap off the cliff?" I removed my left hand from the sword hilt, allowing him to push our locked swords toward me but dodging to the side and catching his chin with an uppercut. He staggered backwards, rubbing his jaw.

"Wouldn't that be hilarious? Surviving a hundred assassination attempts—"

He raised his sword just in time to block my next attack.

"Four hundred and thirty-nine."

"Give me a chance—to catch—my breath!"

"You'll get no such chance on the battlefield."

He pivoted and evaded my next kick, following it up with a retaliatory slice toward my side, which I met and parried. "Your dying by falling off a cliff would be—such a sweet irony."

Jin laughed. "And it'll never happen. You know he's taking it easy on you, right?"

"Yes." Clavis stabbed at my chest, his lips curving up in a wicked smirk. I twisted to the side and swatted his sword away. "And I hate it."

"Then come at me like you mean it."

"I would, but I don't want to upset Ivetta by sending you back to her all cut to pieces."

As if he'd ever drawn blood from me.

"How's she doing?" Jin asked.

I delivered a series of attacks that pushed Clavis back to the cliff's edge as he struggled to block each in time. He dove for my feet and rolled away, leaping up and lunging at my back, but I was already spinning to catch his blade. If Jin was still speaking during that time, I couldn't hear him over the continuous clashing and clanging of metal. One last collision, and then Clavis and I both took a step back, circling, eyeing each other, waiting for the other to make the first move.