Prince of Traitors

Kieran

"Good!"

Our daggers clang together as Nimia blocks my strike. She spins out of my reach, small and nimble. She ducks under my arm and drives her dagger toward my side. Her hand stops just as the point of her knife touches my side just under my ribcage. I twist around to look down at her, and she grins widely up at me.

"Gotcha," she says.

I laugh as she gently pokes my ribs with the point of her knife. "Do you?" I ask teasingly.

Nimia pauses and realizes where my own dagger has landed: against the back of her head, the point gently poking into the base of her skinny neck. She scowls up at me. "No fair," she grumbles.

"You have to always be aware of your opponent's weapon," I say. I take my knife from her neck and hold it up so it catches the light. "Never take your eyes off of it."

"I always forget," she says. She frowns as she clutches her knife in her hands.

"Don't watch your own dagger," I tell her gently. She looks up at me. "It's there; it's just an extension of your hand. Your hand doesn't fall off when you look away, does it?"

She sticks her tongue out at me. "No."

I grin and ruffle her silver hair with my hand. "Exactly." She tries to grumble at me, but she soon relents and giggles. I put my knife away. "Nice work," I say.

Nim nods her head earnestly. Even though I bested her this time, she smiles as she sheathes her dagger at her hip. Her cheeks are flushed with adrenaline, her silver braid mussed.

She asked me weeks ago to teach her fighting techniques, and she's done well over the long month and a half that we've spent traveling southwest through the forests of Astria.

We've been keeping a wide berth around the soldier encampments at the border. Nim helps me hunt with her bow—one of Owin's from when she was younger.

Soldiers have come close only a couple times, but Nimia is small and I'm a hunter. Any soldiers from the camps and battlegrounds that come near don't know about the pair of Navaarim hiding in the trees watching them. The foliage of late summer hides us well, the leafy canopies of trees shading us from view of anyone patrolling the woods.

"Come on, kid," I say. "We should keep going. We'll make camp soon." Nim smiles and sheathes her blade as she follows after me through the woods.