Dark Heart of Magic (Black Blade #2)(74)

Deah and I both raised our weapons and charged at each other.



My sword met Deah’s, the resulting clang so loud that you could hear it throughout the stadium. This wasn’t just about two people fighting each other to win a contest; it was representative of our two Families fighting as well, and the epic clash that had been going on between the Sinclairs and Draconis for years.

Deah and I stood in the middle of the stone ring, our swords locked together, each one of us trying to throw the other off, neither one of us having any success. Neither of us had speed or strength Talents, so we were evenly matched. I’d have to fight her with my wits and skills, like I had Devon.

I didn’t have a problem with that.

Finally, we both backed off, untangling our swords and circling around and around each other. Then we both charged at each other again, whipping our swords back and forth, and back and forth, and falling into the steps we’d both danced to a thousand times before.

All the while, the crowd was going crazy, cheering, yelling, clapping, and screaming with every move Deah and I made, with every clang of our swords and every smash of our feet in the trampled grass. This was the last match of the tournament, and they wanted it to be a good one. Well, I planned to give them their money’s worth—before I beat Deah.

But the longer we fought, the brighter Deah’s blue eyes glowed, and the more her movements became exactly like . . . mine. The way she held her sword, the way she moved, even the snarl of her lips—it was all like a mirror image of myself—and I realized that she was using her mimic power.

The cold chill of her magic radiated off her body, and my own transference power stirred weakly in response. But unless she actually used her power on me in some tangible way—hit me, tripped me, whatever—then I couldn’t absorb her magic and use it against her. I couldn’t use her magic to make myself stronger. This wasn’t the first time something like this had happened, but I found it more frustrating than ever before because if I was just a little bit stronger, I could overpower her and win the match.

So the fight dragged on . . . and on . . . and on....

Since I was more or less fighting myself at this point, I couldn’t win, but neither could Deah. One minute passed, then two, then three, and we fought on, both of us starting to suck wind. With every blow we landed, the crowd gasped, thinking that this was going to be the moment when one of us cut the other and drew first blood. But I blocked her blows, and she thwarted mine, and the fight raged on.

But the longer we fought, the more I realized I had one small advantage over Deah. She might be able to use her Talent to mimic my every move, but she didn’t actually have my magic. She didn’t have my transference power, and she especially didn’t have my soulsight. However her magic worked, she could see the moves I was making, how I held my sword, how my feet shifted around and around, and she could copy all of that right down to the squint of my eyes and the tilt of my head.

But she couldn’t see into me the way that I could into her.

She couldn’t feel my emotions, and most important, she couldn’t anticipate what I was going to do next. Not exactly, not precisely, not for sure every single time the way I could with her.

And I finally knew how I could win.

Deah had been staring at me the whole time, looking into my eyes the same way I was staring into hers. I wondered if that’s how her magic worked, if her mimic Talent was a form of sight. Did she have to see a person in order to copy their fighting style and everything else about them? It made sense, especially since it seemed that all the other women in our family had some sort of sight Talent. If that was how her power worked, then all I had to do was not look at her, not let her peer into my eyes.

So that’s what I did.

I dropped my gaze from Deah’s, instead focusing on her sword and the way the sun glinted on the metal, the warm rays highlighting all the stars carved into the hilt of her black blade—her Sterling Family sword.

For a moment, guilt surged through me, but I shook it off and went on the attack, whipping my sword back and forth and pressing forward with renewed energy.

And slowly, I began to take control of the fight.

At first, it was small things: Deah not putting her foot down exactly how I did mine, holding her sword a fraction of an inch lower than mine, gripping the hilt just a little too high. But slowly, all those little things started to add up. Deah was still a great fighter—one of the best I’d ever seen—but I was just a smidge better, someone she couldn’t overcome without her mimic magic.

And she knew it too.

Her blows became quicker and more desperate and reckless. I couldn’t see the future like Seleste could, but I knew with crystal clarity how the rest of the fight would play out. Five more moves and she would overreach, and then I could slice my sword across her arm and win the Tournament of Blades, just as my mom had before me. The thought made me so happy that I smiled and stared directly into Deah’s eyes.

Her hot, sweaty desperation slammed into my gut so hard that I blinked and stumbled back from the force of it. I stared into her eyes again, and I realized desperation wasn’t all she was feeling.

Deah was afraid.

Fear churned and churned like acid in her stomach. She knew that I was the better fighter and that she was seconds away from losing the match and the tournament. And she was afraid of what her father would do to her and Seleste when she lost.