Mask of Shadows (Untitled #1)(29)

I couldn’t beat him in a fair fight, but life wasn’t fair—and neither was I.

I kicked his sword aside. My wound was agony with each twist of my torso, and the soldier—my soldier who Five could’ve killed—was stumbling to his feet. I punched Five in the nose. It snapped.

“Amateur,” I said.

He could be better than me at all the noble things he pleased, but I would be Opal, and he would be dead eventually. Even better if he panicked and dug his own grave. Let him tremble.

“Every night when you’re holed away in your little nest”—I stepped on his hands and grabbed his collar, pulling him up so I could stare into his eyes—“think about how the only reason you’re still breathing is because that guard woke up, how the only thing keeping me from climbing up there and putting a knife in your neck is how little I care about your face, and dream of me. Dream of me coming for you.”

I shoved him back into the dirt. He twisted and coughed up a glob of spit and blood. The soldier blinked up at me.

I took off. Again. At this rate, Amethyst would be seventy by the time I finished the race.

Blood oozed between my fingers, making my grip on my knives slick and impossible. I’d need stitches.

Tomorrow would be the worst.

I kept quiet and low. I couldn’t afford any more fights unless I struck first, fast, and hard. Screams and hurried footfalls echoed through the woods. Maybe I should’ve stayed with Four—he couldn’t kill me without being blamed, and Five wouldn’t have taken on both of us. I needed soldiers and all the helpful supplies they carried with them.

And they were easy to find, breathing too hard and alone. I snuck up behind one, creeping onto a stump so I could match his gangly height, and trapped him in a choke hold. He fought and flailed, right arm getting a few good hits before he passed out.

“Thank you.” He’d bandages in his pocket. I washed off my cut and wrapped it, shuddering with each brush of cloth against my torn skin. It wasn’t too deep, not too deep at all.

Heavy footsteps pounded up the path. I picked up the soldier’s bow and slid behind a tree. Memories of Emerald’s hands ghosted over my skin—back straight, stomach in, and arm bent back till the string brushed my cheek. I sucked in a thin breath.

Seven stopped in front of me, dodging an arrow from the other side of the path. He was worse for wear with a new black eye and shackle-shaped bruises around his wrists. He leapt to disarm the other archer as I fired, and he didn’t notice my too-wide, wobbly shot. I practiced a few shots into the trees next to me. My aim was spotty at best, but Seven was broad. A body fell across the path.

Seven emerged from the bushes, nose bloodied.

I fired. My arrow tore through his shoulder, taking a strip of his shirt. He clapped a hand to his arm, and I drew back for another shot. It flew over his head.

Shit. I tossed the bow aside and grabbed a spear, clawing my way up into the branches of a needle-heavy pine. Seven crashed through the curtain of thick leaves and toed the soldier. I hooked my knees around a branch.

Nothing personal.

He spun, wits catching up too late, and I swung out of the tree. The spear ripped through his chest, pinning him to the trunk, and he took a bubbling breath. His last breath burst from his lips in a spray of pink.

“Sorry.” I gripped the branch and unfurled myself from around it, dropping unsteadily to the forest floor. “That probably hurt.”

I couldn’t work the spear from the tree. Staring at him itched at me, a prickling at the back of my neck that wouldn’t let up. If I’d been a little slower, a little weaker, he’d have killed me as easily and left me out here to rot. If his death at my hands was justice, what would that have been?

I walked away, the imaginary weight of his dangling arms heavy on my shoulders.

A long ways after, a rough voice grunted on the path and metal clashed against metal. I crept forward slowly.

Four flipped a soldier over his shoulder and hissed as one of the blunted arrows hit his thigh. The shot came from near me, and the soldier looped an arm around Four’s ankles. I moved through my side of the woods as quiet as I could.

Four sent the soldier running with a quick jab and a threat. The archer rose from their hiding spot, and I kicked the back of their knees. Collapsing into the path, they dropped their bow and scrambled away from me. Four stepped on their sleeve.

“Stop.” He glanced at me, mask twitching with his smile. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“Thought a stroll would be nice.” I knelt over the soldier, hooked an arm around their throat, and squeezed till they went limp. “It’s been refreshing.”

“Refreshing?” Four nodded to the cut on my side. “You good?”

“Great.” I pressed harder on my wound and gritted my teeth. “Real good. How’re you?”

“Better than you.” He leaned around me, eyes focused over my shoulder. A throwing knife slid into his palm. “Duck.”

I sat down hard. An arrow tore through the leaves where I’d been, and Four threw his knife across the path.

The patter of fleeing feet sounded behind me.

“How long it take you to learn that?” I nodded to the knife in his hand. It wasn’t at all like one of mine, too long and thin to be of much use up close.

He helped me to my feet. “How long it take you to learn how to fight?”