Protect the Prince (Crown of Shards #2)(44)

Rhea bore down with her sword, using her superior strength to try to wrest my weapon out of my hand. I grimaced, as though I was already having trouble with her power, and started to fall to one knee.

Rhea pressed her advantage, just like I’d expected, and I quickly pivoted, spun to the side, and surged back up onto my feet all in one smooth motion. She wasn’t expecting me to spin away, and she stumbled forward, almost doing a face-plant onto the floor.

“I told you before,” I called out. “I don’t need protecting.”

Rhea whipped around, let out an angry snarl, and charged at me again.

Back and forth we fought in our semicircle of space, hacking and slashing at each other with our swords. Serilda was right. Rhea was an excellent fighter who matched me move for move. I didn’t know how good the captain had been before Serilda’s training, but now she was almost as good as Serilda herself.

Every blow that Rhea landed threatened to knock my own weapon out of my hand. My tearstone blade and the shards in the hilt absorbed some of the hard, bruising impacts, along with her strength magic, but not nearly enough of it.

Up to me to do the rest.

Rhea’s biggest advantage was her strength, and she relied on it to win battles, even more so than she did the rubies in her sword. She wouldn’t know what to do if I took her magic away. She would hesitate, and then I would have the advantage, at least for a moment. All I had to do was get close enough to touch her. All I needed was one brief brush of my skin against hers, and I could snuff out her power with my immunity.

But try as I might, I couldn’t force Rhea to lower her sword or break through her defenses long enough to lunge forward and actually touch her. I didn’t want to give away the secret of my immunity, but I also didn’t want to die. So I kept listening to that phantom music playing in my mind, biding my time and waiting for an opening. I didn’t want to think about what I was going to do if I didn’t get one.

The fight dragged on another minute, then two, then three. Rhea couldn’t get a clear advantage over me, but I couldn’t get one over her either. Finally, after a particularly furious exchange, she retreated, trying to get her breath back.

“Winded already?” I asked in a loud, mocking voice. “Looks like I work harder at being queen than you do at being captain.”

I wanted to make her angry enough to do something reckless, and I definitely succeeded. Murderous rage glinted in Rhea’s eyes, and she lifted her sword and charged at me again.

And this time, she didn’t stop.

She lashed out with blow after hard, heavy blow, and it was all I could do to keep her from knocking my sword away. Still, I managed to block her strikes.

Until I tripped.

I wasn’t quite sure what happened. I was moving forward for another attack when a sudden, sharp tang filled my nose, as if someone was using magic. An instant later, my boot snagged on the black carpet, even though it was lying perfectly flat. I stumbled forward, although I managed to catch myself and only go down on one knee instead of hitting the floor face-first.

Rhea screamed in delight, lifted her sword high, and rushed in for the kill.

That phantom music roared in my mind, the frantic, pounding beat telling me to move, move, move, but I knew that I wouldn’t be able to get to my feet in time to avoid her deadly, whistling strike.

With my right hand, I snapped up my sword to block hers. Without even really thinking about what I was doing, I lifted my left hand, desperately wishing that I could push my immunity out of my body the same way a magier could their fire, ice, or lightning—

Rhea’s sword crashed into mine, but the blow wasn’t nearly as hard as I’d expected it to be, and her weapon didn’t cut through my defenses and plunge into my chest like I’d anticipated. She frowned, wondering what I’d done to derail her strike. I was wondering that myself, but I recovered much more quickly than she did. I leaned back on my knee, then kicked out with my other foot, catching the captain in the side of her own knee.

She shrieked, her leg buckled, and she tumbled to the floor, landing on her hands and knees. Before she could recover, much less lift her sword again, I lunged forward and snapped my blade up against her throat.

Rhea froze, as did everyone else. Silence descended over the throne room, and the only sounds were our harsh, raspy breaths.

“Do you yield?” I asked in a soft voice.

Fury shimmered in the captain’s eyes. She couldn’t believe that I’d beaten her, but she wasn’t ready to give up. Her hand tightened around her sword, and hot, peppery anger blasted off her.

I pressed my blade a little deeper into her neck, not breaking her skin but letting her know that I could easily cut her throat before she even lifted her weapon off the floor.

Rhea froze again. This time, surprise filled her face. She couldn’t believe that I hadn’t already killed her. Maybe I should have. It was certainly within my right, since Rhea had been trying to kill me. If nothing else, it would have proved that I was just as strong and vicious as Vasilia and that the Andvarians should think twice before fucking with me.

But there had already been more than enough bloodshed between our kingdoms, and I was tired of people dying just to prove a point. Even people like Rhea who hated me.

“Do you yield?” I repeated in a louder voice.

“I suppose you’ll kill me if I don’t,” Rhea muttered.