Sweep of the Heart (Innkeeper Chronicles #5)(109)

The bladed segments whined as the whip completed its circle. Kosandion saw it coming but made no move to avoid it.

Lady Wexyn dashed to the edge of the stage, shot into the air like a bullet, and pulled a dagger from her cleavage. Prysen Ol never saw her coming. She caught him from behind, wrapping one arm around his neck like a lover, and drove the dagger between his shoulder blades.

Prysen jerked back, shock twisting his face. The end of the whip quivered, slicing a foot short of the Sovereign’s nose. Kosandion observed it with mild interest, as if it were a random curiosity.

Lady Wexyn hurled Prysen Ol away from the mountain. He hurtled through the air, spun, twisting his body as he fell, and landed on the balls of his feet near the center of the stage. The knife was still embedded in his back. Bright red blood spread through his robes.

Lady Wexyn floated down and landed near the edge of the stage, her back to the throne mountain, blocking the way to Kosandion. It had to be a technologically assisted jump. Gravity didn’t make exceptions.

Prysen Ol pulled a syringe out of his robes with his left hand and stabbed it into his thigh.

Lady Wexyn took a step toward him. There was nothing sweet or coquettish about her face now. She looked like Cyanide might have when she hunted her prey.

“Curse it! I’ll do it myself!” Amphie snarled.

Her necklace melted, sliding under her gown. The liquid metal slithered out of her short sleeves, down her arms, coated her hands, and hardened into four-inch claws.

She dashed forward, ridiculously fast.

Sean and I simultaneously sealed the Behoun’s section and sank the delegates into the floor up to their armpits.

Lady Wexyn glided sideways on an intercept course. Amphie raked at her with her new claws. Lady Wexyn caught Amphie’s right wrist with her right hand, jerked her forward, moving with her opponent’s momentum and pulling her arm straight, and twisted the arm elbow up. Amphie gasped. Lady Wexyn drove the heel of her left palm into Amphie’s elbow.

The arm crunched with a dry pop. Amphie cried out.

Lady Wexyn let go of the ruined arm, spun behind Amphie, grabbed her other wrist with both hands, pulled her to the ground, as if Amphie weighed nothing, dropped to one knee, and broke Amphie’s left arm over it. The entire fight was over in two breaths.

“Goddess preserve us,” Karat whispered.

“Kosandion,” Dagorkun said.

Karat nodded.

Oh. Lady Wexyn had echoed Kosandion’s fight with Surkar. Same tactic: grab the wrist, pull the opponent forward, disable the arm. Except she didn’t stop with one arm the way he had done.

Amphie laid on her back and howled in pain. The Behoun delegation screamed with her, a chorus to her suffering.

Oond froze in his habitat and slowly turned upside down, his fins limp.

“Oombole down!” Sean called out through the earpiece.

“It’s okay, he just fainted.”

Lady Wexyn stepped over Amphie and stalked toward Prysen Ol. He bared his teeth in a grimace and snapped his whip-sword at her. The segmented blades pierced the air, ready to rend. Lady Wexyn sidestepped, and the whip sliced through the stage, scoring the stone.

Lady Wexyn pulled the golden comb out of her hair.

Prysen Ol swung again, sending the whip in a devastating horizontal curve.

Lady Wexyn didn’t try to evade.

The whip-blade connected. The whip-sword should have cut her in half, but somehow, she was still standing, the whip fully extended between the two of them.

“The hair comb!” Dagorkun spat out in surprise.

She had caught the filament of the whip-sword between the teeth of her comb.

Prysen jerked the whip back. The filament snapped, spraying half of its segments onto the ground. Prysen Ol backed away and flicked his damaged whip. The remaining segments slid together, forming a blade.

Lady Wexyn crouched, elegant as if dancing, laid the comb down, and picked up a single segment.

Prysen Ol watched, focused on her every move.

She held the segment between her thumb and forefinger, clamping it across its blunt spine, showed it to Prysen Ol, straightened, and started forward again, unhurried, relentless, unscathed.

He walked toward her, light on his feet despite the knife in his back and the trail of his blood following him. They watched each other as they moved, each step, each minute shift in weight deliberate and calculated.

Sophie, the ruler of her planet and George’s wife, once told me that she lived for the moment just before the clash, when both she and her opponent knew their lives hung in the balance. It was a world of possibilities, an infinite universe that shrunk to a single strike as soon as they moved. I finally understood what she meant.

Prysen Ol struck, a human blur too fast for the eye to follow. Lady Wexyn swept by him. They took a few steps past each other. She held his sword in her hand. Prysen Ol held nothing. A deep red line crossed his throat. His eyes turned glassy. He stumbled and collapsed.

Behind me in the second row of the observer section, the First Scholar let out a scream of pure anguish.

Lady Wexyn turned to the Sovereign. “Are you satisfied with the fulfillment of our contract, Letero?”

“Yes,” Kosandion said.

Lady Wexyn smiled.

“And that’s a wrap!” Gaston emerged onto the stage. “Please join us tomorrow for the exciting conclusion to the greatest spousal selection in the galaxy!”