Fated Blades (Kinsmen #3)(35)

He didn’t know how, and it was driving him up the wall.

Ramona stopped. “Thirty.”

He raised his eyebrows at her.

“If we are caught by the Vandals out in the open, we have about thirty seconds before they flank us and lay down intersecting fields of fire. Even if we charge them, they will fall back, fan out, and take us out.”

She picked up her bottle and drank from it.

His own estimate wasn’t much better.

Ramona tilted her head and studied him. “Can you dance?”

“Of course.”

Dancing was a mandatory part of their training. Four dances in total, each with its own tempo, passed down from generation to generation. It was martial arts set to music, designed to improve balance, flexibility, and timing and to teach flawless transition between battle forms. Enemies who witnessed secare dancing usually didn’t live to tell the tale.

“Dance with me,” she said.

They were stranded in the middle of the forest with two days’ worth of rations, waiting for the battle cruiser above their heads to leave so they could get on with their suicide run, and she wanted to dance. Not spar, dance.

He shrugged. “Why not?”

She turned slightly, left leg forward, right shoulder back, left arm raised. He recognized the stance. The spinner. He’d never danced it in pairs. This would require some adjustment.

He circled her slowly, trying to figure out how to position himself.

“You look like you’re stalking me,” she told him.

“When I decide to stalk you, you’ll know.”

He moved behind her, mirroring her pose. She stood too close. If he moved his hand a few centimeters, his fingers would skim the length of her bare arm. It was messing with his head.

“Ready?”

He wasn’t, really. All he wanted to do was wrap his arms around her and pull her close. The space between them was so small, yet they couldn’t touch. None of the dances were designed for touching. They were designed for killing.

From here, they could spin in either direction. “Left or right?”

“Right.”

“On three. One, two . . .”

He triggered his implant. They spun right in unison, the fast melody playing in his head. One turn. Two.

Synchronization. She was trying to get them to harmonize and fight as a pair. It was the original way, the art that had made their ancestors nearly invincible.

He could see it now. The trajectory of their spins took them around the clearing in a wild zigzag. If they released the shields and tilted them, they’d become an armored whirlwind . . .

Ramona’s elbow swung at his nose. His instincts kicked in and he shied back, avoiding the strike by a hair. She tried to lean right, but his sudden lunge knocked her off balance. They collided and went down, him twisting at the last moment to save the injured knee.

He hit the ground and sprang upright. Ramona landed on her butt and stayed there.

He offered her his hand.

She took it, and he pulled her up, holding on to her fingers a few seconds longer than necessary.

“Never mind,” she said. “This was a dumb idea.”

“The idea was solid. The right idea, the wrong dance.” Matias took a few steps away from her and raised his arms.

She frowned. “Capa?”

He nodded.

She stood next to him and lifted her arms, touching her wrists above her head, her body completely extended. If their seco were out, they would have flared from their forearms like red wings.

The fast guitar tore through his mind, music like fire running down the detonation cord. His right arm sliced down and came back up as he turned right. He spun, raising his arms, and saw her glide next to him, her movements identical to his. They spread their arms, bent their right legs, twisting to the right as they thrust invisible blades into their opponents, then immediately to the left. A spike of pain hammered into his knee, but he didn’t care. He thrust his arm out, she did, too, and he grabbed her fingers on pure instinct and pulled her to him, spinning her as she came.

A jolt punched his palm, shooting through his nerves. It was the strangest feeling, as if his world suddenly expanded.

Ramona ducked under the glide of his arm, and they stopped and stared at each other.

“So that’s what that’s for,” he said. “That arm extension never made sense.”

Ramona’s eyes shone. “Again.”

They raised their arms. Right cut, turn, grab, twist . . . they came together in the flash. He planted his hand over the top of her right pectoral, she thrust her palm at him, and they shoved away from each other, propelling the momentum into a deadly spin. For a blink they were back to back, slicing at the invisible opponents, and then he caught her arm, raising it up and turning her left. Their backs touched.

The jolt rocked him again. He felt her move, knew where she would place her feet, and caught her as she glided over his extended leg, flexible, graceful, perfectly balanced, back to the front, cutting the phantom bodies on their flank, their linked arms giving her the greater reach.

They broke apart.

He wanted this woman more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life. He knew he was staring, realized that everything he felt was written on his face, but he couldn’t make himself stop.

Ramona turned away and walked in a slow circle, trying to calm her breathing.