Fated Blades (Kinsmen)

Lukas scrutinized her. He moved left. She turned to follow, and Matias moved with her.

“A pair,” Lukas said in a clipped voice.

“You finally noticed,” Varden said.

“I’ve never killed a pair.”

“I told you it would be worth it.”

Matias attacked.

She felt his intent and threw her seco up in two round shields. Varden pounced on her in a whirlwind of strikes and slashes, shifting the size and shape of his blades on the fly. She blocked him in a controlled frenzy. He hit like a space freighter. Her arms shuddered under the strain. One small mistake, and they were both dead.

Behind her Matias was fighting, fast, precise, and she moved with him blindly, putting all her trust into the connection between them. She felt Lukas attacking and knew Matias’s counter. While Lukas lashed and stabbed with calculated viciousness, looking for an opening, Varden hammered at her, trying to overwhelm her with sheer strength and ferocity.

They think I am the weak link.

If Varden could break her down with his blitz, Matias would be caught between the two brothers. They thought she wouldn’t last. They were spacers. Neither of the brothers had ever run fifteen kilometers up a mountain carrying a weighted pack and then been told to make his way back if he wanted water.

Welcome to Dahlia. Neither of you will leave here alive.

Matias slashed with his left seco, curving it in midstrike. Lukas smashed his short seco blade onto Matias’s sword and thrust with the other seco, forming it into a narrow spike. Matias leaned right, she leaned with him, and the seco missed them by five centimeters, so close she saw its deep, furious red out of the corner of her eye.

A searing agony lashed her shoulder. The scent of blood shot through the air, and for a moment, she didn’t know which one of them had taken the wound.

Matias. Lukas’s seco had grazed his arm. He was hurt. She couldn’t tell how badly. It could be a scratch, or his arm could be hanging by a thread.

Lukas snarled like an animal and launched a flurry of attacks, throwing himself against Matias’s injured side. Matias parried. Varden lashed at her, each slice designed to stagger her. The world melted into combat.

Strike, cut, dodge, shield, slash, strike . . .

She had no idea how much time had passed, but all of them were growing tired. Her breathing was labored. Sweat beaded on Varden’s forehead. The strain of matching his moves was sapping her strength. This was unlike any fight she’d ever experienced.

He carved at her, aiming for her chest. She formed her seco into two round shields and thrust them in front of her.

Varden’s seco flashed, the heavy blades mutating into rapiers. They slid between her shields, curved, and Varden yanked them back, locking his seco with hers and trying to pull her off balance. She dropped her left shield, breaking free, shifted it into a wide blade, and lashed at him. He pounded at it with his other seco, throwing his entire weight into the blow. Her arm dropped. She saw his other blade coming, but there was no time to avoid it. She twisted her arm, trying to block him with her seco.

Not fast enough. Varden’s red blade glanced off her seco and sliced her right forearm.

She shied back, Matias moving with her. Hot blood drenched her arm, dripping to the stones. She willed her right seco into a shield, and the red force field obeyed. The arm still moved. He hadn’t hit anything vital.

Varden smiled at her.

Rage flooded her, hot and boiling, not her own, but streaming from Matias through their connection.

They had to end this.

Varden leaped. The world slowed, each instant stretching, each line of his body crystal clear. His seco turned into narrow curved blades running the entire length of his forearms like two oversize ax heads. She saw him above them, knew he would come crashing down, but she had nowhere to go. She thrust her shields up, ready for the impact. He would knock her down. There was no doubt about it.

Drop.

It wasn’t a voice or a thought. It was an impulse, and it didn’t come from her.

The twin seco smashed into her shields, Varden’s full weight behind them.

Instead of bracing, she dropped, letting him push her down to her knees. Varden’s face loomed above her, colored red by her seco shields. His teeth were bared, his eyes burning with a mad, hungry fire. He looked demonic.

Matias twisted his body. A streak of red shot from him, forming a long slender blade, and bit into Varden’s throat. She dropped her seco, pivoted around Matias’s legs in a crouch, and thrust her right seco straight up, cleaving Lukas’s groin and stomach in a single devastating stab.

Lukas collapsed in a gush of blood and entrails. Behind her Varden’s body crumpled to the ground, his hands on his neck in a futile attempt to stem the blood spilling from a second mouth Matias had opened in his throat.