“You’re not?”
Tolly shrugs, as if bored or uninterested. “No.” I look for the lie, but I can’t find it.
“Then . . . ?” I hesitate and glance around at the quiet training circle. Now that I think about it, this area shouldn’t be deserted. Not at this hour. We’re alone, left to do as we please. I suspect Davidson has something to do with it. Clearing the way for me wherever I go, giving my family an opportunity to try to change my path. They won’t, I tell myself. Stand your ground.
My brother isn’t bothered by my silence. He starts stretching instead, twisting his body to flex his arms. “I thought I’d get one last training session in before I go,” he says. “Care to join me?”
“You know I sort of invented this tactic.” My mind flashes to Mare Barrow and the training gym back at Ridge House. I sparred with her while Cal watched, and we beat each other into bloody pulps. Both to nudge Calore and Barrow closer to each other, but also to get Barrow’s head out of her own damn ass. I suspect my brother thinks he can do the same.
“What tactic?” he asks, widening his eyes in mock innocence. I don’t miss the way his fingers twitch. Tolly and I have sparred enough in our lives for him to know I strike hard, fast, and usually without warning.
Grinning, I start to circle him. He shifts to match my motions, never letting me get behind him or out of his eye line. “If you can’t convince them, beat them.”
“So you’re finally admitting I can beat you,” he says, puffing out his chest.
Buying time, I feel for any metal in the area. There isn’t much, and my meager jewelry won’t be sufficient to subdue someone like Ptolemus. “I did no such thing.”
He watches me with the Samos smile, a wolfish knife of a thing. I’m sure he knows I’m searching for weapons and coming up empty-handed. “Certainly sounded like it, Eve,” he says, spreading his hands wide. I notice as much as feel the six rings spread across his fingers.
Each one is tungsten, a heavy, brutish metal. His punches will hurt.
If he can land them.
Tolly expects me to make the first move, so I wait instead, continuing to circle. It puts him on edge. My steps quicken a little and I’m careful to keep my ring hand between us, ready to shield whatever he tosses my way. He does the same, smiling. His weapons far outnumber mine.
Or so he thinks.
Magnetrons can’t control dirt.
Lightning quick, I scrape and kick, sending up a cloud of earth to blind him. He flinches, shutting his eyes and whirling to avoid the worst of it. I don’t waste time, leaping toward him as the bracelet and ring on my hand melt into a blunt-edged knife. If I can get behind him, it’s over. Put the dagger to his throat or his ribs, jab so he feels it, and claim victory. Over him and anyone else who might try to tell me what to do.
I catch him around the chest, meaning to swing myself around him with my momentum. But he recovers quickly, planting a firm hand to my shoulder and tossing me to the ground. I hit hard and roll, missing a sure-footed kick by inches. I dodge; he chases. He dodges; I chase. We go back and forth, twisting around each other in almost mirror images. We have the same ability, the same training. I know his moves and he knows mine. He meets my knife with a circular shield; I parry with a thread-thin whip of steel. He just lets it close around his fist and squeezes, forming a glove of spikes over his hands. He knows I’m quick enough to dodge again, and I do, the needle-sharp glove whistling by my ear. I respond with a swipe to his ankle and a corresponding tug on his heavy rings, using them to drag him backward. His ability wars with mine, the two of us ripping at each other. I manage to loose two tungsten circles and draw them to my side. Both flatten and stretch into thin but strong staffs, easy for me to wield.
Ptolemus only grins at me. He doesn’t form a weapon of his own, leaving the remaining rings on his fingers. The dance begins again, both of us evenly matched and equally prepared. His strength is beyond my own, but I’m faster, and it balances us out. Sparring with Ptolemus is like fighting with my own shadow, or my own ghost. Every time we do it, I hear my father’s voice, or Lord Arven’s, or even my mother’s. The people who made us into the warriors we are now, hard and unforgiving as the steel we control.
We carry on like this for long, exhilarating, exhausting minutes. We tire at the same pace, both breathing hard and sweating. I have a cut above my eye, shallow but bleeding freely. Tolly spits blood when he gets the chance, maybe down a tooth or two. His face is flushed and mine must be too, but neither of us is the type to surrender or even ask for a break. We’ll push each other hard, until someone gains the upper hand. Usually me.
I slide again, my knees skidding through the dirt training ring with a satisfying hiss. With crossed arms, I deflect another blow and gather myself to retaliate. But as I get my legs beneath me, Ptolemus lunges too, arms outstretched, as if to hug me.
Instead his hands, his rings, find either side of my face, striking both my temples in tandem. It’s like being hit by a train. I see stars immediately and slump, though every instinct tells me to stay upright. The dirt is cool beneath my cheek when I blink my eyes open again. It was only a second, nothing to fret over. Ptolemus hasn’t even had time to look concerned yet.
The world spins for a few seconds, and he gives me enough room to get my bearings. I stay down longer than I need to, wishing away the dull pain on either side of my skull.
“I’ll call for Wren,” he says, but I wave him off.
“It’s just a dizzy spell.” Gritting my teeth, I get to my feet, careful not to stumble and give Tolly an excuse to get a healer. I don’t need anyone else nannying me. I almost hiss at my brother when he tries to help me up. “See, I’m fine. No harm done.”
He doesn’t need to know I feel like I’ve just taken a hammer to the head. Certainly bruises are springing up already.
“Good move,” I add, if only to distract Tolly. And myself. The dirt training ring whirls around me still. Tungsten is nothing to sneer at, especially in the hands of a skilled magnetron.
Tolly examines his rings with a strange expression, his lips pursed. One of the rings is thicker than the other, and heavier too. He spins it around his finger, and a blush colors the top of his cheeks with bright silver. My brother isn’t exactly a talkative sort. Neither of us was taught how to handle our emotions, only to hide them. He didn’t learn that lesson as well as I did.
“Father taught you how to do that, didn’t he?” I mutter, turning away. The sudden motion makes my head spin. The memories come too fast. Tolly was my father’s heir. Naturally, he got different treatment than I did. Lessons with our father, mostly. Training, statecraft. He prepared Ptolemus to lead our house, and our kingdom too.
“He did.”
Those two words hold so much meaning. Their relationship was different from ours. Closer. Better. Ptolemus was everything my father wanted him to be. A son, a strong warrior, dutiful and loyal to our blood. No flaws like mine. No wonder he loved him more. And my brother loved him in return, no matter what happened back in Archeon.
I absolutely refuse to cry for the second time today. So I focus on the splitting pain in my skull instead of the pain in my heart. “I’m—”
He cuts me off quickly, forcing me to turn around and look at him. “If you apologize for what happened to him, I’ll muzzle you.” We have the same eyes, storm-cloud eyes. Tolly’s threaten to explode.