The Spirit War(120)

Josef glowered. “I never picked you for a fool, Adela,” he said. “But I guess I was wrong about that too. Only a fool counts a battle won while the defenders are still standing.”

Adela smirked at him. “Not for long.”

Behind him, Josef felt Nico tense, ready to jump through the shadows and land on Adela’s back. He stopped her with one word.

“Go.”

Nico snarled at Adela one last time and vanished into the dark. If Adela was surprised by this, her face didn’t show it.

“Quite the little monster you’ve got there, Thereson,” she said. “Are you sure it was wise to send her away?”

“Yes,” he said. “I’m the prince of Osera. It’s my duty to finish you myself.”

“Duty? You?” Adela laughed with delight. “The murderer prince who ran away?” She paused. “Actually, you were the only variable. When Theresa gambled the treasury to bring you home, we never thought you’d actually come home. But I’m glad you did, husband. Having the marriage bed for an alibi gave me more freedom to move than I could have hoped for, and your presence made my mother’s job easier. The queen gets herself very excited when you’re around. Such exertion makes it so much easier to explain her worsening fits.”

Josef’s eyes widened. “My mother’s not sick at all, is she?” he said in a low, dangerous voice. “You’ve been poisoning her.”

Adela shrugged. “Hard to say, at this point. After close to ten years of drinking my mother’s tea, Theresa’s condition has become quite real. I doubt she’ll last out the week, especially once she hears that her son, her last, ridiculous hope, finally gave in to his violent nature and had to be put down like a mad dog.”

“If that’s how you see this playing out, you haven’t been paying attention,” Josef said, raising the Heart as he stepped into position. “I may not be much of a prince, but I am the best and, unless you surrender now, the last swordsman you will ever meet.”

“We’ll see about that,” Adela said, stepping into first position.

Josef looked her over. His instincts during the proving had been right. The stance Adela took now had none of the stiffness from before, and her fingers gripped her sword with a master’s assurance. But even so, even if she somehow was a master duelist, there was no way she could hope to beat the Heart of War with an infantry short sword.

He glanced down at the Heart. It was a pity to use it for a fight like this, but he didn’t have the luxury of a handicap. He needed to end this quickly and warn his mother. If he moved fast enough, he might even be able to save her. Josef gripped the Heart with both hands, sliding his feet forward across the stone. Finish it fast, he thought. Finish it now.

The Heart hummed in agreement, and they moved as one, bearing down on Adela like an iron wave. The princess’s eyes widened at his speed, but she didn’t try to dodge or spin away as she had in the Proving. Instead, she lifted her short, stocky blade and braced for the Heart’s impact. The short sword looked so pathetic before the Heart’s monstrous weight, Josef almost laughed. But Adela didn’t break her guard, even as the Heart struck her sword with the force of a mountain.

The two blades met with a scream of metal, and Josef watched in satisfaction as the short sword crumpled. He could feel the impact moving through her blade like the Heart was an extension of his own arm, but as he stepped in for the follow-through that would shatter Adela’s ribs, he realized something was wrong.

The short sword was still breaking. The metal was still folding in on itself, still crumpling like ash as it absorbed the Heart’s strike. Josef’s eyes widened. He could feel the blow spoiling even as he carried it, feel himself slowing as Adela slid backward, letting her sword break and break and break, drinking in the blow. Before the force could fade completely, Josef abandoned the strike. He swung the Heart back and turned midstep, using the last of his spoiled momentum to step out of her range, coming to a stop a few feet away with the Heart between him and Adela as he tried to figure out what had just happened.

Adela straightened with a smile and raised her sword, holding up the crumpled blade for Josef to see. Josef didn’t see how there had been enough metal in the sword to crumple as much as it had, let alone enough to absorb the enormous power of the Heart. He was still trying to make sense of it when Adela’s sword began to change. The etched words on the blade flashed with blinding light, and the crumpled blade began to straighten. The metal moved like a living thing as it pushed out of the stocky, confined shape of the short sword, growing longer, sharper, and slightly curved. The whole process took no more than a handful of seconds, and then Adela was holding a sword that looked nothing like the one she’d held a moment ago. The new blade glowed with a light of its own. It was delicate and straight now, without a single mark from the crumpled mess it had been moments before. Even the handle had changed, pushing out of the squat single hilt to a two-handed hold with a thick guard chased all around with stylized waves that seemed to dance across the glowing steel.