Chapter 5: Dance of Blades and Blood
The challenge hung in the air, a gauntlet of steel and sneering contempt. The envoy’s smile widened, a crack in a leathery face. “Two against two? So the little birds need to flock together. Very well. Let the court see your… cooperation.”
Our two opponents stepped forward, shedding heavy fur cloaks. They were mountains of muscle and scar tissue, clad in mismatched plates of dull iron. The one facing me, the one with the scarred knuckles, hefted a notched broadsword. His companion, a man with a missing ear, spun a spiked mace in a lazy, whistling arc. They moved with the confidence of men who had ended lives on floors like this.
Mary picked up the other practice sword, her expression one of detached assessment. “Terrible balance,” she murmured, just for me.
“Compensate with forward momentum,” I replied, my eyes never leaving the broadsword. “He’ll overcommit. The mace is slower. Use it.”
A circle cleared around us, the courtiers pressing back against the frozen walls, their faces now alive with ghoulish interest. From the corner of my eye, I saw Ellie, rigid on the throne, one hand gripping the obsidian armrest, the other clasped tightly in Nancy’s. Nancy was leaning forward, her lips parted, her breath visible in a rapid, shallow cloud.
“Begin,” the envoy barked.
The big man came at me like an avalanche. No finesse, just raw, battering power. His broadsword came down in a vertical chop meant to split me in half. I didn’t block. I sidestepped, letting the momentum carry the blade past me. It struck the marble where I’d stood, sending a spray of ice chips into the air. The vibration must have sung up his arms.
“Slow,” I said, the word a puff of steam in the cold.
He grunted, swinging back horizontally. I dropped into a crouch, the blade passing over my head with a deadly whoosh. From my low position, I jabbed my sword point into the gap between his breastplate and tassets. It was a shallow prick, more an insult than an injury, but a bright bead of blood welled up on the leather beneath.
He roared in frustration.
Meanwhile, Mary was a specter. The mace-wielder swung at her, a devastating blow that would have shattered bone. She didn’t retreat. She stepped inside its arc, so close the haft of his weapon brushed her tunic. Before he could recover, she brought the pommel of her sword up in a sharp, brutal arc into his exposed armpit. There was a wet, crunching sound. He bellowed, his arm going limp, the mace clattering to the floor.
“She-fox!” he spat, cradling his arm.
“Your pauldron’s too high,” Mary stated, her voice flat. “Restricts lateral movement. Basic flaw.”
My opponent, enraged by the scratch and his companion’s distress, renewed his assault with a series of heavy, hacking blows. I gave ground, parrying, letting the shock of each impact travel through my sword and into my bones. It was a wasteful style. He was tiring himself out.
“Your women fight like tavern rats,” he snarled, sweat tracing lines through the grime on his face. “Scratching and biting. No honor.”
“Honor’s a poor substitute for a spine,” I shot back, deflecting another blow. “Your footwork is a tragedy. You’re cross-legged on the back swing. A child could see it.”
His face purpled. He over-extended, exactly as predicted. Instead of meeting his blade, I pivoted on my back foot and swept my leg against his lead ankle. He was too heavy to go down completely, but he stumbled, off-balance for a critical second.
That was Mary’s signal.
As he wobbled, she disengaged from the disarmed, wounded man and lunged. Not at my opponent, but past him. Her sword flashed out, not to stab, but to hook behind his knee. She pulled.
He crashed down onto the black ice, the impact knocking the wind from him in a great gasp. Before he could move, I was there, the point of my sword resting against the soft hollow of his throat. Mary stood over his companion, her blade tip hovering an inch from his good eye.
The fight had lasted less than three minutes.
Silence, absolute and profound, filled the throne room. The only sounds were the ragged, pained breathing of the two defeated men and the crackle of the braziers.
I looked at the envoy. His smirk was gone, replaced by a pallor that matched the ice. “First blood,” I said, my voice echoing in the quiet.“And incapacitation. The gift has been… tested.”
I lifted my sword from the man’s throat. Mary withdrew hers. We stepped back, standing side-by-side, our breathing steadying. The weight of the clumsy swords suddenly felt unimportant.
From the throne, a soft, exhaled sigh was audible. Ellie’s grip on the armrest had turned her knuckles white, but her face was now a mask of regal composure. Nancy’s eyes were wide, gleaming with a fierce, proud light.
The envoy found his voice, thin and strained. “You spare them?”
“We’re not butchers,” Mary said, wiping a speck of blood from her sword onto her thigh. “We’re engineers. We identify structural failure and neutralize it. Their failure is complete.”
Ellie’s voice rang out, clear and cool as meltwater. “You will take your men and your king’s message back. Tell him the throne is occupied. The Sword and the Shield stand. The era of testing is over. The next gift will be returned in pieces.”
The authority in her tone was new, forged in the terror of the last few minutes. It brooked no argument.
As the defeated champions were helped, stumbling and humiliated, from the hall, a different tension replaced the violence. The courtiers began to murmur, the sound like shifting ice. The audience was dissolving, the spectacle ended.
Ellie rose. “The court is adjourned until tomorrow.”
She descended the dais, Nancy a shadow beside her. They came to us. Ellie’s hand came up, trembling slightly, and touched my cheek. Her fingers were icy. “You’re sure?” she whispered, her regal facade cracking for just us.
“Not a scratch,” I said, covering her hand with mine.
Nancy had already taken Mary’s face in her hands, searching her eyes. “You stepped inside the mace,” she breathed, a mix of horror and awe in her voice.
“Optimal path to disable,” Mary said quietly, but she leaned into Nancy’s touch.
We turned and walked back the way we had come, a family through the gauntlet of staring eyes. The silence now felt different—not hostile, but wary, recalibrating.
Once we were through the great doors and into the privacy of the antechamber, a trembling energy released. Ellie pulled both me and Mary into a fierce, simultaneous embrace. “Never again,” she said into my shoulder. “I can’t watch that.”
“You might have to,” I said softly, holding her. “But we’ll be ready.”
Later, in the deep quiet of our private chambers, the adrenaline had faded to a dull hum. Nancy was brushing Mary’s short, sweat-damp hair, her movements gentle. Ellie traced the line of my jaw where the opponent’s blade had come closest.
“When you moved,” Nancy whispered, her voice a secret in the firelight, “it wasn’t like fighting. It was like a… a diagram. Every step had a purpose. It was terrifying. And beautiful.”
Mary tilted her head back to look up at her. “It was math.”
“It was desire,” Ellie corrected softly, her artist’s soul reframing the calculus. Her lips were near my ear. “I saw it. The way you watched each other, the absolute trust. You moved like a single thought.” She paused, her breath warm. “When you took his leg out and Mary was already there… my heart didn’t know whether to stop or explode.”
I caught her hand, lacing our fingers. “It’s just applied physics.”
“It’s love,” Nancy insisted, putting down the brush and curling into Mary’s side on the fur-covered bench. “The most visceral kind. I saw it on your faces. You weren’t just protecting the throne. You were protecting us.Each other. That’s what they didn’t understand.”
The fire popped, casting dancing shadows. The fear of the day was transmuting, softening at the edges, becoming something else in the warmth and safety of our circle. A shared look passed between Ellie and Nancy, a language of raised brows and slight smiles.
“Tell me,” Mary said, her practical tone not quite masking her curiosity. “What did you think, up there on that cold throne?”
Ellie’s blush was visible even in the low light. She looked at me, her eyes full of a naked, fierce pride. “I thought,” she began, her voice a husky whisper, “that I have never wanted you more than in that moment.Both of you. Covered in the proof of your strength. It was… primitive. And overwhelming.”
Nancy nodded, pressing a kiss to Mary’s shoulder. “I kept thinking, ‘That’s my mother. That’s my Mary.’ And it felt like my chest was too small for everything inside it. Fear, yes. But also this… this pure, hot thrill.”
We sat in the confessional silence, the reality of the throne room now overlaid with this new, intimate layer. The danger had been real, the violence visceral. But here, in its aftermath, the connections that had been tested now hummed with a renewed, profound charge. The night outside our chambers was deep and cold, the kingdom resting under its blanket of ice. But in this room, for now, we had forged our own kind of warmth.