Page 94 of Deathless
"If you want her," Zeus said, "you'll have to take her."
"Gladly."
We moved at the same time.
He came in high. I blocked on instinct, the way he'd drilled into me, and the impact lit up every wound I'd collected tonight. I pivoted and swung at his neck. He ducked it. He knew I'd go for the neck because he'd taught me to go for the neck, and the thrust he answered with nearly took me through the ribs.
I knew his patterns. He knew mine. Fighting him was like arguing with my own skeleton. Every feint I threw, he'd already corrected a thousand times.
So I stopped fighting his way. I dropped my guard and left the opening he'd spent a decade beating me never to leave. It was ugly, wrong, the kind of sloppy shit that would have earned me extra drills at fourteen. He committed to the thrust because the opening was too clean, and I sidestepped and brought the katana across his ribs. Blood spread through his shirt.
Zeus smiled. He'd taught me that trick too.
He closed on me faster than a man with that cut should have moved. I gave ground because my body had run out of things to give. My arms had gone heavy, and my shoulder had settled into a wet heat that meant something important had torn loose. I parried once, barely. I parried twice, worse. On the third strike, I stopped retreating and drove forward on spite and the stubborn certainty that I was not going to die here, not with Eight watching, not before I got her out.
His guard dropped, and I drove forward with everything I had left, katana aimed at his throat.
Then the wall behind the courtyard suddenly exploded inward.
Stone and dust and noise erupted at once, and through the smoke a shape moved that I recognized before my brain caught up to my eyes. The chain sickle whipped through the gap in the wall and buried itself in the courtyard stones. Achilles stepped through the breach.
Zeus pulled away from me mid-swing. He moved toward the far archway, and every calculation played out across his face: the compound, the defenses, the son he'd rejected, all of it collapsing into a single conclusion. He had to leave. Now.
I could have gone after him. Every muscle wanted to finish it, to chase him through that archway and put the katana through his back before he disappeared.
I turned my back on Zeus and ran for Diego and Mila.
The second blast hit as I reached them. I threw myself over Diego's back, over Eight, and the world tore apart above us. Stone rained down. The courtyard table shattered. Diego curled around Eight and I curled around Diego, and the last thing I registered before the white took everything was Diego shouting my name.
My face hurt likehell, and someone was screaming. It took me a second to figure out that someone was me.
I rolled onto my side with a groan. Smoke choked the courtyard, so thick it burned my throat, and my ribs lit up white-hot when I tried to push off the ground. Mother of God, it looked like a bomb had gone off.
I pushed up so fast I lost my balance the first time and went back down. I had to find Mila. What if she was scared? What if she was hurt? What if she was already gone?
No, Diego. Don't. Don't think that. They're alive, both of them, and you're going to find them.
I stumbled forward through the smoke. I could barely stay upright, and my ribs pulsed with every step, but I kept moving.
Through a gap in the smoke, I caught movement at the far archway. Zeus. He stood with one hand pressed to his ribs where Jasper had cut him, already heading for the exit. He glanced back once, and even through the haze I could read his face. He'd done the math. Achilles would finish this for him.
Then the smoke closed and he was gone.
"Mila!"
"Here!" she called from my right.
I turned, and she crouched next to Jasper behind what remained of a column. She had him propped up against the stone, one hand on his chest. He stared past me, unfocused. A gash above his temple had bled all the way down to his jaw.
I dropped down next to them. "What happened? What the fuck was that?"
Jasper blinked at me like he'd forgotten how words worked.
"I don't know." Mila's voice shook. "Something hit. An explosion. I pulled him over here."
"Jasper." I grabbed his shoulder. "You with me?"
He focused on my face. "Diego."
