Page 89 of Kazimir

The syllables hit like a strike to the sternum.

And with them came a flash—not full memory, but something close enough to hurt. Marble under bare feet. The smell of myrrh and hot metal. A chamber bright enough to erase shadows. His hand gripping my jaw too hard, while I stared into the middle distance and learned what stillness cost. The memory vanished before I could seize it, leaving nausea behind.

“My name,” I said, and heard my own voice shake with fury more than fear, “is Devon.”

His expression curdled. “You wear a human invention and call it identity.”

He moved.

I had seen speed before tonight. Vampires were fast. Wolves in battle were brutally quick. But Sariel crossed the corridor with a violence that made those other movements feel almost courteous. He did not rush so much as rewrite where he was.

I barely got the sword up in time.

His blade smashed against mine with a force that sang through metal and bone. Pain shot from my wrists to my shoulders so hard my fingers nearly opened on instinct. The golden sword held. So did I. But the impact drove me back half a step, then another, heels skidding on the polished floor.

He pressed immediately, face inches from mine, beautiful features twisted into naked hatred.

“You were cast out by mercy,” he hissed. “I should have unmade you then.”

I shoved upward, breaking his angle long enough to pivot.

Steel screamed. Light burst where our blades met. He struck again, high then low, then with a turning cut meant to open my ribs when I adjusted to defend my head. My body remembered enough to answer. I blocked. Deflected. Turned my wings into balance and my hips into leverage. The corridor was too narrow for full extension, but the sword had indeed been made for me. It moved where I needed it. It found the spaces my panicked mind might have missed.

For three exchanges, perhaps five, I almost believed I could hold him.

Then I felt the lie of that.

Sariel was not merely stronger. He was trained on a scale my fractured memory could only hint at. Every strike taught him more about me. Every defense cost me twice what it cost him. He drove me down the corridor by degrees, forcing me to block instead of counter, to survive instead of choose. The vibrations up my arms became a sustained ache. My shoulders burned. The small bones in my hands felt one impact away from cracking.

I cut for his throat on a desperate opening.

He caught the blow with contemptuous ease and twisted.

The shock of it ripped through my grip. The sword almost flew then. I saved it by pure stubbornness and a vicious wrench of my wrist that lit pain all the way to my elbow.

He smiled at that, a tiny thing, more insult than amusement.

Through the bond came Kazimir’s sudden surge of alarm.

Devon.

I am here; I tried to send back, but the corridor’s pressure distorted everything. What reached him was probably only pain and the shape of my determination.

Behind Sariel, at the far end of the hall where the main floor should have been visible, light flickered gold-white and purple. Shadows crossed. Someone shouted. I could not tell who. The whole world had narrowed to blade, breath, and the knowledge that I had been peeled away from the others exactly as Sariel intended.

He struck again.

I caught it.

Again.

Again.

My boots slid over something slick. Blood, perhaps. Perhaps only spilled liquor tracked in from the club. It did not matter. My balance shifted half an inch.

He took everything from that half-inch.

His next blow came from above with both hands behind it, not elegant now but brutal. I raised my sword, met him, and felt the full force of his strength slam into my guard. Agony knifed through my arms. My knees nearly buckled.