Page 78 of The Shadows Between Us
Unhelpful.
Words are my only ally in this situation.
“You hit him square in the chest,” I say. “Now go before the guards come running to investigate the sound of the shot.”
With his free hand, he shoves me away. I hit the ground hard, but I don’t register the pain as I rise to a sitting position, reaching for my boot.
The rubies around the hilt of my dagger gleam as I bring the blade down in an arc, sinking it into the man’s thigh.
He howls and backhands me with the hand not holding his rapier.
I go sprawling on the ground again, really hating the bricks that take the skin off my knees.
The assassin reaches down for my dagger. With a grunt, he pulls the blade from his skin and tosses it away.
His murderous eyes are turned to me now, but before he can take a step in my direction, we both snap our necks toward the dark shape rising from the other side of the bench.
Kallias is off the ground, standing firmly on two feet, swathed in shadows. He walks right through the bench, and as he does so something metalplinks onto the brick walkway below us.
The bullet.
Though his clothes still bear the stain of blood, he holds himself without a hunch or anything else to show signs of him being in pain. He takes one glance at me on the ground, at the red outline of a handprint on my cheek, before turning back to the assassin.
“You’ll die for that,” Kallias says, his voice a deep rumble.
“It’s you who will die today,” the man says, and he steps forward, thrusting the tip of his sword through Kallias.
The assassin nearly loses his footing when his sword doesn’t meet the expected resistance, instead going clean through Kallias’s shadow form.
“What the—?”
Kallias steps right through him, and a shiver goes through me, as I remember the smoky sensation of Kallias’s shadow form all around me.
The assassin whirls, facing Kallias now that he’s on the other side of him. He draws his gun once again, and this time deposits the entire round of bullets into Kallias’s chest.
But of course, they go right through him.
He drops the gun as the king pulls his own sword from his side, the shadows disappearing from around the blade and hand that holds it.
And then they duel.
Indeed, Kallias hadn’t lied when he said he knew how to use that blade. He sends out a series of quick thrusts that the assassin deflects just in time. He’s slower with the injury I dealt him, but he just manages to evade each one.
After a time, I realize Kallias is toying with him. Though the two swords meet in the air with metallic clanks, every time the assassin attempts to make his own jabs toward the king, they go right through him.
Like he’s dueling a ghost.
Unkillable. Untouchable.
Eventually, the assassin tires of the game. When the swords of the two men come together, he hurls his weight into the connection, sending Kallias stumbling backward.
Then the man takes off at a run, his steps hitching with the leg I stabbed. Kallias runs over to one of the flower beds, bends over the ground, and comes up with my dagger. He barely takes aim before the weapon goes twirling out of his hand.
It hits the assassin square in the back. He goes down.
Kallias whirls on me, bending at the knees on the bricks beside me. His shadows are gone.
“Are you hurt?” he asks.
