The sun dipped below the jagged peaks of the Morrighan border, casting long, bloody shadows across the mountain pass. Kazi of Brightmist tightened the straps on her gauntlets, the leather familiar and cold. Beside her, Jase Ballenger watched the horizon, his silhouette steady against the rising wind.
"Ten minutes," Kazi said, pulling a thin serrated blade from her boot. "Once they reach the ravine, I go high. You take the narrow."
In the distance, the faint clatter of iron on stone echoed. The Queen’s soldiers were close. Kazi felt the familiar itch in her fingertips—the urge to vanish into the shadows, to become the Rahtan she was born to be. But the weight of the word they had shared—the Palabra de Ladrones —held her fast. It was more than a promise between thieves; it was a tether. Palabra De Ladrones Mary E Pearson epub
When the dust settled and the remaining soldiers fled back toward the plains, Kazi stood over the captain's discarded map. She felt Jase approach, his breathing heavy but rhythmic.
Kazi didn't look at him. She couldn't afford the distraction of his eyes—the way they softened when they landed on her, even now, in the mouth of a trap. "They expect us to run for Tor's Watch. If we turn now, we lose the high ground." "We aren't running," Jase reminded her. "We're hunting." The sun dipped below the jagged peaks of
Arrows hissed through the dark, and the clash of steel rang out as Jase emerged from the gloom like a storm. Kazi dropped from the ledge, her blades finding the gaps in the soldiers' defenses. They fought not as two separate warriors, but as a single, lethal machine.
The soldiers marched into the choke point, their armor clanking—a symphony of overconfidence. Kazi waited until the captain reached the center mark. She didn't signal with a shout; she signaled with a stone, dropped perfectly into the center of their path. Chaos erupted. "Ten minutes," Kazi said, pulling a thin serrated
Jase stood beside her, his shoulder brushing hers. The tension of the fight was gone, replaced by the heavy reality of what came next. "The word is kept, Kazi." "Always," she replied.