The Den of Shadows Quartet - Amelia Atwater-Rhodes [119]
“Well, Sarta, if you’re going to call a halt to our fun, do you also plan to name a winner?” Ravyn was still panting slightly but not enough to affect the smooth drawl in her voice.
Turquoise wiped her own blade on the leg of her ruined jeans. She didn’t speak yet, preferring to catch her breath. If it was ten now, then she and Ravyn had been sparring for almost five hours. This fight had begun at sunrise.
Five hours, and they were left in a draw. Turquoise’s muscles ached with fatigue, but she would rather have finished this than stopped now. She wanted the title.
Crimson. It was the most elite of the three Bruja guilds. Cold-blooded as snakes and vicious as hyenas, members of Bruja were the best predators in existence. To be recognized as the guild’s leader would fulfill the promise Turquoise had once made. She had sworn that no one would ever mistake her for prey again. If that meant abandoning a few of the social mores of the daylight world, as Bruja members so frequently did, so be it.
The leader of Crimson was second only to Sarta, the leader of all three Bruja guilds. Turquoise had trained and fought and competed for the position. She knew she was the best Crimson had. She could out-stalk and out-fight any vampire and had, many times. She would win this title, whatever it took.
“Rematch,” Sarta said simply. “Onyx and Frost still need to compete today. You two are obviously matched evenly with daggers, but a Bruja member needs to be able to use any weapon at his or her command.” She paused for dramatic effect. “A tie is decided in a private duel, one month after Challenge, witnessed only by the other leaders. The weapon is decided by the member who has been in the guild the longest — in this case, Ravyn — and the bout goes to third blood.”
Ravyn sighed, looking at Turquoise past burgundy lashes. “In one month, and I choose the weapon. In that case …” She walked around the room, examining the walls, which were decorated with weapons of all sizes, all shapes, and all designs.
She paused to run a finger down the blade of a broadsword, but then shook her head and moved on. She glanced at the crossbows, but they were the traditional weapon of Crimson’s sister guild, Onyx — not appropriate for a Crimson duel. She passed foils, epées, and sabers, and did not even pause to glance at the thick wooden staves.
Finally, she pulled down two leather whips, and cracked one expertly. “I choose these.”
Ravyn tossed one of them to Turquoise with a sly grin, and Turquoise almost let it fall to the ground before reflex made her catch the handle. Of the entire selection of weapons in the Bruja hall, the whip was the only one she hated. Ravyn could not have made a better choice.
“Turquoise, do you accept the challenge?” Sarta asked.
“I accept.” She was grateful that her voice stayed even. She hated whips. She could use one if she needed to, but not with any precision.
“Then get out of here,” Sarta ordered. “Come back the day of the next full moon. The match will begin at sunrise.”
Turquoise nodded, then turned her back to Sarta and Ravyn, and stalked as gracefully as she could from the fighting floor.
She paused next to the cork assignment board, collecting herself before she left the halls.
Ravyn had come up behind her to look at the board. Turquoise’s instincts told her to leave. Ravyn, like all Bruja members, was not someone Turquoise trusted at her back. So of course she forced herself to stay and read the notices.
Turquoise ignored most of the posts. She was a mercenary, but she had standards, and she preferred vampires as her prey. There were numbers up on a couple of shape-shifters, but none sounded interesting. Besides, Turquoise was still a little wary of putting a knife in something that breathed and bled like a human, even if it did grow fur, scales, or feathers occasionally.
The rest of the posts she tried to avoid reading. She liked to think