Drenna wasn’t smiling now.

  She had always thought she would meet death laughing. Spitting in its face. Making some clever remark about fate being too slow to catch her.

  Instead, she was panting.

  Her shoulder burned where the blade had kissed bone. Blood slicked her grip, turning the knife unreliable in her hand. The fire she’d set was doing its work. Half the yard had dissolved into chaos, men shouting and scrambling to stamp out sparks before the whole camp went up. But the ones left with her were more than enough.

  Four too many.

  She twisted under a downward strike, felt steel scrape along her ribs, and drove her knife upward in retaliation. It bit shallow. Not deep enough. The man snarled and elbowed her across the jaw. The world flashed white for a heartbeat.

  ‘Shit… and I called that weakling pathetic.’ The thought made her want to laugh again, but it came out as a ragged cough. Smoke and the copper taste of blood filled her mouth.

  Another man rushed her. She parried badly, her wounded shoulder screaming in protest. The impact broke her stance and she dropped to one knee in the mud. Boots surrounded her. Steel rose above her.

  So this was it.

  At least her sister would be gone by now. The weakling had that much sense. She’d run. She would–

  A strange whip-crack split the air.

  The bandit directly in front of her jerked mid-swing. His head snapped sideways as if yanked by invisible hands. There was a dull, wet crunch, and then he collapsed without ceremony, cleaver slipping from loose fingers.

  A smooth stone skipped once through the dirt and tapped against Drenna’s knee. She stared at it stupidly for half a second before following the line it must have flown.

  Through smoke and flickering firelight, at the edge of the yard… The stupid girl stood there. Sling already circling. Face pale but determined.

  She came back.

  The sling cracked again. Another stone ripped through the air and smashed into a bandit’s temple. He reeled, disoriented. Drenna surged up on instinct alone and slit his throat before he could recover.

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  “What are you–?!” Drenna snarled at the girl furiously.

  “Move!” Soryn shouted, the sling already whirring into another tight orbit around her wrist, that made the air hum.

  The sound prickled along Drenna’s skin. The girl’s Resonance was weak but her aim was good. Fine. Whatever. The girl wasn’t completely useless. Drenna would allow it this time.

  They fell into a rhythm neither acknowledged.

  A stone shattered fingers reaching for Drenna’s knife hand and she stepped inside the opening and carved across a belly in response.

  Another cracked against a cheekbone. She pivoted and buried her knife under a collarbone.

  The missiles weren’t killing blows most of the time, but they stole momentum. Stole certainty. And in a fight like this, that was enough to turn the tide despite being outnumbered.

  Soon the shouting thinned. The fire roared louder than the remaining men until only one remained.

  He had hung back, watching and waiting for his opening. He was content to let his own men die first, treating their lives as the price for his certain victory. Unlike the others, he wore layered leather reinforced with scavenged plates of metal. A half-helm guarded his skull. In his hand was a broadaxe.

  He was probably the leader.

  The earlier stones had done little more than knock him off balance. Now he squared himself, boots planted wide, axe steady. A rock slammed into his shoulder. He ignored it. Another glanced off his helm with a ringing clang. He didn’t even look at Drenna.

  His eyes fixed on Soryn.

  Smart bastard. Kill the one throwing the world at you. The one he accurately assumed as the weakest fighter.

  He lunged. Drenna didn’t think. She intercepted the downward swing meant to split Soryn open, her knife shrieking uselessly against plated leather. The impact drove her backward. Pain flared white-hot through her wounded shoulder.

  “He’s armored!” Drenna spat. “You idiot!”

  “I can see that!” Soryn shot back, breath tight. “I know what I’m doing!” And she was proven right. Another rock struck the side of his knee. He staggered half a step, only half, but Soryn had finally found a weakness and adjusted instantly.

  The next missile didn’t aim high. It slammed into the same knee joint. Not enough to break it but enough to force him to shift weight.

  Drenna dropped low.

  Instead of meeting steel with steel, she slid through the mud and drove her knife between the plates at the back of his calf. He roared and twisted, trying to backhand her, but Soryn was already moving.

  The girl abandoned distance. She closed in. Her sword flashed, not at his chest, not at the obvious armor… But at the straps! Clean, precise cuts that severed buckles Drenna hadn’t even noticed. A plate loosened along his ribs.

  Smart girl…

  The man swung wildly, desperate now. Soryn ducked under it and rammed her shoulder into him, shoving him toward Drenna who rose to meet him. She feinted high. He brought his axe up to block. Too slow to realize that wasn’t the real attack.

  Soryn pivoted behind him, hooked her foot against his wounded leg, and drove the pommel of her sword into the back of his helm. His balance finally broke. He dropped to one knee. And Drenna didn’t hesitate.

  She plunged her knife through the gap Soryn had opened beneath his arm, angling upward with all the strength she had left.

  This time, it went deep.

  The fight went out of him like air from a punctured lung.

  For a long moment, neither of them moved. Only the fire crackled, the panicked neighing of the horses, and the last of the bandit leader’s dying gasps.

  Drenna wrenched her blade free and let the body slump into the dirt. She looked at Soryn across the bandit leader’s corpse.

  “You,” she said hoarsely, “are impossibly bad at doing what you’re told.” But she was grinning.

  Soryn didn’t even look offended. She just rolled her eyes. “My father’s been saying that for years.”