Happy holidays, everyone!
Here’s a cut scene from Deadly Games, for those who might be done eating and opening presents, and are looking for something else to do. I snipped it early on, because Amaranthe and Sicarius have similar conversations elsewhere in the story, so it’s on the rough-drafty side, but I hope it’ll be a fun extra. After all, how often do we get to see Sicarius shirtless? 😉 (Er, wait, he was nude for a while in EE3. Never mind!)
* * *
Though the sun had not yet risen, bringing its unrelenting summer heat, Amaranthe perspired like an icy glass of lemonade. Sweat dribbled from her brow, stinging her eyes, and streaked down her sleeveless arms. Moisture slicked her palm and saturated the leather hilt of her short sword. She licked dry lips and forced herself to focus on her opponent and not the tall, cold, quenching glass of lemonade that had invaded her thoughts.
A long, slender rapier blurred under her guard and slapped the side of her ribs.
Amaranthe winced, not from pain–Sicarius was perfectly capable of making his points without hurting her–but from annoyance with herself. He had not even needed a combination attack to get by her that time.
“Focus,” he said, returning to his starting position, a relaxed bent-kneed stance in the shadows of a dilapidated railcar. Above it, dawn brightened the sky, providing enough light to see him and his blade, so she couldn’t use the darkness for an excuse. The fact that he wore no shirt probably wasn’t a good excuse either, even if any woman would struggle not to be distracted by carved-from-granite muscles gleaming beneath a sheen of sweat.
“I know,” Amaranthe said. There, no excuses. He ought to respect that. “And I know knowing isn’t the same as doing,” she added, heading off one of his typical admonishments.
“In a fight between equally matched opponents, the one who retains focus longest wins.”
“We’re not exactly equally matched,” she said dryly, though she knew what he meant. Today he was emulating an army officer, someone who had been raised with a rapier in his hand. Though Sicarius’s own combat style was an amalgamation derived from dozens of fighting disciplines, he could separate them to mimic any number of likely opponents she might encounter.
“This morning we are.” Sicarius twitched his blade toward hers, indicating she should assume a ready stance again.
“Right.”
Amaranthe wiped her palm on trousers too damp to act as a decent towel and lowered into an athletic stance. Her thighs burned, a reminder of the hour of “warmup” footwork drills they had done first.
Sicarius came forward at half the speed he was capable of. It was enough to keep her busy.
Advance, advance, lunge. His rapier tapped her sword wide and glided toward the inside of her shoulder.
She whipped her blade back in to parry the stab and pushed his across, thinking to open up his kidney, but the rapier was already dropping for a second attack, this time to her groin. She should have known the first was a feint. Acting on instinct, she jerked her short sword down. It wasn’t a pretty move, but the satisfying clash of steel announced an effective block.
There was her opening too. With his blade low, and briefly trapped below hers, his neck was unguarded.
Amaranthe grabbed the back of his arm with her left hand, pulling him forward and–she hoped–off balance while she moved to his side and slashed her blade toward his neck. Her sword was shorter than the rapier, but had razor-sharp edges on either side, giving it versatility in close quarters. She doubted he would let her get close to his neck, but she shifted the angle anyway, to hit him with the flat of the blade. Excitement thrummed through her. Maybe she would actually get a–
Cold steel at her own neck made her freeze.
It was not Sicarius’s rapier–she had put his body between her and that weapon–but a military-issue dagger that rested against her collarbone. Amaranthe sighed and lowered her short sword. She had been two inches from her target, but it might as well have been a mile. This “army officer” had just killed her.
Sicarius lowered the dagger and stepped back. “Your focus was good, but too narrow. You must be aware of all that is conspiring around you even as you keep your eyes on your target. Use your peripheral vision and your other senses. Did you hear the whisper of the dagger leaving its sheath?”
Amaranthe stared at him while she decided whether “whisper of the dagger” deserved a serious answer or a sarcastic one. She knew he expected a serious answer, but, really, who besides him had those kinds of senses?
“Do you know why I like training with you?” she asked.
He gazed back, his expression giving her no hint of his thoughts, though she imagined him mentally bracing himself for an inappropriate and completely not serious followup.
“You’re at your most garrulous when you’re lecturing me on my mistakes. If we didn’t spend time together in this manner, I’d never get more than one word out of you.” Amaranthe smiled, hoping he knew that, despite her teasing, she appreciated his efforts–his dead ancestors knew it was surprisingly generous of him to spend time every day training her and the others. “If I didn’t put myself in these situations where you can chastise me, I’d never get to know your chatty side.” She lifted her eyebrows, hoping she could coax a comment out of him.
“So,” Sicarius said, “you did not hear me draw the dagger.”
Amaranthe dropped her face into her hand. That wasn’t the comment she had hoped for. “No,” she said. “No, I didn’t.”
“We will practice again.” He returned to his starting position.
“Oh, let’s leave some fun for when the others get up and join us. You’re planning on leading a group weapons drill, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“I could use a few minutes break before we start up again with them.”
“You are weary?” Sicarius regarded her through half-lidded eyes.
“No!” Amaranthe threw up a hand. “Not at all.” If she admitted to being the faintest bit tired, he would say that meant she required more exercising, thus to build her endurance. She had learned not to make that mistake months ago. “I’m just…” She looked down at herself. “Sweaty. And dusty. And, uh…” She found a lock of damp hair that had escaped her bun and was sticking to her cheek. “And I need to fix my hair. I need to look professional for the men. Didn’t you say that once?” Yes, that was a pathetic excuse, but it might buy her five minutes. She laid her sword down, grabbed a towel, and tugged her hair free so she could tighten it.
“You are fine,” Sicarius said.
His eyes tracked her movements. Had she more courage, she might have offered up a suggestive wiggle of her hips, but she doubted he had anything prurient on his mind, and she would only end up feeling foolish.
“Anything else you want to chastise me about before we wake the others?” Amaranthe asked.
“Yes.”
Amaranthe stifled a groan. “Truly? Did I just open myself up for castigation?”
“Mancrest,” Sicarius said. “It is unwise to solicit him. A warrior-caste lord will not traffic will criminals.”
“You just think he’s a bad bet because he wrote unpleasant things about you. True things, as I understand it.”
Sicarius’s chin came up, and his tone cooled. “There was no truth in his proclamation that I kidnapped Sespian and intended to assassinate him. His articles on assassinations I did commit were full of hyperbole.”
“We’ve discussed this, though,” Amaranthe said. “Because he wrote those articles, he’s the perfect man to turn to our side.”
“He will not turn.”
“Maldynado is warrior caste, and he turned. He’s happy to be working with us.”
“Maldynado is a disowned fop,” Sicarius said. “He lacks the unyielding loyalty to the empire that members of the aristocracy have indoctrinated into them from birth. You should choose a plebeian journalist. Someone who has already expressed dissatisfaction with the status quo would be a logical choice.”
“But less of a victory if we get him.”
“Is this a race at the Imperial Games? We don’t need a victory, only for someone to cast doubt on the idea that we’re criminals, working against Sespian.”
“No,” Amaranthe said. “I think you’re wrong. Getting a staunchly loyal-to-the-empire warrior-caste scion to vouch for us, or at least suggest we might be reputable, would be many orders of magnitude better than a piece by a disgruntled plebe.”
“After the last time one of your ideas nearly got you killed, you said you were going to start listening to my advice.”
“I always listen to it,” she said.
“And dismiss it.”
“Usually because it involves torturing people. You probably think that’d be an acceptable way to get a journalist to write what we wish.”
“You can’t trust Mancrest,” Sicarius said with more dogged stubbornness than she remembered him using for any argument. For some reason he cared about this; he wasn’t content to let her hang herself. “He’ll try to trap you again if you arrange another meeting.”
Amaranthe grabbed her towel and her sword. She’d had enough of the discussion. If the previous night had ended without a hint of yielding from Mancrest, she could understand Sicarius’s argument now, but Mancrest had been curious about her. Emperor’s warts, he’d even laughed and flirted at the end, though if he was anything like Maldynado that did not mean much. But it was promising, surely. A sign that he might one day listen and–
Her thoughts skipped backward. Mancrest had flirted with her. Was it possible that was what was bugging Sicarius?
She draped her towel around her neck and searched his face, wishing it gave more clues. “Are you worried he’ll trap me, and I’ll be in danger? Or are you worried…he won’t?”
“What?”
Amaranthe almost accused him of being intentionally obtuse, but maybe she was being intentionally vague. No, not maybe. Probably. But she couldn’t bring herself to straight out ask if he was jealous. She had a hard time believing that was the case, and she would end up feeling stupid for asking.
“It’s time to wake the others for training,” Sicarius said.
“Yes, of course,” Amaranthe murmured, her head down as as they walked back to camp.
