✧The Earthe of the Elves✧

57

Mia's POV

--------------------

The arrow is gone from Elmer's leg when he appears on the branch a few feet away from me.

"Watch out!" I scream as Elmer, limping slightly, swings his sword towards the archers next to me. The tree erupts with noise as five or six archers go to attack Elmer, myself included. The towering Cin man blocks my swing and holds off the elves surrounding him. I throw a dagger at him, but he catches it and disappears again. I whirl around to find that he's already there, hand gripping my arm.

"Now this just isn't a fair fight, is it?" He growls, and before I know it grey smoke is filling my vision.

It only takes my eyes a millisecond to adjust to the darkness as we land on a tree just as big as the last one, on the other side of the battlefield from the archers. So, of course, we are alone.

I stumble as Elmer shoves me a few feet away on this huge, flat branch.

"You've trained well," Elmer says in elvish, his tone annoyingly casual and insincere.

"Well enough to kill you," I reply, twirling my sword around in my hand, the weight of it familiar and grounding. As we start our dance, slowly circling each other, I try to tame my wild heartbeat by feeling the weight of my weapons.

Opal knives at your hips. Daggers on your thighs and back. Elmer has one. More in your boots.

"Oh, I've been wanting to kill you since you came to our land," Elmer says lowly.

Without warning he strikes, his sword moving so fast I barely block the blows, the force of them rattling through my sword into my arm. I grip my blade in both hands and whip it up with a vengeful yell, moving my body and sword in a specific pattern I remember Knox showing me in training. Elmer blocks my blows like nothing, but when I fake a strike to his head, he falls for it. With his lower half vulnerable I sweep down, slicing right on top of the hole in his leg from the arrow. He staggers back with a groan, trying to hold in a yell through gritted teeth. His breathing is heavy as he leans to favor his good leg. I take in his weakness, searching for more. Satisfaction briefly chases away some of the fear in my chest.

"Doesn't feel good, does it?" I spit, swinging again. He blocks my blade and kicks, hitting me in the stomach. Unprepared for hand to hand combat, I stumble back, towards the edge of the branch. I step back to safety and silently pull out one of my opal knives. El taught me how to fight with two- let's hope I can remember.

The wood is stable beneath my feet as I lunge, using my sword as a distraction as I arc my knife to his neck, the blade gleaming under the silver light. I just barely catch his cheek before he's parrying. Unfortunately, I'm close enough to him that when he jabs, his blade slides along my arm. Not enough to hurt any more than a sting, but I recoil a few steps.

"I wonder how Knox is doing down there," Elmer says, his words laced with poison. Rage fills me at his words, but I don't dare look down, knowing he's trying to distract me with conversation. We surge towards each other again, and I thank every ancestor in the stars that my armor is strong as his sharp blade glides right across my chest plate. At that moment I remember my helmet is gone, somewhere in the snow below. Probably crushed by hundreds of feet and hooves.

"I'm going to kill you," I growl as I slash and stab,  trying to ignore the ache of my muscles as the hours of fighting start to catch up to me. "Then," I continue, clipping his shoulder with my opal blade, "I'm going to kill your father." Narys, the one who terrified me at their home, Dae taur. The true ruler of the Cin. If I kill him, I might be able to end this war.