“Again!” Nox barked, and Lanadel gritted her teeth, preparing to repeat the knife stroke he’d just taught her for what felt like the hundredth time. She’d known training with the Order of the Wicked was going to be difficult, but she hadn’t realized it was going to be ridiculous. She was dripping with sweat, her dark hair clinging to her neck in damp tendrils. Back home, her brothers had always given her a hard time about her wild, untamable curls that refused to stay put in a ladylike bun. They’d teased her mercilessly, pulling the loose strands like she was—
Lanadel stopped that thought cold in its tracks. Her brothers were dead, and that was why she was here. Thinking about them now wasn’t going to bring them back. Their loss was so recent that every time her mind wandered she forgot they were gone. Forgot that she couldn’t just go home after fighting practice, punch Beech in the shoulder on her way to fight Rowan for a loaf of their mother’s fresh-baked bread . . .
Nox’s fist connected squarely with her cheek, snapping her head back and sending her reeling. “Monkey’s nuts!” she yelled, bringing her hand to her swelling cheek. “What the Ev did you do that for?”
“If we’d been on the battlefield instead of in the training caves, I’d have killed you,” Nox said coldly, his gray eyes hard. “You can’t let yourself get distracted in the middle of a fight.”
Lanadel bit down on another curse. Nox was a ruthless teacher, merciless and sometimes even cruel, but he knew what he was doing. She knew he was right. And if there was anyone in Oz more stubborn than Nox, it was her—and there was no way she was going to let him see her cry.
“Right,” she said, steeling herself. “Let’s do it again.” She was satisfied to see a flicker of surprise in Nox’s eyes. She might not have his skills, but he couldn’t beat her in willpower. She’d always been tenacious, but when her family died, her heart had turned as hard as the jewels that studded the walls of the Emerald City. She’d come to the Order to learn not just how to fight, but how to kill. And when she was ready, she was going to make Dorothy’s minions suffer for everything they’d done to her family. She’d make sure their deaths were as slow and as painful as her family’s had been. Right now, her will was the only thing keeping her from joining her brothers in whatever world Ozians went to when they died. For the first time in her life, she was alone. And since the loss of her family hadn’t killed her, she was going to make their killers pay.
Lanadel gripped the hilt of the short obsidian knife Nox had given her that morning and dropped into a fighting stance. If Nox was feeling particularly nasty, he’d use magic on her, but for now he was circling her with slow, measured steps, his crouch matching her own as he searched her defenses for a weakness. He lunged toward her with lightning speed but she parried his knife strike with the ringing sound of stone on stone and he danced back, resuming his circle. Concentrate, she told herself. Sometimes Nox favored his left side, just barely—but just enough. There it was, just the slightest give in his step. She saw her opening and feinted to the right. When Nox went to deflect her blow, she dropped into a somersault and kicked his left leg out from under him as she jumped out of the roll. He lost his balance—but not his nerve. As he lurched forward he grabbed her shoulder, throwing her to the ground and landing on top of her. “Checkmate,” he growled, his knife at her throat.
“Look down,” she said. He did, and rewarded her with the briefest flash of a smile. Her own blade was pressed up against his heart.
“Not bad,” he said grudgingly, rolling off her and to his feet in a single fluid motion. He extended one hand to her but she ignored it, pushing herself up on her own. Her head was ringing from Nox’s earlier punch and she could feel her eye swelling shut. She’d twisted her ankle when he’d thrown her to the ground, too, though the injury was nothing a quick soak in the healing pool couldn’t fix. But her training uniform was ripped in half a dozen places. She was bloody, bruised, and stinking—and Nox wasn’t even out of breath. His thick, dark hair was unmussed. He hadn’t even broken a sweat. It was infuriating. As if he could read her mind, he gave her a dismissive look.
“You’re getting better but you still have a long way to go,” he said in his now-familiar, cool, distant tone. “You’ll need to pick up the pace if you want to fight with the Order. We don’t have room for weaklings.”
Fury surged up in her, but she wasn’t going to show him he’d gotten to her. “I’ve only been training for a few weeks,” she said, keeping her voice even.
He shrugged. “Time isn’t a luxury we have here. We’re on the brink of war.”
“You don’t have to tell me that,” she said. She hadn’t told him about her family—only Gert knew that, and as far as she knew Gert had kept the information to herself.
“Apparently I do,” he said coldly. “You need to work much harder than you have been if you expect to be able to be of any use to us. We’re done for today; get that ankle to the pool. We meet again at sunrise tomorrow.”
“Yes sir,” she said sarcastically under her breath, but he was already striding away. Lanadel sighed and pulled her hair out of its totally ineffective ponytail. “You asked for this,” she muttered to herself as she followed him out of the training cave and toward the healing pool.