They both stumbled. Shkei tried to stabilize Kadee, but he was off balance himself, so all five of them ended up tumbling in a mass of elbows and knees. The children laughed and shrieked in their tangled, chaotic pile. It was funny, or would have been, if the indulgent smile had stayed on the face of the guard by the door.
Paulin’s smile dropped away as he saw Kadee, and then she could tell the exact moment that he recognized Shkei.
The children, not oblivious to the change in mood, saw Paulin draw his sword and step forward, and they flew in the opposite direction. One drove an elbow into Kadee’s ribs in his haste to stand and run.
Then it was just the three of them: Kadee, Shkei, and the guard who had already given her bruises. They could try to run, but Kadee knew there were more guards in the market, who would be prepared as soon as Paulin shouted.
Kadee had barely found her feet when Paulin said, “Kadee, come to me, now.”
There was urgency in his voice. He probably hadn’t been watching until the children’s voices drew his attention. He thought she just happened to be there, next to Shkei. Maybe he thought the white viper was intentionally shadowing her.
Shkei must have come to the same conclusion and decided to reinforce the notion. He shoved Kadee toward Paulin, as if she were in fact a stranger or even an enemy. Kadee made no attempt to keep her balance, but exaggerated her own clumsiness. Paulin was forced to hastily move his blade out of the way, and in that moment, Shkei raced past him.
With any other guard, the ruse probably would have worked.
When Paulin realized he was in danger of losing his prey, he cuffed Kadee out of the way with the hilt of his sword. She couldn’t help the small sound that came from her lips as the metal struck her temple, and despite the black spots that swirled across her vision, she saw Shkei hesitate.
Keep running! she thought. This is how he always treats me.
Kadee had hinted a few times at the way Paulin treated her in her long conversations with Shkei, but she hated wasting time and breath on the guard, so she hadn’t gone into enough detail for Shkei to fully understand. Now, Shkei obviously thought his trick had failed, and he wasn’t about to abandon her. He braced himself and drew two daggers. His slender, pale form looked tragic standing off against a guard twice his size.
Over her shoulder, Kadee could hear others approaching, perhaps alerted by the children.
She couldn’t make it past him, she knew that, and in the space of another breath she feared she would see Shkei struck down. Fury rose in her gullet as she remembered every casual cuff and stinging word.
She never chose to be here. And she wouldn’t stay here without Shkei.
In a single, desperate move, she grabbed a knife from Paulin’s belt. He didn’t try to stop her; either he was so distracted by Shkei he didn’t notice, or he thought she was taking the weapon to defend herself. Either way, she didn’t stop to think, much less aim, as she turned the blade around and drove it into Paulin’s back, under the edge of the leather vest. It was wickedly sharp, and it slid in deeply with very little force.
Shkei’s eyes widened as Paulin let out a gasp, and the sword fell.
The white viper reached out his hand to Kadee and whispered the same words she had first spoken to him:
“This way!”
Then they were running as fast as they could.
Kadee never looked back.
Amelia Atwater-Rhodes wrote her first novel, In the Forests of the Night, when she was thirteen. Other books in the Den of Shadows series are Demon in My View, Shattered Mirror, Midnight Predator, Persistence of Memory, Token of Darkness, and All Just Glass. She has also published the five-volume series The Kiesha’ra: Hawksong, a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year and a Voice of Youth Advocates Best Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Selection; Snakecharm; Falcondance; Wolfcry, an IRA-CBC Young Adults’ Choice; and Wyvernhail. Her most recent novels are Poison Tree, Promises to Keep, and Bloodwitch (The Maeve’ra: Volume One).
Visit her online at AmeliaAtwaterRhodes.com
Amelia Atwater-Rhodes, The Rebel
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