Page 110 of City of Snakes
“She’s right,” El said.
A frustrated groan rumbled in the back of my throat.
Great, they’d teamed up against me.
Elsedora pointed the dagger at Sybilla. “You want to stop a real blade, my friend?” she playfully asked.
Sybilla’s stance widened—there were only a few yards between them. El never missed a mark.
“Don’t!” I shouted at Elsedora, but there was a mischievous glint in her eyes. Sybilla’s sword rose, and she charged forward as Elsedora took aim.
Please let her not be aiming at any vital organs.
Just before the dagger left El’s fingertips, her torso bent forward. She cursed and flung the dagger at the ground. It landed inches from the toe of Sybilla’s boot.
She’d really intended to throw it at her.
I seethed.
Elsedora held her stomach as though she’d just been punched.
“Sorry!” Sybilla called out. She ran to El’s side. “I just...reacted. Instead of stopping you, I...diverted you.”
Elsedora winced. “Whatwasthat?”
“Pain...” Sybilla answered. “I think.”
“It was fucking awful. Is that what you did to those prisoners?”
I approached them. Elsedora had disobeyed a direct order, and Sybilla had encouraged her. She could have been struck with that blade. It had come so fucking close. “You.” I pointed at Elsedora. “Out!”
“Krait,” Sybilla reasoned. “I stopped her!Whilemoving.” There was a wild, widening grin on her face that made me lose steam.
“She isn’t going to learn by being coddled,” Elsedora said before pointing another throwing knife at me. “You want her safe? Let me and Ryn handle her physical training because you have done a piss-poor job today. Your feelings have gotten the better of you.”
“That’s enough,” I growled out before throwing my wooden sword down between them and walking toward the amphitheater’s exit.
I could hear Elsedora whisper, “He’ll calm down. Don’t worry.”
The thought of Sybilla in harm’s way had become a mounting source of anxiety. Finding her had always been my destiny to resent. Now that she was here, sleeping beside me, letting me still train her despite knowing all of my ill intentions, I couldn’t find a single damned thing to resent about her.
The fight she’d promised? It hadn’t happened.
And I’d never been more angry aboutnothaving had an argument.
If she didn’t care enough to confront it, so be it. Wanting to keep her around had not been in the plans.
Yet Elsedora was right.
My emotions were too deeply involved.
Sybilla Wymark refused to leave my mind in more ways than one.
If it was a political arrangement she wanted, then she’d get one. So long as we were allied in defeating Caym, we couldn’t afford complications.
Chapter 35
Sybilla
