“Such easy money,” Gwenvael laughed.
Talan yanked his arm away from Gwenvael, ready to tell him where he had every intention of sticking that money when Gwenvael got it, when Annwyl finally raised one of her blades, blocking Talwyn’s sword.
Mother and daughter locked eyes and, in that moment, Annwyl used what was left of her shield to slam it into her daughter’s leg.
With a scream, Talwyn dropped to the ground and Annwyl got to her feet. She tossed the shield away and walked around her daughter, gazing down at her. Still no rage. No anger. But there was definitely something there, something Talan didn’t actually recognize.
As Annwyl blankly gazed at her daughter, she suddenly raised her leg, and brought it down hard.
Hard enough to crush Talwyn’s chest. But Talwyn blocked her mother with her arm and rolled away. She stood on one leg, the other unable to bear any weight. Talwyn still had her sword, though. And even on one leg, she was ready to fight.
She struck first, swinging her sword at Annwyl’s head, but Annwyl slipped out of the way with such speed that for a moment, Talwyn could do nothing but stare at the spot their mother had been standing in.
It wasn’t simply that Annwyl moved so quickly. She’d never been slow. But there was an . . . elegance to it that Talan had never seen in his mother. An elegance of movement.
He loved her, but even he had to admit she was a bit of a lumberer.
“Like elephants marching across the plains,” Morfyd had muttered more than once when Talan was growing up.
Annwyl ended up behind Talwyn, but Talwyn sensed her immediately and moved quickly to block the oncoming blow. Their blades clashed under the morning suns and held for a moment. The power of each female halting the other was palpable.
Until Annwyl kicked Talwyn, sending her only daughter flying halfway across the ring. She hit the fence near Talan, cracking the wood as her body made contact.
While his mother casually returned her sword to its sheath, Talan rushed to his sister’s side, crouching near her right. Rhi on her left.
“Good job,” he whispered to his twin. “Let her think she’s winning.”
That’s when Talwyn looked at him, dark eyes crazed behind all that black hair, bruises blossoming on her cheeks.
“You are letting her win . . . right? I mean, I know the blow to your leg was a lucky punch, but . . .”
With a roar of rage he hadn’t heard from his sibling in more than a decade, his sister pushed herself up until she was standing again on her one good leg.
Talan grabbed her sleeveless chain-mail shirt, but she batted him off and went after their mother.
“This is going to be awful,” Rhi said, almost in tears.
She was, as always, right.
Without weapons, Annwyl outmaneuvered every attempted attack by her daughter. She used her steel gauntlets and speed to block Talwyn’s blade, quickly disarming her after a few seconds. When Talwyn then struck at Annwyl with her fists, the queen blocked those blows too, and she didn’t even lose her breath.
Talwyn began to use Kyvich hand-to-hand techniques on their mother, but, again, the queen blocked them easily until she had both of Talwyn’s arms gripped in her hands. Then, by shifting her weight, she sent Talan’s twin flying into the far wall of the barracks adjoining the training ring.
Annwyl dusted off her hands and leggings, and said, “I expected you to be more advanced, Talwyn. We’ve got a war coming up. And you’re not ready.”
Talwyn lifted her hands and drew runes of fire in the air, chanting words that allowed her to craft a spell against her own mother.
“Talwyn, no!” Rhi cried out.
Talan leaped over the fence and ran until he stood in front of his mother. He raised his hands and created a shield, but the power of Talwyn’s unleashed spell rammed into it, pushing Talan back into Annwyl. Her hands braced against his spine, keeping him upright and trapped in one space.
That alone shocked him beyond words. His mother shouldn’t be strong enough to keep him in place. No one should be strong enough to do that, considering the rage behind Talwyn’s rune spell.
Talan and Talwyn, of equal power, pushed against each other, their spells fighting for dominance.
“Stop it! Both of you!” Talan heard Rhi screaming. She didn’t want to unleash her power. Not with her cousins’ powers in combat. The combination of the three together . . .
But just when Talan was afraid nothing would control his sister’s wrath, the wind around them whipped up, sending dirt and stones from the ground into his eyes. Talan turned his head but kept his shield up.