Third, use your attackers. Parrying blows on either side, I stepped between two guards and stabbed behind me, using my full weight. I drove the points home, pushing them into the others. My blades flickered out and spun, spraying droplets of blood onto their masks as I slashed and parried, feinting attacks from one to the next as I moved through them, never exchanging more than a blow before assaulting my next target. I used them against one another, and when I countered, I countered for the kill.
I should have been short of breath, I should have been ready to collapse, but instead I moved with surety and speed. They would not touch my friends. Fourth, destroy their pillars. Pick the strong ones off one by one. Armor chipped, glass splintered, and the ring of steel echoed in the hangar. First one fell, then another.
“Run,” I hissed at them again, beyond caring whether they listened or not. I remembered Eton and, as I might at a royal ball, I sidestepped and ducked between attacks to turn, trying to spot where he was.
Telu was struggling to drag him to the Kaitan, but that wasn’t what made my breath catch. Qole and Arjan were down on the ground, with Basra standing guard above them. They’d made it…but running toward them were two Bladeguards. The rest attempted to bar me from either returning to the Kaitan or heading for Qole.
“Stop!” I shouted, the words coming unbidden to my mouth. I reared back and snapped my body forward, sending both my Disruption Blades streaking toward their targets, embedding them with deadly accuracy into the backs of both runners.
Before they had even finished falling, I launched myself into a flying kick that dented and spun the helmet of the guard in front of me. Unarmed, I turned back to my attackers, one arm out far in front of me, the other in a fist close to my face in the classic defensive position of the Academy.
They didn’t hesitate. I sensed a deadlier purpose to them now. I still didn’t know if they would actually kill me, but they were certainly willing to put the medical facilities of the citadel to the test.
I weaved between two slashing attacks, jumped back from a stab, and then moved into the opening. I slammed a sword-arm away, then grasped it as I brought my elbow into the owner’s chest. He stumbled, and I kicked at the next Bladeguard, aiming for the sword hand before snapping my foot up to the helmet instead, all in the same motion. My second target dropped. I returned to the first so quickly that he never had a chance to recover, and barraged him with elbows and fists until the knife edge of my hand found his throat twice. With a horrible rattle, he fell. Now I had a clear window for my little trick…
Four Bladeguards remained, and they paused, forming a wall between me and their commander, who had appeared in the far doorway. They were obviously reconsidering their tactics against me, and I knew I didn’t have much longer before the effects of the EMP blast wore off and weaponry started coming back online. When that happened, the crew would be dead.
“Not while I draw breath,” I rasped, responding to my own thought.
“You’re unarmed,” one of them finally spoke. “Stand down.”
That seemed to break the wall of silence, because another one spoke. “You killed my friend, traitor. For that, you’ll pay in blood.”
I stretched both hands out to my sides.
With a hum, my Disruption Blades dislodged themselves and flew through the air, directly into my waiting grasp. I’d designed the mag-couplings in my sleeve cuffs when I was fifteen. Temporally coded to the magnetic fields in the Disruption Blades, they had enough power for a single use. This kept their circuitry simple enough that they were immune to all but the strongest of EMP blasts, unlike the complex gravity disruptors in the Bladeguards’ mag-gloves. Yet another example of how I’d been practically engineered to be an innovative leader. I’d also been taught all my life how to be a warrior-prince for my family. And now I was bringing it all to bear against those who had made me this way.
I smiled, although there was no mirth in me, only fury. “Then don’t send your friends to kill the innocent.”
Disruption Blades clashed, grated, sparked, and clashed again faster than I could think. I pictured Qole before a Shadow run. Eyes bright, radiating purpose and calm, moving on instinct, memory, and pure focus. I channeled her, sinking into my body. My blades wove a pattern in the air over and over, the lights blurring into a permanent streak. I made my stand there in the wreckage of the hangar, in the cavern underneath my ancestral home, and fought four of my own elite guard to a standstill.
I didn’t remember how they fell, or how fast, and I wouldn’t have been able to recount how I’d done it. My next memory was of me descending on their commander in his rust-blue armor and cape, leaping at him with unbridled rage and bringing both swords down in an overhead blow meant to remove his arms.
My blades hit his with jarring force. His weapon was larger, broader, than most. It wasn’t meant for fencing, or quick work. It was meant for crushing armor and disabling spaceships.
Our blades ground together to the hilt, sparks trailing, and I brought my face to the slitted visor of the helmet. “Stand down,” I growled. “This is your only warning.”
The visor flickered, then folded away into itself, revealing Thelarus Dracorte. My king. My father.
Time slowed as I attempted to understand what I was seeing. I knew those deep-set eyes; I had memorized every line on his face, knew every expression that it held.
Or so I thought. The mixture of pain and anger in his eyes was unprecedented.
I hadn’t seen him in armor since I was a child, so that was almost new. But he’d grown up with the same training I had, and he had many more years of experience. Far more battles.
“No, son, this is your warning.” Father advanced on me, pushing against my blades with his, and I stumbled back a step, disengaging. “As your father, I ask you to drop your weapons before this goes any further.”
I didn’t lower my guard. “No.” It was the first word that came to me, the expression of everything that had been boiling inside me since the last time Father and I had talked. “I drop my weapons, and then what? You kill the useless ones and torture the rest? Why are you even here? Where’s Devrak?” I had been deathly afraid that it would be him in the armor, but this was a thousand times worse.
Thelarus lowered his own sword and, with a click, it attached to his hip. I recognized it now, even though I hadn’t seen it in years, either. It was the blade he had used before he was king, when he’d fought against pirates in the outer reaches. It had been given a name—Beadvar, the Shipwrecker. “I’m here to clean up your mess personally, since even Devrak isn’t entirely aware of the extent of our research.” Devrak would never have condoned the torture of innocents, and Father knew it. Anger laced his clipped words. “A much better question might be what you think you are hoping to accomplish here.”