The blade bounced harmlessly away from Gavin, clattering to the stone floor. Gavin twisted, punching up and catching the man underneath the chin, sending his head ricocheting back. As he slowed to the next movement in this pattern, he swept his leg around toward the other soldier.
He was gone.
Gavin spun and found the man standing behind him. That was quick.
Wrenlow chirped in his ear, though his voice was muted. Gavin ignored it as best as he could, and if there’d been time, he would have silenced him altogether.
He jumped and kicked off a wall, landing with the man across from him.
The small size of this room gave Gavin—and his dagger—somewhat of an advantage. He didn’t have to deal with the overall length and difficulty of a sword. Within this space, a dagger was much more useful.
He ducked low and drove his fist forward. The swordsman was quick and cut him off. Gavin rolled to the side, popping up to feign an attack before dipping back down. As he rolled again, the other soldier caught his ankle.
Shit.
Gavin kicked away, but his rhythm had been thrown off. The first attacker was waiting and swung, and his sword cut into Gavin’s back. He pushed the pain away, though his mind processed it. It was a fairly deep wound, and if the sword had struck him in the right way, it was possible that it had punctured his lungs.
He tried not to think about what had happened. Even if it were a punctured lung, Gavin had to keep fighting through it. Thankfully, he healed quickly. If he survived.
When he spun again, he twisted his foot. Pain surged in his back from the movement. Fighting through the pain was an exercise of mental strength. Gavin’s training had helped him learn how to ignore such pain, and even now he recognized how to push it to the back of his mind, but he had to be careful. One of the detriments to that kind of training was that he often didn’t know just how seriously he’d been hurt.
The swordsman watched him, as if he knew what Gavin was going through. Gavin focused on the core strength within him again and then burst forward. The sudden violent nature of that attack was enough to throw his attacker off guard. He darted forward, weaving through movements, and he stabbed the dagger into the man’s shoulder. His sword dropped to the ground. Gavin finished the movement by bringing his knee around and slamming it into the man’s face. The soldier crumpled.
Gavin panted for a moment and had to gather himself. When he was ready, he turned toward the door. There was no sound on the other side. He’d made plenty of noise, and anyone outside the room would have heard him, but it didn’t seem as if there was anyone there. He tested the door and then pushed it open.
The sleeping chamber was enormous and looked nearly as large as the dormitory where he had first trained with Tristan. That had housed two dozen boys and girls of his age. This was a single room, with a single bed that was massive enough to fit three to four people in it. A silky canopy curved down above it. This room was much nicer than anything he had ever seen.
Who slept in a place like this?
It was quite formal—fancy even. It didn’t fit into the rest of the fortress’s decor.
Gavin moved inside. There was an emptiness to the room that felt hollow, as if he had missed something. He had no idea why he felt that way, only that he believed it to be true.
He headed back toward the antechamber for a lantern, and the El’aras dagger started to glow.
“Balls.”
“What is it?” Gaspar whispered through the enchantment.
“Magic. And a lot of it.”
Chapter Nine
Gavin backed toward the door and quickly tried to survey everything around him. There had been a guard in the hallway, two in the antechamber, and now there was another one here in this room.
He just hadn’t seen them.
The dagger had detected them though. He supposed he should be thankful for the dagger and what it could pick up on, especially its ability to find magic. Gavin held the dagger out from him and used its light to see. He reached the back wall and looked around, but he didn’t sense anything moving.
“Have you found anything yet?” Gaspar asked.
“Nothing of much use,” he whispered.
He swept the dagger around in an arc, and then he started using a different technique. It was one that he’d found effective when he’d faced others with power, but it was one he hadn’t had the opportunity to use in quite some time.
He searched for any feelings of resistance as he moved the dagger around him. Gavin swept the dagger from side to side, but there was nothing. The dagger continued glowing brightly, though the El’aras dagger seemed to glow more brightly around people who had more power.
Gavin remained where he stood. The boy was in the room. He was certain of it.
Why all this protection for a child they’d abducted?
His gaze settled on the bed, and he saw something he hadn’t noticed before. The child was sleeping there.
“What’s happening in there? Have you found the kid?” Gaspar whispered in his ear.
“I might have,” Gavin said.
“Might?”
He took a deep breath and slipped forward, and something struck him. Gavin was knocked back. There was a magic user here.
Power struck him in a flurry of movements, but he ignored it. It reminded him of some of the beatings he’d taken when he was still learning. Magical energy attacked him, almost as if it were trying to pummel him. He couldn’t tell the source, though there seemed to be some direction to it.
Gavin stepped forward again. He braced himself with every step and dove into his core reserves with each one, despite the danger in doing so. There were limits to
