Anya

So much for a good night’s sleep.

Standing over me as my eyes open is a man the likes of which I’ve certainly never seen before, with a halo of straw-blonde hair atop his head that curls around his ears, a close cropped beard, and warm brown eyes that widen with nervousness, not hatred, as he looks down upon me in my bed.

He’s not a guard, at least not like any I’ve ever seen—handsome, but much too shaggy to work for the crown.

Even if he isn’t a soldier in the kingdom’s employ, he’s still a stranger in my home, and regardless of how easy he is on the eyes, I cannot allow an intrusion like this to go unpunished.

Magic crackles in the air as hot, roiling power surges through my veins, and he doesn’t have time to step back before I call out my spell, throwing him across the room with a phantasmal pulse of energy.

His back hits the alchemical table with a painful thump, knocking over several glass vials that shatter across my tiled floor like winter’s first snow.

I’ll have to clean that later, and Mother will be furious about the lost supplies, but I must not allow this man to leave this tower alive.

“I know how this looks, but if you just allow me a chance to explain my—” He gasps, his eyes wide with fear as fire licks my fingertips, ready to be called upon to destroy he who would intrude upon my home. “Oh, you’re not in a listening mood, I take it.”

The corners of my lips turn up into an odd grin at the way his voice jumps a nervous octave—to throw sass at me even as he begins to understand the danger he’s in suggests that this man is either very brave or very stupid.

Or perhaps both, considering he’d had the gall to scale the tower wall just to break in in the first place.

“Exactly how is it you got in?” My head tilts to the side as I savor the discomfort prickling across his features. “The ground is some ways away, and there’s only one way into this tower.”

“I’m a strong climber.” He shrugs, eyes darting around the room, before suddenly he fixes his attention firmly on me, and a blur is hurling in my direction. “Here, catch!”

A harsh gasp leaves my lungs as I find myself suddenly holding a glass alembic that was lucky enough to survive his initial collision with the alchemy table, but when I see him make a dash toward the window, I toss the thing aside anyway. There’s no time to be fussy as I hurl a ball of fire in his path.

He stops just short of the roaring flames, leaping back with his teeth clenched in shock. “Bit of a hot temper you’ve got there,” he quips, before dodging another blast.

“Can you blame me?” I ask, unable to keep my amusement from dancing on my tone. “How’s a lady meant to act when a strange man breaks into her home?”

If I expected my time alone in the tower to be boring, I was sorely mistaken. If mother knew that this was going to happen, she’d have never left. There’s a strange sense of satisfaction in the knowledge that I can talk all I like with the man without her here to scold me for toying with a dead man.

She never lets me talk to the soldiers we kill—it’s not like they’d be good company anyway.

Not like this stranger, with his pleasantly disheveled appearance and roguish demeanor. What does it matter if I talk to him or not? He’ll be just as dead at the end of this.

“I assure you, my intentions were pure.” He holds a book in front of him in defense, as though he means to use it as a shield. “Well, mostly—”

“So, you’re a thief.” My grin widens. “You’ve gone to an awful lot of trouble just to meet your end.”

“Ah, you see, I don’t have any intention of dying here.” He waves the book at me, but whatever he was going to say next dies on his lips when a fresh burst of flame roars in his direction.

Thinking impressively quickly, he hurls the book in my direction, the magical tome neutralizing the fire before it can reach him.

He looks just as shocked as I am, and suddenly the two of us are in a mad scramble—him to find new magical equipment with which to defend himself, and me, throwing spell after spell in a glittering dance of fire and skill.

“My name is Till, by the way,” he offers, strafing away from my next attack.

Till. It’s the first time I’ve ever learned a man’s name before I kill him.

“I’m Anya.”

Pottery shatters behind me as I narrowly dodge the ceramic crucible he’d aimed at my head. For just a moment, I freeze, indignation burning as hot as the flames crackling between my fingertips as a wave of anguished nostalgia hits me.

I remember when I made the crucible—I was only a child, and practicing artistry was as important for my young mind as practicing magic. Once I’d spun the little clay pot, I baked it with fire I’d conjured myself.

It was a test, to bake the crucible completely without the clay exploding. The fire needed to be kept at an even temperature, for an extended period of time.

Mother was so proud—so proud that she never stopped using the thing. Even just last week, she’d brewed a potion in it to soothe the cramping ache in my abdomen.

For years, it stood the test of time. Now the crowning magical achievement of my childhood lies in shards on my floor.

“I made that for my mother!” I shrill, eyes sharp as my lips curl over my teeth, like a beast ready to sink her fangs into warm-blooded prey.

I do not look like my mother—I have always been well aware of that fact, but at this moment I feel like her, my body coiled like a living weapon.

A magical battery charged for destruction.

“My apologies,” he offers through gritted teeth as he narrowly dodges another ball of fire. “You two must be very close—say, your uh, your mother isn’t around right now, is she?”

The stumble of fear in his voice as his eyes dart around the room satisfies me immensely—I’d almost wish Mother were here to see this, though, if she were, I wouldn’t have had half as much fun and excitement with the stranger.

“You wouldn’t still be running that mouth if she were—”

I grit my teeth with a grunt of pain when he manages to use my emotional distraction to lob Mother’s crystal ball straight into my stomach, leaving me cradling the thing like a babe. “Bastard.”

“I don’t want to hurt you, believe it or not.” It’s hard to believe, indeed, when his hand moves toward the knife on his hip. “But I’m not going to let you kill me, either.”

“I don’t plan on giving you much choice,” I growl, throwing the heavy orb back at him.

Deftly, with a grace I hadn’t expected from a muscular body like his, he dodges the ball, and suddenly I’m wrapped in his powerful arms. My struggling is useless, and his labored breath against my neck reminds me that this is very much reality.

We are fighting to the death, and right now, he has me.

A sick thrill blooms in my chest. Is this what it feels like to face a challenge? The soldiers from the castle never put up much of a fight—only what we allow—but this man has actually managed to put his hands on me.

Warm hands, a warm body pressed tightly against mine.

He smells of woodfire—like he broke camp not long ago, with the faintest whispers of honey and spice. I have never thought to put a man’s scent to memory before.

“This doesn’t have to end in bloodshed.” His voice is a ragged whisper, fanning hot breath over my ear—he’s as tired as I am, and it’s clear that neither of us have much fight left. “All I want is to leave this tower.”

It hits me at that moment that he’s not only attractive, but I am attracted to him, in much the way that the women swoon for the men in Mother’s romance novels. How curious that it would come to mind when I’m about to end the man’s life.

“And then what?” I hiss, gritting my teeth as my very bones hum with magic, building up a violent tempest with such charge as to throw the man off me.

He clutches his chest as he stumbles backward, cursing as he tries to shake the shock out of his arms.

I’m on him before he can recover, my hand splayed across his chest, fingers dancing with the telltale wisp of fire that forms before a powerful spell. “It’s been fun, but it’s time to end this.”

The eldritch words of power fall from my lips, but my smile falls as well when nothing at all happens, and I’m left staring dumbly into the man’s pretty brown eyes.

Of all the times to run out of magic. . .