When the dust settled and the remaining soldiers fled back toward the plains, Kazi stood over the captain's discarded map. She felt Jase approach, his breathing heavy but rhythmic.
In the silence of the mountains, they didn't need crowns or kingdoms. They had the shadows, the steel, and the word of a thief. Palabra De Ladrones Mary E Pearson epub
Arrows hissed through the dark, and the clash of steel rang out as Jase emerged from the gloom like a storm. Kazi dropped from the ledge, her blades finding the gaps in the soldiers' defenses. They fought not as two separate warriors, but as a single, lethal machine. When the dust settled and the remaining soldiers
In the distance, the faint clatter of iron on stone echoed. The Queen’s soldiers were close. Kazi felt the familiar itch in her fingertips—the urge to vanish into the shadows, to become the Rahtan she was born to be. But the weight of the word they had shared—the Palabra de Ladrones —held her fast. It was more than a promise between thieves; it was a tether. They had the shadows, the steel, and the word of a thief
Kazi didn't look at him. She couldn't afford the distraction of his eyes—the way they softened when they landed on her, even now, in the mouth of a trap. "They expect us to run for Tor's Watch. If we turn now, we lose the high ground." "We aren't running," Jase reminded her. "We're hunting."
Jase reached out, his hand grazing her shoulder. It was a brief, searing contact. "Don't get caught in the scree."