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For a moment falling felt like flying.
That first moment after they tumbled out of the tower window, tangled up in each other and their fight. Her skirt flapped around them in the wind, the tatters of her gown trying to drag them down while his cloak almost became wings. He was the hawk.
She did not know why she did not finish him as they fell. He should have done the same to her. Neither of them should have called truce.
She clung to him and he took the brunt of the impact when they landed. Truce.
“You killed the king.”
“He tried to kill me first.”
“Do you think that changes anything?” Hawkeye asked, and she stared down the arrow in his bow. She knew he could kill her if she was not fast enough to avoid the shot. He had promised her death if she did this, and she had considered killing him several times before she moved against his brother. She had allowed him to live because he could be of use, but he was not supposed to have found her standing over his brother just after she had killed him. “I deal with threats to the kingdom. You are one.”
“I am also the queen.”
His eyes darkened, and he shook his head. “You cannot use a title you acquired through treachery, deceit, and murder. No one will follow you if they know what you have done.”
She thought she had seen enough hesitation from him to disagree with that. She could still use her role as queen with others. If she blamed the death of the king on his brother, she could have the loyalty of all the kingdom.
He fired an arrow, and she dodged it when she heard the string pulled. The tip caught the side of her arm, ripping her sleeve before lodging itself in the wood of the bed. He looked angry—she knew he was reported not to miss—and now he would fight that way. He might be sloppy.
He might be able to kill her. Anger was dangerous to predict.
She felt bruised, knowing a battering, a broken thing. She knew that her trainers would never have approved of this. A tool this broken was not fixed. It was discarded. She would be killed.
She should be killed. She had failed. She might have killed the king, but she was not supposed to be caught while she did it.
“Damn,” the man next to her swore. She turned her head to look at him, saw her hair tangled in his fingers. Did he have the strength to end this? He should. “Should have... missed ledge... gone... all the way... down.”
She frowned. She had considered the edge as an escape route, but it looked to be too far down and would have required a rope she had not been able to find a way to work into her wedding dress despite all her efforts.
“The king... threw you... window...”
“Once.”
They danced.
She knew they should fight, and they were fighting, the blood on her arms and her legs said that, the wound in his side, the blood on his face. He had given up his bow after she first got close to him, both practical and a pity. That was his weapon, the one he used best, though he had skill for others.
Still, when he moved with her in this fight, it was a dance, something choreographed in a way that felt almost ancient. She knew his movements, she had watched him, and yet moving with him, she felt as though she had been practicing with him for years.
She did not understand. Kinship was rare, and she had only experienced such a feeling once before in her life, with the trainer Alexei had used for a time before he had him killed. At least that was what Natalia assumed had happened after she never saw him again.
She did not like this feeling. She did not allow the anger motivate her, did not allow it to make her lose her focus. He was the target now. She would not allow him to kill her. She had to kill him and escape.
They had fallen.
They should be dead.
Her body stubbornly drew in air, and she heard him beside her doing the same. She had been awake, but now she could not wake. Everything was heavy.
She would welcome sleep.
She did not know why she did not welcome death.
She did not know which of them had more bruises, more blood on them. Her dress had changed color during the fight, stained from him and from her. She had not fought this hard before, not with any of her trainers or any amount of enemies. He should not have been this much of a challenge. She should not feel matched.
She should not be so weak.
Her skirts tangled around her feet, and he caught her. His fingers closed on her throat, and she could not breathe. Her hands went to his hand, instinct telling her to pull his fingers off, but she put her weight into throwing him off instead.
He kept hold of her even as she knocked him back, and they fell out the window together.
She was alive. He had saved her when a moment before he had been trying to kill her.
“Why?”
She thought he was conscious, but he gave her no answer.
She closed her eyes, completing the fall.