“I don’t care,” Holland said.

I studied the woods across the river. Where are you . . . ?

“It doesn’t matter.” Derek picked up the old woman’s head by the hair and hoisted it up. It was nearly four feet high from chin to the hairline. “Let’s talk about this later. We need to take the head to Beau before it starts to smell.”

“Why?” Ascanio said.

“She was part of the community,” I said without turning. “We need to show proof that we had no choice but to kill her.”

A woman stepped out of the woods on the other side of the river, a gauzy dark purple scarf wrapped around her head, hiding the bottom half of her face. She pulled it off slowly, so it hung from her shoulder. About my size and my age, with dark eyes and dark hair pulled into a high ponytail. She wore black pants, soft black boots, and a black coat trimmed with purple and split in the center to allow for quick movement. A black leather gorget shielded her neck, extending into a chest plate of supple black leather that covered her left breast. The chest plate wouldn’t stop a sword thrust. It wasn’t meant to. It existed to provide her just enough protection so that if she miscalculated by half an inch when she avoided a cut, the graze of the opponent’s blade wouldn’t draw blood. A katana hung from her belt.

Black and purple again. At least no human leather this time.

The woman looked directly at me and walked to the bridge.

Ah. I see.

Ascanio opened his mouth.

“Quiet,” Derek told him.

I strode through the grass toward the bridge, Sarrat in my hand.

We stepped onto the boards at the same time.

The woman stopped. So did I.

She bowed, keeping her eyes on my face.

“The scent from the old lady’s house,” Derek said behind me.

The scent he’d smelled in Roland’s castle and then again in Jene’s backyard. Figured.

“I’ve come for the head,” she said, her voice colored with an accent I couldn’t place.

Sienna’s words came back to me. The head is important.

I pondered for a moment. My father wanted the head. Why? It was completely inert. I felt no magic emanating from it.

“No,” Holland said.

I glanced over my shoulder. He drew himself straight. “That head is evidence in an ongoing investigation by Milton County. It belongs to the people of Milton County.”

I turned back to the woman. “You heard the deputy.”

“My orders are to secure the head,” she said.

There would be violence. The air was ripe with it.

“You’ll have to go through me,” I told her.

“So be it.”

“Walk away,” I told her. “My father isn’t worth your life.”

“If you kill me, I’ll be slain by Sharrim in battle. If I kill you, I’ll be slain by Sharrum in his grief. My entire life culminates here. My passage to the afterlife is assured. I’m at peace.”

“How about door number three? Turn around and go live a nice life somewhere else.”

“You do me a great honor, Sharrim. Defend yourself.”

She opened her mouth. A torrent of magic smashed into me. My ears recognized the fact that there must’ve been a sound, but I didn’t hear it, I felt it. It crashed into me, instantly freezing every muscle in my body. It was as if my very cells turned solid. The world slowed to a crawl. I couldn’t move.

She’d used a power word against me.

I saw her lunge at a glacial speed, her katana swinging in a glittering beautiful arc, slow, but impossible to stop. Classic attack, two hands, devastating power, born from strength, speed, and precise movement perfected over countless generations.

The sword was coming toward me and I was standing there like an idiot.

I reached deep inside myself and pulled on my magic. Straining was agony. Summoning the power was like grasping my own veins and pulling them out of my body.

The sword reached the highest point and began its inevitable descent.

I pulled. Move or die. There was no third choice.

The sword carved its path through the air.

I forced my lips to open a mere crack. The power word was a whisper, a faint breath that escaped my mouth almost on its own.

“Dair.” Release.

The magic’s hold shattered. I shied back. The point of the katana slashed across my face, right to left, drawing a hair-thin line of pain. She struck again, overhead, left to right, too fast to see. I batted her blade aside. Steel rang. She cut at me a third time and I caught her sword on Sarrat. Our blades locked. She threw her entire weight at me, pushing.

My arms shook from the strain. The blades vibrated. Strong.

She grunted, squeezing more pressure. Very strong.

Not strong enough.

I jerked my arms up, throwing her blade and her arms upward. She brought it down, aiming for another devastating cut, but I sliced across her torso, left to right. Sarrat bit deep, cutting across her stomach and coming free, blood flying from its blade.

She fell to her knees and sank down, curling on the ground. So much skill. So much training wasted. Years of practice and study for three seconds of battle and for what? Because my father told her to fetch the head at any cost. She hadn’t questioned it. She obeyed.

“Was it worth it?”

She was gulping air in shallow breaths.

I crouched by her.

“Was your life worth this? Can you see the afterlife? Is it everything my father told you it would be? Or is it darkness and nothing?”

She was staring at me, her eyes wide with fear.

I should kill her and send her head to my father on a fucking pike. Her presence in my land was an insult.

Drops of blood slid from my wounded face, falling into the gash on her stomach. They landed in the pool of her blood, drops of pure fire falling into cooling water, and then something within her blood answered. Her body clutched onto my blood, receptive and eager. Her magic recognized mine. My father had done something to her. The imprint of his power burned within her. He owned her and he had sealed his ownership with magic. I’d felt something similar before on people who were cursed. She was a slave.

No. She’s in my domain. You don’t get to keep this one. This one is now mine.

I dragged my hand over my wound and let my blood fall into her. Commanding her to be released wouldn’t do it. I had to supplant his ownership.

“Hesaad.” Mine.