Free The Bronze Blade: An Elemental World Novella by Elizabeth Hunter Page A

his blood was running. Saraal was just glad he didn’t seem to want her again.
    She was distracted, but it still wasn’t an excuse. By the time Saraal sensed him, she was already in her tent, and Rashon had her by the neck.
    “Let’s see what makes you so special, little bird,” the monster whispered, then he cut her throat before she could scream.

    Aday woke with the earth in her mouth.
    Enough .
    She could sense the girl with her. The girl didn’t feel the wind as she did. Didn’t sense her power. The girl was broken. There was no repairing her this time. She huddled, terrified as the dirt became her grave.
    Enough .
    Aday felt the air around her, even underground. She felt the fine particles flowing through the soil, just as they flowed through the trees and the water. She knew there was no place the air did not live. No place she could not draw power. None. She had felt it long ago when she woke beside the girl. Felt it when she followed her through her years with Kuluun. With Temur. She had given the second a chance, but the girl had not found her power. Had not flown. She still didn’t understand.
    Enough .
    She could hear Rashon over her, stepping on the earth, leaving footprints over the spot where he’d buried the girl after he’d raped her viciously. After he broke her neck. After she was close to death. Rashon knew Temur would punish him. Taken by his own rage, he had forgotten it, but as the sun set and the moon rose, he remembered again.
    Aday closed her eyes and pictured what she knew of Rashon’s tent. She had been in it many times, choosing a weapon from his chest before practice. She focused on one she had seen him polish, a new blade with a vicious curve that he’d picked up from traders in the west. It was new. It would be near the top of the chest. Wrapped in good leather, if she had to guess.
    She would claim the blade. It would be hers when she killed its master.
    Aday held her breath, but sent a curl of energy out, touching the air that permeated the soil. The air moved and shifted, pushing the soil down and lifting her up through the thick mass, obeying her command until she lay at the surface, naked and dusted in dirt, her body perfectly healed as she knew it would be.
    She heard Rashon rifling through the chest, his back to her. She rose, her feet light upon the ground as she felt the wind cushion her. It swallowed the noise of her steps. It hid her movements from her enemy until she’d picked up a dagger he had laying beside his pallet.
    Without a word, she went to him. He sensed her a second before she struck. He turned, mouth open, eyes gaping in horror at the monster she had become. The monster they had made.
    Aday struck swiftly.
    She drove the dagger through his throat so he could not scream. Drove it all the way through his neck until it pierced his spine. Then she yanked it back and forth, making sure Rashon’s backbone was severed. His body gave a jerk, but that lasted only a few seconds as she hacked off his head. Aday shoved it to the side and wiped away the blood that had spattered on her face. She kicked his body away from the chest and searched for the curved blade.
    She smiled when she found it. The sword gleamed in the low lamplight. Its handle was wrapped in fine leather, and the bronze blade was burnished to a sheen. It was hers. Hers alone. Rashon had traded for it, shown it to others, but he’d never spilled blood with it.
    “ Saraal ,” she whispered, giving her sword the dead girl’s name.
    She slipped out of the tent in the early evening light. The moon had not risen, and the black sky conspired with her to block out the stars. No one saw her when she moved to the next tent.
    The warrior was feeding from a human when he saw her. His fangs were down and his body hard. The girl had stopped struggling, but the bruises on her body showed Aday how she’d been used.
    He sat up, but Aday had already moved. Flipping in the air, over his head, to land on his back. The