Free Crimson Frost by Jennifer Estep Page A

the rest of his staff taught us kids how to use everything from swords to staffs to daggers to bows. All those weapons and more were lined up in neat rows, their sharp points glinting underneath the lights, just waiting for the students to come and grab them.
    Of course, I hadn’t had the lifelong weapons training the other kids had had, which was why I schlepped over to the gym every morning before regular classes started to put in some extra training time with Logan, Kenzie, and Oliver. Since Loki had escaped, Daphne and Carson had started coming too. We all wanted to be ready—for anything.
    Everyone except Oliver was already in the gym, and Logan, Kenzie, and Carson were over at the weapons racks figuring out what we were going to practice with today. I put my messenger bag on one of the mats and plopped down on the bleachers next to Daphne. Even though we’d come here to sweat, the Valkyrie looked as pretty as ever in her pink designer yoga pants and matching cropped top. Her blond hair was pulled back into a sleek ponytail, and just the right amount of makeup brought out her dark eyes and the beautiful color of her amber skin.
    “I see you brought your shadow with you,” Daphne sniped, watching Alexei wander over and put his own bag down on the mat next to mine.
    “Be nice,” I said. “It’s not his fault that he’s stuck with me. At least, I don’t think it is.”
    She snorted, but she didn’t say anything else. The guys decided on staffs and passed out the weapons. Logan hesitated, then gave a staff to Alexei, who hefted it in his hands with an easy, familiar grace.
    “What’s a Bogatyr warrior?” I asked Logan when he handed me my own staff. “That’s what Alexei said he was.”
    The two of us watched Alexei work with the staff. He’d gone through a short warm-up and was now twirling the weapon around and around, moving it from one hand to the other as he executed a series of complicated moves. He didn’t seem to have a Viking’s super-strength, but there was something about the way he moved, flowing from one attack position to the next, that told me he was as dangerous as anyone else at Mythos. The staff kept moving faster and faster in his hands, until it was nothing more than a blur swirling through the air around him. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought him some sort of dancer—he just moved that fluidly, that gracefully.
    “Bogatyrs are ancient Russian warriors,” Logan said. “They’re similar to Romans in that they are exceptionally fast, but the way they move . . . it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”
    “You mean the way he looks like he’s dancing instead of fighting?”
    Logan nodded. “I’ve heard Coach Ajax say that a battle is almost like a dance to them, and the longer a fight goes, the stronger they get because they train themselves to always keep moving, to always keep attacking. They have incredible endurance. Most of them also use two weapons at once, one in either hand, like two swords or two daggers. I’m not sure what other powers they have, but Bogatyrs are some of the fiercest warriors in the Pantheon, right up there with Spartans.”
    In addition to their inherent warrior strengths and skills, all the kids at Mythos also had other powers, bonus magic as it were, everything from enhanced senses to the ability to heal others to being able to call up storm clouds and control the weather. At Mythos, what kind of warrior you were, what kind of weapon you used, and what kind of magic you had were all just status symbols, along with the kids’ expensive cars, designer clothes, and pricey electronics.
    We watched Alexei work with the staff. Carson, who also used a staff, seemed especially awestruck by him. The band geek leaned on his own weapon, his face scrunched up in concentration as he tried to follow Alexei’s quick, complicated moves. Kenzie stood beside Carson, also watching Alexei.
    Beside me, Logan drew in a breath and let it out. I