Chapter 18: I Put This Down

I crossed the circle in three strides.

It should have taken me ten. My legs were longer than I knew, and the snow flew up behind me.

I was too far away.

Beatrix hit the torch line a full body-length ahead of me, with her jaws open and her eyes on my husband.

Corwin did not shift. He did not step back.

He stood where he had promised to stand, and when she came off the ground he caught her.

He took her by the scruff and the haunch, one hand in each, and her weight drove him back a yard through the snow.

I heard the breath leave him. His boots dug twin trenches in the white.

Then he turned his hip and brought her down on her side, hard.

He knelt in the snow with her pinned under his weight.

"Easy," he said. "Easy. Nobody has to bleed."

She snapped at his wrist and he leaned away from it, calmly, and it missed.

He let his power out slowly, warm and heavy.

It rolled over her, and her legs stopped kicking.

She lay panting in the snow with her ribs heaving, and he did not hurt her at all.

"I'm not in your trial," Corwin said to the sky. "I'm not helping my wife. I'm only not letting you kill me."

He looked at me across the clearing.

His eyes were gold at the rims, and he was grinning, with a little blood on his lip.

"Take your time," he said.

I walked the last few yards slowly.

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