42

E lizabeth swung her sword against one soldier's blade, then another. She felt her muscles resist as each new strike reverberated up her arm.

If four against one had been difficult, eight against one was impossible. Even for her.

Time to draft a new contingency plan.

Jacob was readying the next round of attack animals, and Stephen was preparing to launch a formidable sequence of machines—but Elizabeth was done playing games. She was ready to fight the battle she'd been waiting for, and settle the matter once and for all.

Reddington thought Elizabeth Wynchester wasn't good enough to join an army? That a woman could never be his match? He was about to find out just how wrong he was.

"Reddington!" she shouted. "Are you truly such a coward?"

Through the blur of swords before her, she saw him puff up with bluster and outrage. "What did you call His Grace?"

"A coward! Whilst you watch in safety, you send your entire army to attack one girl," Elizabeth shouted loud enough for all the soldiers to hear. Loud enough to reach the spectators in the back. "And you call yourself a hero?"

The soldiers she was fighting hesitated at this new characterization. It was momentary, but all she needed was an opening.

One after another, their swords littered the ground. Fresh red scratches opened across their chests and shoulders.

Reddington turned toward his remaining army in search of more men.

"Must we drag this out until you're the last man standing?" she yelled. "Or can we settle the battle now, like gentlemen?"

He scoffed. "You're no gentleman."

And neither was Reddington. "Like generals, then."

He would soon find out Elizabeth wasn't one of those, either. She was a berserker. Second to no man.

The crowd cheered for him to take her on.

"Very well." Reddington strutted forward, a prima donna swanning in the footlights. When he finished swaggering up to her as dramatically as possible, Reddington gave a mocking bow.

"To first blood," Elizabeth reminded him, and wielded her sword.

To the last drop would have suited her better, but she would take what she could get. At least it was finally one-on-one, instead of one versus eight.

Reddington did not acknowledge her words, other than to raise his sword and swagger.

Elizabeth was exhausted and her opponent well rested… and the best swordsman of any other in his troops. This would not be easy. She would have preferred to face Reddington when she was still at eighty percent, not fifty.

" En garde !" Reddington yelled.

All he cared about was showmanship. These soldiers would follow their arrogant leader to the ends of the earth, and he wanted to keep it that way.

Plus there was the audience to consider. The townsfolk had purchased tickets expecting a good show. Reddington intended to give it to them.

So did Elizabeth. They wanted a head on a pike? With pleasure. But it would not be hers.

She gave Reddington her best cobra smile.

With brisk strokes, she met him thrust for thrust, parry for parry. To her chagrin, she realized his pompous en garde hadn't been all for show after all. In the split second she'd spent curling her lip at his histrionics instead of attacking, she had let him take the lead. Elizabeth was now on defense, rather than offense, reacting to his moves instead of launching counter-strikes of her own.

She felt the sting on the back of her hand before she saw the blood.

" Damn it," she spat in frustration.

He'd done it. Ice water sluiced through her veins. Her siblings would have to try their best without her.

And none of them could duel like Elizabeth could.

Reddington saw the line of wet blood drip from her hand and smirked. Rather than raise his fist in victory, he swung his sword toward her neck.

She dived out of the way just in time.

"Yield!" he commanded.

In relief, she realized his refusal to agree to cease at first blood had worked in her favor. The battle would end only when one of them surrendered. And it would not be Elizabeth.

She panted, gathering strength from her very marrows. "Not today, and not ever."

This wasn't a show. This was a real fight to the finish.

"What's that?" Reddington mocked her. "A weepy boo-hoo-hoo from a little girl who didn't realize she was up against a—"

She slashed down, then immediately back up, catching him off guard—and nicking the underside of his chin. Red blood dripped down onto the bright white of his cravat.

"You'll pay for that," he snarled.

Probably. She was already sinking below forty-five percent.

"You won't be alive to find out," she shot back, and rained down blows as fast and as hard as she was able.

Reddington was halfway across the lawn before he realized she had backed him up for twenty yards in front of hundreds of witnesses.

He let out a roar of rage and charged her.

She ducked and rolled at the last moment, kicking out a leg to trip him as he passed—a move that cost her five more percentage points. She was down to forty. Nonetheless, she followed it up with a swipe of her sword across Reddington's buttocks, slicing the bottom half of his coattails clean off.

Her enemy looked as though he wanted to beat her with his bare hands. Elizabeth wouldn't give him the chance.

She was on him before he could scramble back to his feet, swinging at him from above, forcing him to defend himself from a prone—then fetal—position.

"You lose ," she shouted.

With a final thrust and spiral, she spun his sword out of his grip and sliced her own blade down toward his neck.

Reddington cried out in fear, turning his head and closing his eyes to block out his final moment of life before she extinguished it forever.

The tip of Elizabeth's blade buried itself into the grass-covered soil instead, the sharp side of her sword coming to rest a quarter inch from Reddington's throat. The thin skin of his neck brushed against the blade with every shuddering breath.

Dizziness rushed through her. This rich white bully of a man with a perfectly working body and all the privileges bestowed upon him by the blue blood of his viscount father lay helpless at her feet. The toes of a once-scared little girl deemed so worthless that her own family had traded her for a used dog cart.

She held the power. And she would wield it to make a better life for all the children soon to find a home in Miss Oak's orphanage.

"It's over, Reddington," Elizabeth said softly. "Surrender, or I shall liberate your head from your body and toss your dripping skull into the crowd."

He glared at her with eyes as murderous as she had ever seen, but he could not deny the truth. The battle was over. She had won. He had been bested in front of his entire army and a hundred ticket-holding witnesses.

She felt all those eyes upon her. Not in pity or relieved superiority, as was so often the case when passers-by glimpsed a young woman gripping a cane as she struggled to navigate a world that had not been built for people like her. If passers-by even registered her presence at all.

They watched her in awe. These spectators weren't counting their lucky stars that they were not her. They wished they had lives half as interesting. That their enemies would cower at their feet, vanquished once and for all.

Bitterly, Reddington banged his palm against the grass in a clear gesture of surrender.

Elizabeth jerked her gaze toward the crowd to make sure everyone present had witnessed the moment of unequivocal defeat.

They had.

She grinned at them. Not just to prolong Reddington's humiliation, but to impress upon the witnesses that Wynchesters win . If any of the ticket holders were ever in trouble, they now knew whom they could call upon. She and her siblings eagerly took any opportunity possible to champion those who could not advocate for themselves and put unfair circumstances back to rights.

Elizabeth allowed her blade to touch Reddington's throat one last time. Then she leapt away, swinging her sword toward the sky and holding it high in the air. Despite the exhaustion in her bones, she let out her best berserker cry of triumph.

Reddington's soldiers stared at her in blank stupefaction.

The rest of the crowd went wild.