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Kai did not move his mouth away from Mia's by even a finger's width when he broke the assassin's wrist.
Bone popped under his grip with a damp, decisive sound. The man hissed and tried to roll pain into a trick; Kai met the trick with an unfashionable opinion about finishing what others start. He twisted, let the knife clatter harmlessly, and drove the assassin into his own shadow so hard the shadow forgot which way up was. The body folded. Kai set it down without ceremony and lifted his eyes.
The world rushed back in as if it had been waiting behind his shoulders: iron and dust and a wind that smelled like it had been filtering blood through grass. Yavri's wedge held the left. Shadeclaw's drones held the right. In the center, seven-star killers worked like carpenters at end-of-day — efficient, too quiet, not yet tired enough to be sloppy. The line of mountain folk and surrendered women bowed and straightened and refused to be another man's math.
