Regulus didn't announce the attack. He was simply at a distance, and then he wasn't, crossing the space between them with a speed that didn't match the composed calm he'd maintained since appearing in the tunnel.
Ebony twisted her body to the side and the first strike grazed her right shoulder, close enough that the air from the movement shifted her hair. She responded with her left fist wrapped in green fire aimed at the prince's ribs, but Regulus was already gone.
He was behind her.
The cut reached her arm before she could turn, clean and precise, opening a line from elbow to wrist that started bleeding immediately. Ebony clenched her teeth and completed the turn anyway, throwing her right fist toward where she calculated his face would be.
She was off by half a meter.
