shadowboxing, jabs and uppercuts and hooks, but this was
the first time they were going to practice on each other.
“Are you ready?” she asked, so that no one else could
hear. “You first.”
He nodded.
His first punch was slow, stiff, and she blocked it easily.
“Look at me, Up. That’s what you always used to tell me,
remember? Never take your eyes off your opponent.”
He tried again.
It was so different now from the first time they’d fought,
when he’d been the teacher and she the student. Or when
they were equals, circling each other, challenging each
other, putting on a show for the other Rangers on the
Cazadora. She was getting frustrated.
“Hit me!” she said, blowing the hair from her eyes,
pulsing back and forth on her feet. She aimed a blow at his
head, but she wasn’t really trying and he was able to push
her fist away. He aimed another, and she blocked him again.
“Up, you can do better than this!” she said. This time her
fist was faster, and hit its target. He fell back, blinking at
the sudden pain in his cheek, remembering what it felt like,
remembering when he would have barely felt it at all.
“Hit me back!” Taz growled, opening her hands wide so
that she was defenceless. “I can’t make it any easier for
you, Up, hit me back!”
His eyes met hers, and he shook his head.
Taz dropped her hands. “Up-”
He turned his back, on her, on the others watching, on
his weakness, and walked away.
The attachment between Beatriz and Don Martin soon
became known, and the men of the village were enraged.
Suitors knocked on the door of Don Luís’ mansion,
demanding an audience with his daughter. Don Martin was