by K. A. Linde
She straightened to her not-considerable height, but still, it was enough. “Who I am doesn’t matter. I work for Master Bastian, the head administrator of the dragon tournament. So, if I were you, I would listen to me, or would you prefer I report you for insubordination?”
The boy shot her a withering glare and opened his mouth to speak, but then Audria of Bryonica stuck her head out. “Roake, are you causing trouble again?”
“Audria, my dear,” he said with an easy smile.
Kerrigan could see how he could likely be charming if he wasn’t such an insufferable prick. To Audria’s credit, she didn’t seem to succumb to it.
“Leave Kerrigan alone.”
She remembers my name.
It was a silly thought. And still, she couldn’t stop it.
“Kerrigan, is it?” Roake asked.
“Just assemble in the hall,” Kerrigan ground out and pushed past him.
Audria gently touched her arm. “Don’t mind Roake. He’s one of the new lot from Elsiande who isn’t trying to get rid of his magic. And he’s one of the few truly talented magical users from there in decades. It’s gotten to his head. He was the best where he’s from, and now, he’s here, where everyone has magic. I don’t think he’s quite adjusted.”
“He’s fine,” she said with a shrug, anxious to escape. “I should go get the rest.”
“I’ll take the left side if you take the right.”
“You don’t have to help me.”
Audria’s smile broadened, her beautiful eyes widening. “But I want to.”
Kerrigan nodded, and then they walked down the hallway, knocking on doors and issuing instructions. It took Audria longer to move down the hall since she actually knew all the competitors, and she seemed to be friends with them all, addressing them by name and making small talk. Kerrigan was quick, efficient. Until she came to Fordham’s doorway.
She knocked once. “Fordham.”
And then Kerrigan’s pulse began to race. Everything around her turned to liquid. Oh gods. She could feel her power pulsing and then slivering out of her like a snake. She knew what it meant. She knew all too well the feeling of helplessness that accompanied one of her visions.
But scales, this couldn’t be happening. Not this close together. Five years ago, one year ago, a week ago, and then now. No, it didn’t make any sense. This was… this was impossible.
She was going to black out at any moment. And if she didn’t get into a room, away from the rest of the competitors, everyone would know. They’d know something was different about her. They would find out. Then, her life would be in danger.
So, she did the first thing she could think of as her power all drained like sand through a sieve—she twisted the doorknob to Fordham’s room, and she fell forward into the depths.
17
The First
One minute, Kerrigan was free-falling into nothing, and the next, strong arms caught her and kept her from face-planting.
“Halfling?” Fordham asked, his tight voice laced with surprise and possibly revulsion.
“Ugh,” she groaned.
She wanted nothing more than to push past the pain and the vision that was hovering on the periphery and not have to deal with Fordham right now. But she only had one choice—have everyone witness her pass out or just him. She chose him.
“Gods,” he growled. He hauled her up and dropped her onto his bed. “What are you doing in my quarters?’
She just shook her head. She wanted to say more, but what had been hanging at the back of her mind, stealing the life of her magic, was now crashing over her in full force.
Then, it was there.
She saw a circle of colors. They drifted around and around, blurring at the edges before settling to reveal the four elements—blue water, green earth, red fire, and yellow air. The elements pulsed and then disappeared. The tournament arena full to bursting. A fight was taking place with all the competitors. She immediately recognized Fordham and Audria among them. It almost looked like… the Dragon Ring fights, but that didn’t make sense. A girl came at Fordham with a bright, glowing arc of blue fire. The scene shifted again. The surroundings were murky. She could only see a competitor coming forward and the sharp glint of a knife.
Then, it all disappeared.
Kerrigan slumped backward. Her head pounded from the vision. She could barely focus, but she needed to tell him. More than the breath in her lungs, she knew that she had to tell him what she had seen. This wasn’t just any vision. This one actually made… a bit of sense.
Fordham was leaning over her on the bed. His hand against her throat, as if to check her erratic pulse. His head was dipped low, near to her chest, but at the sound of her voice, he jerked back up. The defiant, dark prince was still there underneath it all, but in that moment, she saw something that almost looked like concern etched on his face. And he looked younger, impossibly younger for someone who had likely committed years of atrocities upon her kind.
His eyes were so dark gray like storm clouds on an ever-approaching rainy evening. A lock of his dark hair had fallen forward across his forehead. Her fingers itched to reach up and brush it aside. An absurd notion. This was Prince Fordham Ollivier.
No matter what her visions had shown her, drawing them together in some tangled weave, she couldn’t feel anything about this. She could find him attractive. She wasn’t blind. But that was all.
“What happened?” he asked roughly, jerking back as if he had just realized how close together they were.
“You need to listen to me,” she said as evenly as she could. “I don’t have much time. I’m going to black out.”
“Are you ill?”
“No,” she told him roughly. “You are about to go to your first task.” He opened his mouth to say something, but she didn’t want to hear the sarcasm or bite. She didn’t have time for it. “It’s hand-to-hand combat with the elements. Your first task, you’ll only be able to use one.”
“How do you know this?” he snarled, his eyes darting around the room as if anticipating the trick.
“Choose air,” she told him with as much determination as possible.
“If any of this is true and I can only have one, then it should be fire.”
“Air,” she repeated.
Her pulse weakened. She could feel herself barely holding on. But she needed to tell him the last part. She needed to tell him about the knife.
“Princeling…”
He rolled his eyes. “You should rest. Something more irritating than normal has happened to your head.” He rose to his feet. “I have a tournament to get to, and if I’m late, I won’t be able to compete.”
“Wait,” she whispered. Then slightly louder. “Fordham, please.”
He stopped for a brief second at the sound of his full name. But then he strode out of the room.
Gods, no. She needed to…
She knew what she needed, but the exhaustion and magic depravation took her first. And the darkness claimed her.
Kerrigan awoke in the dark on a hard pallet. She cracked open her eyes and looked around the room in confusion. She blinked to adjust to the dim light coming in from the cracked doorway and slowly rose up to an elbow, fighting back dizziness. This wasn’t her room. It wasn’t the Wastes.
She tried to clear her mind. And then they snapped back open. Her vision.
“Scales!”
It all came back to her in a rush. The strangely accurate vision that had been so unlike the ones she’d had in the past. This almost seemed clear. Fordham was going to go into arena for the first task. He had to choose an element. It was like in the Dragon Ring, which meant he had to choose air. She always used air because people underestimated her, and that gave her an advantage.
She didn’t know why or even how the tournament was the same as what she’d been fighting in the Wastes, but it didn’t matter. Either she was being watched or someone else from the Society frequented the Wastes and had taken the idea from there.
<
br /> But at this moment, it didn’t matter. What mattered was the knife.
Kerrigan hoisted herself to her feet, ignoring the dizzy spell that threatened to topple her back onto Fordham’s bed. She flushed at that thought, and then quickly dismissed it. Everything ached as she ambled back down the competitor hallway, into the main hall, and continued toward the arena.
She had no way of knowing how long she had been out or if her absence was noted. Her first day on the job, and she was already slacking. She would have laughed if it didn’t hurt her ribs.
Finally, she came out to the back side of the arena. She heard cheers within. They’d already started. Scales!
“Kerrigan!” a man snapped.
She cringed. “Hello, Master Callian.”
Master Callian was a tall, imposing man with light-brown skin and a finely kept beard that he took much joy in. He worked in the greenhouse on the eastern side of the mountain. She had disrupted his work one too many times. Possibly maybe even confiscated some of his herbs for recreational use. He wasn’t a fan.
“I am certain this is not where you are supposed to be,” Callian said.
“No, sir,” she said amicably. “I’ve been assigned to Master Bastian’s care for the length of the tournament, and I have to get inside.”
He humphed. “Well, perhaps Bastian can teach you some manners.” He wrenched a side door open and gestured for her to enter. “You’re lucky. I am a secondary administrator to the tournament.”
She wouldn’t call that lucky, but she was glad she hadn’t had to find a way to sneak in. She didn’t know the competitors’ box like she did the House of Dragons’ area.
“Thank you, sir,” she said quickly and then hastened inside.
Half of the competitors were standing around, watching the arena. A few of them looked in her direction when she entered with Callian on her heels, but they made no comment. Most of them looked bruised or banged up but were healing. None of them were Fordham.
Kerrigan’s gaze swung to the arena and the sun blazing overhead. Gods, it was past high noon. She’d been out for hours. She’d missed almost everything. Her eyes sought out Fordham in the arena, but then she was gently pushed forward.
“Come along, Kerrigan,” Callian said.
She followed behind him, and he sat her down next to another young girl she’d never seen before. She was taller than Kerrigan with creamy, fair skin and ashy-blonde hair. She didn’t look up when Kerrigan plopped down next to her.
“You can help Valia keep score and run the finals up to the top box after each match. You know where the top box is?”
She nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Good. Now, work. Stay quiet and out of trouble.”
She pretended to button her mouth, and Callian glared harder before disappearing back the way he’d come.
“Hi, I’m Kerrigan,” she said, extending her hand to Valia. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you here before.”
Valia shook daintily and then withdrew her hand. “I’m a steward of the Society.”
“A steward?” she asked.
“Yes, we’re not servants, but we’re not members.”
Kerrigan’s eyes widened marginally. This was what Helly had talked about, what she had offered Kerrigan. Was this why this girl was sitting here? A way for them to try to convince her to become this despite the bargain?
She cleared her head. She couldn’t get caught up in this. The vision was more important.
Her eyes roamed for Fordham once more, and she found him in the arena, fighting hand-to-hand against another man wearing the bronze metal of Herasi. She really was going to have to learn all the competitors’ names. She watched as Fordham whipped around and then made a cutting motion with air.
She nearly whooped with joy. He’d chosen air. He’d listened to her, even when he didn’t agree. And he was good at it. Not as good as her, but he just had to be better than his opponent. She wanted to warn him about the knife, but it wasn’t like she could do that when he was already out in the arena. And what if the knife was for tomorrow’s match or the next?
“What did I miss?” she asked Valia, who was dutifully taking notes.
“The first round was five minutes, timed. It’s everyone for themselves, hand-to-hand combat, no magic, the first competitor out is out of the tournament.”
Kerrigan gasped slightly. “Just like that?”
Valia didn’t seem concerned by the fact. “They had thirteen, twelve with the original tribes plus the House of Shadows. This is how they decided who to cut out.”
It made sense. Cruel, vicious sense.
“Who left?”
“The competitor from Erewa,” she said evenly. Her brown eyes cut to Kerrigan. “It was a massacre.”
Kerrigan shivered. At the last tournament, Erewa had sent a plant to infiltrate the tournament and attempt to kill the competitors. Apparently, no one had forgotten or forgiven them for that.
“For this round, the remaining twelve were sorted into four teams of three. Each team has to choose one element and otherwise, as you can tell, hand-to-hand combat only.”
“How do they win?”
“The contest is timed at an hour. If all three competitors are down before the hour is out, it’s a win and three points for the team that wins, zero for who lost. One point for a tie if both teams still has a player in contention at the end of an hour.”
Kerrigan nodded along as Valia continued explaining all the finer minutia of the individual scoring system. She would have to learn it quickly if she was going to help her keep score the next two days. But even as she listened and memorized the scoring system, her heart was in her throat while she watched the actual competitors.
A swift block of air here, a roar of earth there, a timed punch, a sweep of the legs. She wanted to be out there. She hadn’t really let herself consider the possibility since she had left Gelryn’s room and testing behind a week ago. But she had actually passed testing to be in the tournament. She wasn’t old enough or part of a tribe or even full-blooded Fae but she could have been out there, fighting alongside the other competitors. A dream, a fantasy. Nothing more.
If she had pushed her luck to try to get into the tournament, which seemed highly implausible, they probably would have done to her what they’d done to the Erewa competitor. No one wanted to see a half-Fae in the tournament, disrupting the centuries of competition. Kerrigan was reckless, but she wasn’t stupid.
“And that’s one point for Noda. She’s actually quite good,” Valia said under her breath.
“Noda is…”
“Concha in the teal headscarf.”
Kerrigan’s eyes were drawn to the Concha girl, wearing the soft teal silk of her island homeland. She was doing pretty well against her opponents. She looked like she’d had an air Fae teacher. She moved with the flow of the air, avoiding her opponent’s fire and then blasting him in the face, knocking him out of the fight.
Fordham was still dealing with the guy from Herasi. They weren’t evenly matched. Kerrigan could see that Fordham was superior in fighting, but Herasi had brute strength of his flames against air. Had she been wrong to suggest he take air? She had thought that she was doing the right thing. But now, she was second-guessing herself. Maybe the vision hadn’t been telling her to interfere at all.
But then she saw what Fordham couldn’t as the guy from Herasi kept his focus forward—the girl from Aude in a crimson tunic was approaching from behind. She had an arc of blue flame before her like a sword of living flames.
Kerrigan’s vision flashed before her eyes. The arc of blue light. The impending destruction. She jumped to her feet before she could think better of it and scream, “Fordham, behind you!”
Despite the rush of the crowd and the thousands of people yelling all around him, it was as if in that one moment, he heard her. And just her. His dark gaze snapped to the competitors’ box for a split second, and then he rolled out of the way. The edges of his black-and-silver sleeve burne
d away as the other competitor brought the blue flames down toward him.
“Kerrigan,” Valia gasped. “We’re not supposed to be involved. Protocol dictates—”
“Screw protocol,” Kerrigan said, ignoring Valia’s concern.
Fordham ducked out of the edge of her flames and sent a blast of air toward Herasi before concentrating on Aude. Luckily, Noda had realized what was happening, and she raced forward to help. Both of the third competitors from either team were already out.
Together, he and Noda blasted the other two competitors back. Kerrigan could hear the thud from her seat as they landed heavily on their backs. Bastian waited a full minute before blowing the whistle and announcing Fordham’s team as victors.
Kerrigan blew out a breath.
No knife.
That was good. Really good.
He’d made it. He was a total jerk to her, but she was glad that he was still alive. She could tell him about the knife later in the next rounds. Figure out a way to prepare for it. Not that she had ever been able to prepare for anything that happened in her visions before. But things were changing… escalating. She could feel the urgency in them. And she didn’t know what that meant. She should talk to Helly about it.
But first, she needed to have words with Prince Fordham Ollivier.
18
The Box
Kerrigan stood up to confront Fordham, who was dragging himself off the arena floor with Noda smiling faintly at his side, when Valia slapped a piece of paper against her chest. She coughed in surprise.
“Take this to the top box,” Valia said. She pointed up to the sky as if the master of ceremonies were in the heavens.
Kerrigan opened her mouth to argue, her eyes tracking Fordham closely, but she had no chance. Just then, Master Bastian appeared before her. He was sweating in his long black robes in the Kinkadian humid heat. He took one look at her and frowned disapprovingly.
“Kerrigan, there you are. You disappeared.”
“I was… ill,” she said softly. “But I feel better now. I was just going to take the scores up to the box.”