I frowned at him. “Miserable, huh? You know what, I’ll accept your terms if you accept mine. When I beat you, I want this whole Arena thing to dissolve.”
“Dissolve?”
“Cease to be. End. Everybody goes home, and the Arena gets torn down.”
“I’m afraid you can’t ask that of the Arena. Requests must be personal.”
I scanned the crowd watching us from high above. Most of them were wearing human forms, but among them I could see some with wings curled behind their backs—some white, some black, some leathery. There were Aevians here, and if I could rescue them all, I would. “I’d say this is pretty personal.”
“Ask something else. The Arena cannot be dissolved after one fight.”
I took a deep breath. Shutting the Arena down wasn’t going to happen from beating Darkshard—that would have to come later. Pick your battles, Seline. “Fine, then Mercutio and Romeo go free. You release them both.”
A long pause. “Done,” he said, and at his word, a soft breeze pushed between us, and then it was gone. “The terms are agreed. Should you choose to surrender, I will give you what you want. Magic itself will strike me down if your end of the bargain is not upheld.”
I grinned at him and readied my dagger. “You know what? I considered it. I really did. But I’d rather beat your face into this solid stone floor. I wonder if you’ll still be as suave with a few missing teeth.”
“Then we will fight…” Darkshard slid his hands into his pockets. “I will allow you to make the first move.”
I took an offensive stance, stared at Darkshard, and widened my grin. “With pleasure… Voyda.” The stone pulsed with magic. As soon as I’d spoken, my mantle of invisibility fell around my body, wrapping me up and stealing me away from the senses of the people gathered around. Darkshard’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t move—he didn’t even take his hands out of his pockets.
I stepped to the left, then to the right, then to the left again, circling around him like a shark. His eyes weren’t following me, but they were moving around, searching, scanning, alert. I decided I’d come at him from the side, and I’d come at him hard and fast; throwing as strong an offense as I could, one he wouldn’t be able to recover from.
I sped toward him, my footing light and swift, my blade ready to strike like a serpent’s mouth. With his attention turned the other way, I lashed out at him with my dagger, aiming for the spot just under his ribs—a lethal strike. He turned at the last second, stared at me with wide—white—eyes, and flung me aside with a wave of his hand.
The whole world tilted on its side. My stomach turned inside out. It was like I was weightless. I raced toward the wall and slammed against it, then fell to the ground on my front. A round of cheering erupted around me as the viewers got into the spirit of things. My back ached and throbbed, bright flowers of pain already opening, but I got to my feet and cracked my neck.
“Alright,” I said, “So, you’ve got a few tricks.”
“More than a few, I think you’ll find,” he said, sliding his hands into his pockets again. “Shall we try a second time?”
“You bet your fucking ass.”
Darkshard wasn’t as quick as I was, he was quicker. His mind was sharper, his senses more advanced. It was like he could anticipate what I was going to do before I did it. I’d go in for a swipe with my dagger, and he’d already be half-way to dodging the attack, always with his hands in his pockets.
It was infuriating, launching strike after strike only to watch him casually lunge out of harm’s way. He was easily dodging my attacks while looking cool and collected the whole time. Arrogant fuck. When I realized I wasn’t going to land a blade attack on him anytime soon, I decided to switch up my tactics.
Darkshard stared at me from across the pit, his white eyes keenly focused on mine. I could tell heh was using magic to analyze me. I could feel it probing my body, my mind, like an octopus tentacles reaching out and wrapping themselves around my private thoughts.
There, he had an advantage over me. I couldn’t read his mind, and I had no way of anticipating his next move other than by reading his body language. Unfortunately for me, his body language was mute. He was stone, impenetrable, unknowable. A chisel wasn’t gonna cut it—I needed to be a hammer.
“This is boring,” he said, “I’d much rather be bending you over a bed right now—you’d probably enjoy that, too.”
“You talk a lot of shit, don’t you?” I asked. “If you want a real challenge, you’ll quit being a little bitch and actually fight me instead of dodging my attacks with your hands in your pockets. Who the hell does that?”
“Someone who wants his opponent to tire themselves out.”
“That’s pretty cliché. Too bad for you, I don’t tire easily.”
“That’s fine. I have all night.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Yeah, that’s true…”
Even with the barrel fires, the inside of the drydock was relatively dark, especially the pit itself. It wasn’t exactly that it was difficult to see in here, but the shadows were long and dark, and there were many spots where the light couldn’t reach. I decided to fix that.
Twisting my wrists so my palms were facing out, I concentrated hard on the power of the stone and drew it into myself. With a thought and a flex, my golden wings erupted from behind my back, flooding the Arena with light. Just like before, several of the people gathered around the pit began to hiss and pull away from the light, while others just complained.
Darkshard turned his face to the side and shielded his eyes with his hand, giving me an opening I could exploit.
“Veshrim!” The beam of pure magic shot out of my hand and struck the mage in the gut. Darkshard staggered from the hit, and couldn’t right himself until he hit the wall with his back. Groaning, he touched his hand to his side and inspected the damage. There was blood, and a little smoke rising from the charred suit.
“Cheap trick,” he said, scowling.
“I’ll be honest, I’m totally surprised you fell for it.”
His scowl transformed into an angry glare. He’d tried to get into my head, but in the end it was I who’d gotten into his. “Tell me, how is your cat mage friend?”
“Cat mage?”
“Bastet, is it? She changed her name a long time ago, but she can’t hide from the things she’s done.”
I frowned at him. “You’re not gonna make me fall for that bullshit.”
“What if I were to tell you she knows more about what’s happening than she’s told you?”
“I’d tell you you’re full of shit.”
“Maybe, maybe not.” With his free hand he made a sweeping gesture through the air, and I felt my body lift off the ground like an invisible hand had grabbed me—not by my back, or my head, but by my stomach.
That pulling sensation was uncomfortable as all hell, and almost worse than the pain of being flung up into the air fast enough I hit the stone ceiling. I’d managed to cross my arms in front of myself and called up a Duras shield to soften the impact, but I still groaned loudly enough that everyone would’ve heard.
Darkshard’s magic released me all of a sudden, and I felt myself plummet. Though I was dazed and hurt. As he fixed his hair, confident that I’d splat all over the ground as soon as I hit it, I whipped my dagger around in front of me and threw it at Darkshard.
The blade struck him hard in the back, and this time he fell to the ground on his hands and knees. I rushed up to him as soon as my feet touched the ground, but before I could launch my foot into the back of his knee, he’d broken apart into multiple copies of himself. A whole army of Darkshards rolled out of him and took up defensive positions around him.
They were all identical, they all even had my knife stuck in their backs. The legion of mages stared at me, and while I knew the one in the middle was the real Darkshard, that knowledge didn’t last long. He was quick to get up and off his feet, and then he joined the circle of clones. I lost him in an instant, not because
I couldn’t physically keep track of him, but because there was some kind of magic at work that would make my eyes not want to stay on him.
I couldn’t tell which was the real him, and they were all starting to circle around me. Voices floated down from above, all of them cheering the fight on. They were enjoying this, enjoying it more perhaps because Darkshard looked like he was about to get the finishing blow on me. His clones were creating a perfect circle around me—more than that, they were pulling the knife I’d embedded into their backs, and now they were turning those blades on me.
Kneeling, I grabbed a chunk of broken stone and tossed it at one of the clones. I was hoping it would move right through it like it wasn’t even there, but the rock hit the clone hard in the gut, and he fell to the ground. They were real, which meant those blades were real. Fuck. I was going to have to fight my way through them, and if I was going to have to do that, I was going to do it on my terms.
I rushed at one of the clones. He swiped with the dagger, but he was slow—too slow. I ducked under the arc of his swing, pressed the palm of my hand against his ribs, and screamed the word of power. Veshrim. The bolt of magic shot through him and struck another clone. Both fell to the ground, then disappeared.
That was only two of them, though. Before I could recover, another two were coming at me, their knives drawn. One of them almost clipped me in the arm. I twirled out of the knife’s path, spun around him, and smashed the back of his head with my elbow. The one in front of me, I kicked in the gut and sent him to the ground.
Two more came, and then two more, and then two more. They were everywhere, and it seemed like every time I dropped one, another two would pop up. Like a hydra. I can’t win like this. Something metallic clattered to the ground near where I was standing. I turned to look, and saw it was a short sword covered in weird marks and etchings, but I had no idea where it had come from.
In the short span of time I had before another clone was on me, I scanned the crowd to see the face of the culprit—the person who had thrown the sword into the pit—but nobody stood out. Fuck it. I raced for the sword, dropped into a roll, and grabbed it just in time to swing it at the clone racing toward me. The blade pierced his chest, and he exploded into a million little shards of light.
This time, two more didn’t show up.
Magic? I had no time to try and work that out. I lunged at another clone, running him through with the tip of my sword and watching him burst apart like a glitter bomb. These guys were no match for me, not now that I had a weapon in my hand. I made short work of all of them to the tune of the cheering crowd above me until there was only one left, the real Darkshard.
He had pulled the knife out of his back too, and it was dripping with blood. His blood. I aimed the tip of my sword at him.
“You’re done,” I said, “Any last words?”
He shook his head, raised his hand toward me, and made glowing glyphs appear around his fingertips. I didn’t like the look of them. They were pulsing with red and purple hues, the kind of light that immediately made me think of danger, of possible death.
I didn’t have a choice. I doubted if my Duras shield would protect me against the kind of arcane magic these mages had at their fingertips. So, I bull-rushed him, hoping I could reach him before he could get his spell ready. I had seconds to reach his chest with the tip of my sword, less than seconds, and I wasn’t gonna make it.
So I cut off his hand.
The cut was clean and perfect, the edge of the sword slicing neatly through skin, muscle, and bone. There was a moment that hung, right after I’d cut his hand off but before it fell to the floor, where everything seemed to slow to a crawl. The roar of the crowd died to a whisper, the ambient light dimmed and brightened; all I could hear or feel was myself, my own heart, my own breathing.
Then Darkshard’s hand hit the ground with a thud, and the blood started spurting out of the stump. Some of it sprayed me across the cheek and lips. It was hot and smelled metallic. I wiped it off my mouth with the back of my hand while Darkshard cradled the wound.
He fell to his knees, screaming, staring at what had once been his hand. The veins on his neck and temples popped, his throat reddened from the yelling, then his eyes rolled into the back of his skull and consciousness itself slipped from him. Darkshard fell on his side, his arm dropping limply next to his severed hand.
Blood continued to pour from the wound, and I found myself having to fight that urge to help, to save his life. But I didn’t. I couldn’t move even if I wanted to. It wasn’t until the crowd erupted with a roar that I finally regained my ability to think. The sound was like a slap in the face that somehow made the smell of blood become even more potent.
I turned away from it and glanced up at the riled-up watchers. Some were salivating, at the sight and smell of the blood, long fangs poking out of half-opened mouths. Others were bouncing around like excited apes, pumping with their fists and calling my name. They loved this. The carnage, the brutality of the Arena.
This was what they lived for.
I knelt over him and pulled my knife out from his back. It was dripping with hot blood.
“I’ve beaten Darkshard!” I yelled, my voice shooting off the walls. “Now I want what I asked for.”
The collective howls and yowls quieted down, a shuffle of feet and people replacing it. Romeo, battered and bloody though he was, was picked up and brought over to Mercutio. I walked up along the ramp to ground level to meet them both, amazed at how the barbarians of this place were honoring the result of the fight.
I thought for sure they’d kill me if I managed to kill Darkshard.
“You okay, Romeo?” I asked.
“Never better,” he croaked, throwing me a thumb’s up.
I started moving with Romeo and Mercutio behind me, and the crowd parted like the biblical red sea… all except for that ginger lumberjack looking guy. He stood defiant ahead of me, an immovable rock, his muscles rippling and tense as he stared at me. He pointed. “You’re not going anywhere,” he said.
“I won, so I get to leave,” I said.
He waved his finger at me. “That’s not what you said. You said they’ll go with you, and that we’ll release them both. You never said anything about being able to leave yourself.”
“So, you’re gonna keep me prisoner?”
“We don’t keep prisoners, but you’re not leaving until I get a piece of you. I’m gonna challenge you.”
My stomach sank. Why hadn’t I seen that coming until the last possible second? I wanted to say no, but already I could feel something working inside of me, some ancient, powerful thing that was way stronger than my ability to resist it. I licked my lips, hesitating, fighting the fact that I had to accept this thing with everything I had.
“I—”—an explosion rocked the Arena, sending huge, jagged pieces of rock flying in all directions. I hit the dirt and covered my head, hoping to hell one of those things didn’t hit me. Another explosion ripped through the drydock. It was so powerful, it made my ears pop and shook my chest. I thought the drydock was being bombed!
Someone picked me up by my arm and lifted me off the ground. It was Mercutio. He had Romeo thrown over his large shoulders like a rag doll, and it looked like he was getting ready to carry me out of the Arena, too.
“I’m fine,” I said, shrugging out of his hold. I hadn’t meant to sound ungrateful, but the sky was literally falling.
Looking up, I saw two great big holes had opened up along one of the longest walls, some of the stone and glass was still crumbling and falling to the floor. The night spilled in through the damaged sections of the walls, but that wasn’t all. Draven was there, his massive black wings beating against the stark blackness behind him.
We could see him only because he wanted us to, and with good reason; he’d brought backup. He gestured with his hands, and at his command, large half-broken sections of the wall collapsed into themselves and crumbled. As the wall fell in on itself, Aaryn came blazing in behi
nd him like a meteorite—her hands wreathed in fire.
Aaryn swooped into the Arena and breathed fire from her hands, scorching the ground like she was armed with flamethrowers. Fires sprouted all around me, the smoke instantly becoming thick and difficult to breathe. It was time to go.
“This way!” I yelled to Mercutio, who followed me through a gap in a tall stack of metal crates. I helped Mercutio make it through to the other side first, then made a mad run for the metal door we’d come in through only to find it blocked out by the stampede of supernaturals trying to flee the burning Arena.
“Fuck!” Mercutio cursed, “There has to be another way out.”
“There’s no way out,” ginger guy called out, “And I want my challenge!”
I spun around and found him standing there, his body glistening with sweat, his muscles easily twice as bulky and hairy as they’d been a moment ago. Ruddy brown fur was starting to grow all over his body, covering his forearms, his pecs, his sides, and of course, his face. He still looked mostly human, but a human that hadn’t shaved in ten years and was easily twice my size.
I didn’t know if I had another fight in me, but I gripped my dagger and grit my teeth. “You want your challenge?” I called out, “Come and get it.”
Grinning like a hungry wolf about to rip up a piece of meat with his teeth, he charged at me, his mouth open and his fingers splayed. His fingernails had turned to wickedly sharp claws that looked like they could easily rip whole gashes in my skin. I wasn’t about to let him do that.
“Get Romeo out of here,” I said to Mercutio.
“What about you?” he called out above the noise.
“Just go!”
Deciding to face the wolf head on, I charged at him, roaring in the same way he was. I could see the desire to murder me behind his eyes. It was a kind of hungry, predatory ferocity he had that I knew was going to be more than I could handle, but right now my priorities had changed. I wanted to make sure Romeo got out, that he was safe, even if it meant giving myself up for it.
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