by Morgan Rice
“So there’s going to be a battle?” Sartes asked.
Anka spread her hands, trying to think of the best way to say this. “We thought so, but there’s been an offer of single combat to settle it. Lucious has sent a champion, and on the other side… I can hardly believe I’m saying it.”
“What is it?” Sartes asked.
“It’s Ceres,” Anka said, and she could see the shock on Sartes’s face even as she said it. “Ceres is the one fighting on the other side.”
She took his shoulders in her hands.
“She is alive, Sartes.”
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
With sundown looming, Ceres prepared herself. She sharpened her sword, made sure the dagger Eoin had given her was still strong, went through the motions of the islanders’ way of fighting, stretched her muscles, and waited.
No one disturbed her.
They all seemed to know instinctively to leave her in peace for it.
Finally, sunset came.
Down below, Ceres could see men coming out from the Empire’s army, moving out to the center of the plain. For a moment, she thought that perhaps Lucious might be trying a surprise attack—but they came out with spades and rushes, digging a series of pits that they filled and then set light to, illuminating a section of the field even as the sun faded.
They were making a ring to fight in.
“It’s time,” Ceres said, mounting her horse. “Lord West, if this goes wrong—”
“It won’t,” he replied. “Remember who you are. What you are.”
Ceres nodded. Heart pounding, feeling the eyes of thousands of men upon her, she mounted her horse, kicked, and rode.
Around her, her army formed, lifting banners high in a kind of salute, cheering as she rode through the pathway they created. She felt as if she were back in the Stade, with the crowd roaring in appreciation as she stepped onto the sands.
She rode down in the direction of that impromptu arena, and some of her men followed her. Not many. Not enough that it would look like an attack, but enough to form a crowd. Enough to prevent an attack on her by Lucious’s forces.
Ceres dismounted by the edge, hobbling her horse. She stepped between two of the fires, into the brightly lit space beyond. Then she waited.
She saw Lucious ride forward at the heart of a cluster of men to match her own. Another horse beside him carried a servant or weapon carrier wrapped up in a thick cloak.
When they reached the ring, though, it was the servant who dismounted, not Lucious.
Ceres felt a hint of outrage rise in her chest.
This was replaced with dread as she saw the size of the servant, who stood far taller than she did, far taller than Lucious.
“What’s this?” Ceres demanded.
She heard Lucious laugh.
“I’m a prince, you stupid peasant. You think I fight my own battles? I have champions for that! Don’t worry, though, I’ve brought you an old friend.”
His “servant” threw aside the cloak then. Ceres saw dark, muscled skin, criss-crossed by scars and tattoos and only partly covered by armor. The man there held a staff with crescent blades at either end, but it was his dead, baleful gaze that held her attention most.
Ceres heard the intake of breath from the crowd around her. They knew who this was, just as she did. The only man to ever best her in the Stade. The one who’d been about to kill her when they’d dragged her away to the prison ship.
The Last Breath.
The combatlord known as the Last Breath stepped into the circle of flames, and while the fire reflected from his dual-bladed weapon, Ceres heard Lucious laugh.
Ceres felt a thrill of fear as the Last Breath stood there before her. She found herself remembering the sight of him standing over her, his weapon poised for the final blow that had never come in the Stade.
It was obvious that her opponent remembered it too.
“I kill my enemies,” he said, sending his bladed staff into a contemptuous spin. “All of them, except you. This time, I make that right.”
Ceres pushed back the residue of fear, remembering the things that had happened to her since. She’d learned all the islanders had to offer, but more than that, she’d learned who she was.
“You won’t find it that easy,” she promised him. “I’ve learned a lot since then.”
She heard him laugh, and the sound was like a boom of thunder in the dusk. Midway through it, the Last Breath attacked, and the crowd roared.
Ceres was ready for it this time in a way she hadn’t been in the Stade. There, her powers had deserted her. Now, energy flooded through her, lending her the speed to flow out of the way of a kick that would have sent her back into the fiery ring.
She parried and dodged, moving aside from the Last Breath’s strikes. He was still frighteningly fast for such a big man, but this time she was as fast as he was, and she wasn’t going to be overwhelmed the way she had been in the Stade.
She could see the patterns now, understand the furious malice behind it, seeing it like sharp spikes at the edges of her awareness. She sank into the feeling of the fight, letting herself go the way Eoin and the others had taught her.
She leaned back from a sweep of the crescent blades, dropped further to avoid a swinging kick, and then rolled smoothly back to her feet. She struck out with her long blade, forcing the Last Breath to parry, then stepped back to avoid the counter.
She kept moving, feeling the heat of the fires at her back as she went. The Last Breath rushed her, obviously trying to force her back into that heat, and Ceres dodged, bringing her blades together to block a stroke that tried to catch her as she angled away.
She cut out, drawing a line of blood on the Last Breath’s arm.
He stared at it in fury, and Ceres knew he would be thinking back to what had happened after she’d cut him in their fight in the Stade.
Sure enough, he came at her then, swinging his staff in blow after blow.
Part of his skill, Ceres realized now, was in not having an obvious rhythm to his attacks. Most fighters struck and moved in clear beats, and anyone else using a weapon like the one the Last Breath did would have swung it back and forth, back and forth. He seemed to instinctively realized the danger of that, the blades never quite there when they should have been.
For a moment, Ceres felt herself falling out of the place where the power flowed into her. It was as though the world around her sped up, and suddenly the Last Breath was everywhere. Ceres parried one blow, felt another graze through the flesh of her side, and then found herself caught across the back of the legs by the haft of her opponent’s weapon.
Ceres lay on her back for a moment or two, looking up as the Last Breath stood there, his weapon raised high. The firelight glinted from the steel, the flames seeming to reflect in his eyes. It was too close, far too close, to the way things had been in the Stade.
Only this time, there wouldn’t be any reprieve. There was no one to heed the calls of the crowd, or to decide that it would be better if she died quietly, away from other eyes. Stephania wasn’t there this time, but Lucious was, looking on with obvious glee from the sidelines.
“Ceres! Ceres! Ceres!” she heard the men on her side chanting, as if trying to revive her just with the calls.
“This time,” the Last Breath said, “you die.”
Except this wasn’t the Stade. Ceres understood the power that lay within her now. It wasn’t some strange, unknown thing that came and went as it wished. It was a part of her. It was a part of who she was.
So when she called it up within her again, it was there waiting.
She rolled smoothly, moving out of the way of the Last Breath’s blow and kicking out to force him back.
Ceres leapt back onto her feet and then went on the attack. She thrust with her dagger and cut with her sword, never staying in one spot, never giving the Last Breath a chance to settle. She spun inside the arc of his weapon, opening another wound on her opponent then moving out again.
> She saw a moment of balance and seized the opening. Ceres kicked out at the haft of the Last Breath’s weapon, lifting her leg high and catching it in the middle. Before, such an attack might not have done anything, but now Ceres heard the crack as the pole arm gave way beneath her strike. She saw the Last Breath stare at it as though Ceres had just killed the only thing he had cared about in the world.
He roared, clutching one half of the broken weapon and swinging it in a figure eight like an axe. He swung at Ceres’s head and she ducked, cutting with her dagger as she moved past him. The Last Breath swung again and Ceres leaned back, slicing another cut into his arm.
The Last Breath didn’t have an obvious rhythm to his attacks, but there was a rhythm to it, hidden under the fury and the cunning. It was hummingbird fast, varying and shifting, but it was there.
Ceres would never have been able to pick it out if she hadn’t spent so long with the forest folk trying their different skills on her. She would never have been fast enough to keep up with it if she hadn’t learned to accept what she was.
As it was, she fit in with it as smoothly as a dance.
She spun and ducked and leapt, always a beat ahead of the Last Breath’s furious swings. With each movement, she struck out, wounding him again and again, wearing him down the way a hunter might wear down some great beast. It wasn’t cruelty; it was simply that, even now, Ceres knew that trying to finish things would only open her up to a lightning fast riposte.
The Last Breath feigned a stumbling step, but Ceres saw it for what it was. She took a half step forward, then pushed back, dodging as the combatlord threw himself forward in a desperate strike. Ceres struck with both her swords, catching the Last Breath across his back.
She saw him stumble, his weapon falling from his hand. Even so, he stood, somehow defying the wounds that would have killed another man.
“Yield,” Ceres said. “Let this end. Don’t let Lucious keep using you.”
The Last Breath shook his head and leapt at her.
Ceres reached out, and her power flowed from her into the Last Breath.
She watched the shock in his eyes as stone flourished in place of his skin, freezing him in place. The stone was as thick and dark as his skin, basalt and obsidian, matching every scar and nick on him.
Ceres could have left him like that, but some part of her didn’t trust the combatlord even as a block of dark granite. She kicked out and set the statue rocking back and forth on the hard earth.
It toppled almost slowly, and when it hit the ground, Ceres heard the crack as it shattered, breaking into a dozen or more pieces.
Ceres stood, making sure that both armies could see her there as she called out.
“You’ve lost, Lucious! Surrender the city, or be branded the oath breaker you are!”
Something flew at Ceres from out of the dark. She dodged on instinct, and an arrow whispered past her cheek before thudding into the dirt. Ceres ran forward, leaping over the nearest fire, setting off in pursuit of Lucious.
He was already riding away, pushing his horse to greater speed than Ceres could hope to match. She could hear him shouting out what sounded like orders as he rode, although she couldn’t make out the words from there.
Behind her, she saw her army advancing. Lord West had obviously seen Lucious’s betrayal, and wasn’t about to risk leaving Ceres to face the Empire’s whole army. The horsemen of the North Coast charged in a long line, apparently not caring about the danger of the Empire’s trenches if it meant keeping Ceres safe.
Yet the Empire’s army didn’t move to attack. Nor did it stand ready to receive the charge. Instead, while Ceres watched, its phalanxes wheeled and started to march back through the open gates of the city.
“Quick!” Ceres called to the approaching riders. “We have to catch them before they get inside.”
They could win it here. Even if Lucious wouldn’t keep his word, if they could hit their army from behind while it was on the move, they had a chance to break its ranks. Her riders thundered down toward Ceres, and they didn’t slow. Instead, she saw Gerant leading a spare horse, and Ceres understood.
She caught the reins as it rode past her, leaping up and hauling herself into the saddle. She kicked her horse on, trying to make it to the Empire’s ranks before they could enter the city. There was no way they could all make it inside now, and some of them seemed to have gathered by the trenches.
Except they didn’t form defensive ranks. Instead, Ceres saw the flicker of flaming torches. They threw them into the trenches, and fire roared up.
There must have been oil in the pits. That was the only explanation for the great walls of flame that surged up in front of her charging army. Even as far away as she was, Ceres could feel the heat of it.
So could the horses, it seemed. Ceres saw them shy away, the charge faltering. Many reared up, and it was only the riding skills of her men that kept them from falling from the saddle. Around her, Ceres heard men trying to calm their horses, and horses snorting in fear at the flames ahead. She had to lean down, gripping her own reins tightly as she pulled her horse to a halt.
There was no way past the flames. Even where there had seemed to be thin bridges of land between the trenches before, there were no gaps now. Oil had obviously been spread over the ground too. All Ceres could do was sit there in the saddle, watching the fires burn.
There was the whir of arrows in the night, and somewhere beside her, Ceres saw a man fall. Other arrows thudded into shields. One caught a horse, and the beast went down, taking its rider with it.
“Pull back,” she called. “We’re in bow shot here. Pull back!”
Her army retreated, away from the trenches, back up the hillside they’d come from. All Ceres could do up there was watch as the fires burned down to embers, their orange glow spreading over the ground before the city.
They illuminated its gates perfectly. Those were massive, stone built, and very firmly shut now behind Lucious’s army. Above them, Ceres thought she could see a flash of gold illuminated in the firelight: Lucious looking out, probably feeling very pleased by it all.
Ceres turned to Lord West, and she could see he was thinking the same thing as she.
“Make camp and set watches on all of the city’s gates,” she said. “We’re going to have to take Delos by siege.”
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
Lucious waited in front of the throne like a condemned man while his father bellowed.
“A siege?” the king demanded. “How could you let it come to a siege?”
Right then, standing before the court with most of the nobles of Delos watching, Lucious had never felt so angry with them all. He was still wearing his golden armor, still carrying the sword he’d worn on the battlefield, and a part of him wanted to rush among them then, cutting them down just for daring to be there while his father tried to humiliate him in front of them.
But he didn’t do it. Instead, he stood there, his armor spattered with mud, looking far from his glorious best in the throne room while his father the king shouted. The nobles around him were silent, as though sensing that any sound might bring royal wrath down on them.
“You were supposed to go out and give battle to them, you stupid boy!”
“We might have lost if we’d done that,” Lucious countered. “There were more of them than we anticipated, and Ceres—” He didn’t finish that, even though he could see the nobles leaning in, looking for news of the girl. He still wasn’t sure what had happened with Ceres. What he’d seen her do there in the ring of flames made no sense.
“You might have crushed them as you were supposed to!” King Claudius said, bringing his hand down hard on the arm of his throne. The one beside it was empty; Lucious couldn’t look to his mother for help tonight. Indeed, many of the ladies of the court were absent, as if this were beneath them to see. “When you had the fire pits dug, I thought it was a sign that you were maturing as a leader, but they were meant to cut off your foes’ escape, not give you t
ime to run!”
“I ran because there was no other option!” Lucious insisted, raising his voice to match his father’s. How dare he treat Lucious like this in front of all the others? “After they saw the Last Breath lose, the men wouldn’t have stood and fought.”
Lucious could practically feel the tension in the nobles around them. Men shifted in place, as though wishing they could be anywhere else. Cowards.
“You mean that you wouldn’t,” the king said. “As for this business of single combat, you should have thought about the implications of it before you accepted the challenge from that girl.”
“She was supposed to lose,” Lucious snapped back. There was just the faintest intake of breath from those around them.
“Watch your tone, boy,” his father said. “Remember who is king here.”
Lucious remembered, just as he reminded himself that sooner or later, his father would die, and he would be king in his turn. Then there would be no one to talk to him like this.
“Ceres had already lost to the Last Breath once,” Lucious said. “He should have beaten her easily, and then probably that fool Lord West would have disbanded, because he believes in honor so much. At the very least, we would have been able to parade what was left of her through the streets to break the rebellion’s spirit.”
“All of which sounds like a fine plan,” his father said. “Except for the part where she cut your man to pieces.”
“She used some trickery, or magic, or something to do it,” Lucious insisted. “How was I to know that she could do something like that?”
“A good commander learns the facts of the situation before he acts,” the king said. “Didn’t I provide you with enough warning? Didn’t I tell you what you needed to do? You were to go out and meet them. If you’d judged it right, you could have ambushed them as they made their way to the city; cut them down before they even got close. Instead, you stood and waited beneath the safety of the walls.”