by Cora Avery
“Unusual.”
“Before my mother’s death, she requested I not claim a Prince until I became Radiant.”
“Odd.”
“I agree, but I respect her wishes.”
“Petition?”
She took a knee again. “I put forth my right to the title and powers of my family and my lands.”
“Rise.”
She did.
“Enneahedron?”
Her pulse skipped and sped up. She struggled to soothe it again. Her fingers curled; her knives still on display. Her throat constricted.
“No.”
A murmur rippled through the crowd.
The Crown’s head tipped slightly. “In your request, you claimed to possess it.”
“I did possess it,” Magda said, face burning, limbs trembling slightly, “but it was taken.”
“By?”
“I do not know.”
The Crown shifted in her chair. “Does anyone here wish to present the Enneahedron and put forth their petition at this time?”
Magda glanced at Lavana off to her right, forefront among the crowd, with Riker at her side. Her own hands were curling and uncurling as though grasping for the Enneahedron. Every eye was upon her, but she didn’t step forward.
Even though she’d suspected it, Magda still frowned. If Lavana didn’t have the Enneahedron, then who did?
The Crown’s dark brow rose fractionally. “Elders?”
The elders stepped forward from the crowd.
“You requested expedition of the naming of your new Radiant?” the Crown asked.
Toryn, standing closest to the balcony, with Flor just behind him, spoke.
“We did.”
“And is this still your wish?”
Toryn glanced around at the others. “Yes. Magdalena and Lavana are the only Raes of age. There are no other potential claimants.”
The Crown fluttered her fingers up towards one of the other balconies, but didn’t look at its awaiting occupants.
“Records?”
The Minister of Records, a woman with ornately plaited white hair, leaned upon the balustrade. “The records concur.”
The Crown seemed to take a deep breath, and it reminded Magda to do the same. Her head was still spinning.
As she’d suspected, Lavana hadn’t taken the Enneahedron. But whoever had, also hadn’t given it to her either. So why take it in the first place? Its power only served the Radiant of the Eastern Cliffs. And once the new Radiant was confirmed by the Crown, the Enneahedron, no matter where it was, would return to her. No one else could have any cause to want it—at least none that she knew of.
“Then I will respect the wishes of the elders. Expedition granted. Are the claimants prepared to vie?”
Lavana strode forward, coming abreast of Magda, Riker trailing behind her.
“I am,” she said, viciously bright, “Your Eminence.”
“As am I, Your Highness,” Magda stated.
As ready as she could be, considering.
The Crown’s hands slid onto the arms of her chair in a weary way. “Decision by duel. Escort the claimants. Parties assemble.”
She rose. Once more the family dropped to their knees.
Moments later, footfalls on the stone alerted them that they could stand again.
When Magda lifted her head, she found the Captain of the Crown’s guard, a woman with piercing blue eyes, standing before her.
“Claimants, follow me,” she said.
As soon as the door shut behind them, Kaelan turned to her. “What’s going to happen now?”
The ready room was a tiny closet with no place to sit and nothing but a trickling fountain built into the rough stone wall, a single bronze cup hanging from a hook beside it.
She paced the length, which was slightly longer than the width.
“We wait for the family to assemble at the dueling grounds and the Crown to take her place,” she said. “Then Lavana and I fight, until one of us yields or dies.”
His jaw hardened. “And I’m just supposed to stand there?”
“No,” she said. “You’ll be positioned at the edge of the circle, guarded. If I can reach you, you can help me, heal me if I need it, but you’re not allowed to break from your station or the guards will incapacitate you.”
“And the family?”
“They’ll be able to offer help,” she said, “if they wish to do so. Weapons, shields, magic even, but they risk their own lives by throwing in for me or Lavana. If they offer support and their chosen victor doesn’t win, then they had best run quickly. But should the family choose to take sides, the duel can be far more decisive.”
“What happened the last time?”
“The family didn’t intervene, but I didn’t have a Prince and Alanna did. That made the difference in the end. I wounded her. It would’ve been fatal, but for her Prince. So long as a Rae is in her Prince’s hands, she can’t be touched.”
“For how long?”
“Until the Crown decrees. Never long though.”
“What do you think happened to the Enneahedron?”
She stopped pacing. “I don’t know. But it’s not important right now. The Enneahedron will heed the call of the Radiant.”
“Then it’s not really lost?”
“No. Only until the next Radiant is chosen. Then it should return to her.”
“Then why steal it?”
She chewed her lip. “I don’t—”
“To force the duel,” he said.
Her heart slammed in her chest. Sweat dripped down her back.
“If you’d had the Enneahedron, then your claim would’ve been stronger, right? The Crown could’ve named you Radiant without the duel. Isn’t that why we went out of our way to find it?”
“Yes,” she said. “But who would want to force me into the duel? Why? If they favored her, why not simply give it to her?”
“Maybe they didn’t favor her.”
“Then why take it from me?”
He rubbed his temples. “We’re missing something.”
She nodded.
In that moment, Meer appeared in the corner. In her arms, a sagging furry bundle.
“Hero.” Magda crouched before the brownie and the rat as Meer lowered Hero to the floor. His eyes were slits, but at least they were open.
“He woke moments ago,” Meer said.
Magda touched Hero’s head. “Hero, are you all right?”
“No,” he said, even his thoughts were weak, hazy. “But I had to tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
“The voice . . . it told the nymph to take the Enneahedron.”
“That’s why you bit her?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know why the voice wanted her to take it?” she asked.
His eyes slid shut and his energy waned. “No, I’m sorry.”
Tears burned her eyes. “Don’t be sorry.” She sank down, so her face was close to his. “I’m sorry. This never would’ve happened . . .”
“I have traveled from the sewers of the Cliffs to the Spire at the heights of the Lands. I have flown and fought and communed with creatures I never dreamt existed. My life has been good, for a rat. ”
Her heart ached. “You made it good, Hero.” She ran her finger gently over his head, along the ragged edge of his ear. “I still owe you that mountain of bread,” she whispered.
His eyes slid shut and she could hear the air rasping in his lungs. “Another day.”
“Hero . . .”
His breath rattled and then ceased. The presence of his thoughts slipped away until they were beyond her reach.
Tears dripping off her nose, she leaned over and kissed him on the head, one last time.
Kaelan’s hand rested gently on her shoulder as she sat back on her heels. Even Meer’s normally stern face was drawn and pale.
“What would you like for me to do, Mistress?” Meer asked.
“Take him back to Southterrace,” she said.
“If I survive, I’ll take him home and bury him. If not, do it for me. Back in the Eastern Cliffs.”
“Yes, Mistress,” Meer said, lifting Hero again. With a soft swish, they were both gone.
Kaelan thumbed aside the tears from her cheek. “What did he say?”
The snakes of pain writhing in her chest multiplied and thrashed wildly as her blood began to boil. “Honey took the Enneahedron.”
He stared. “But . . . why?”
“The voice told her to do it.”
“But . . . we have to find her. Call Meer. Tell her to bring Honey here. She has to tell us where it is—”
“It’s too late for that. The Crown has made her decision. Even if I could get the Enneahedron back, I would still have to fight.”
He gripped both sides of her face and pressed his forehead to hers. The silver melted from his eyes until they were burning green again.
A brisk knock on the door cut between them.
“It’s time,” a guard bellowed.
Kaelan held her where she was. “Magda—”
She clasped his hand and then removed it from her face, but held it. “Back in Lavana’s cell, you said that you didn’t know someone could give up being a Rae. And you were right. You can’t stop being who you are. And I am a Rae, even if there are days I wish I weren’t. Like today.”
She pushed to her feet, pulling him up with her.
“And so then, who am I?” he asked, his green eyes flaring.
“My Prince,” she said. “So long as you want to be.”
His hand tightened around hers and he brought it to his chest. The bright heat in his eyes stopped her breath. “My heart, my mistress.”
ONCE, IN THE HUMAN WORLD, she had attended an outdoor play. It had left her trembling and soaked in cold sweat. Not because the play had been upsetting, she barely remembered what it had been about now. Rather, her panic had been caused by the open air playhouse itself. It had reminded her too much of the dueling grounds.
Rows of benches rose above the dusty, hard-packed circle of earth. But instead of overlooking the scenic Canyonlands of southern California like the playhouse, the grounds ended at a precipice that dropped off to certain death.
Magda had never believed she would ever see them again. Even without her fear of heights, as she stepped through the western door with Kaelan behind her, dread twisted like writhing black eels in her bowels.
Guards arrayed around the semicircular wall separating the spectators from the combatants.
The lowest row of seating sat slightly higher than her head. The wind howled and swirled through the packed crowd, whipping loose carefully managed plaits and kicking dirt in their eyes. In the highest balcony, the Crown. Above her, the stone, from which the stands were carved, jutted out, blotting out the Spire, revealing only the cloud-matted sky.
By the eastern door, Lavana, knives drawn. Aquamarine eyes flashed as they tracked Magda’s every movement.
Riker hung to the side, down in a small sunken area known as the pit. Four guards stood at each corner of his little box. Only if Lavana reached beyond the guards could he help her.
Magda’s pulse threatened to bolt. It was all she could do to keep it in check.
Before he could be ushered into his own pit, Kaelan took the back of her neck again and turned her towards him, cupping his hands under her jaw.
Her pulse slowed at his touch. The tacky sweat spreading under her armor cooled and dried.
“Thanks—”
He pressed his lips to hers, firmly, quickly.
“You’re a Rae and I’m a Prince,” he said, “but we’re not like the others. The only thing that matters to me now is you. Not the Crown, not the Throne, not the rules.”
His hands fell from her and he stepped back. The guards corralled him down into the pit.
Before she could catch her breath again or think about what he had said, the Crown’s voice echoed over them.
“Present.”
She turned on her heel, unleashed her daggers at her sides, and inclined her head towards the Crown.
And, after a long second, the word came.
“Engage.”
Lavana didn’t wait, she charged and leapt.
Magda spun away before Lavana’s flying kick could connect.
Lavana landed and spun, setting Magda immediately into a defensive posture. A flurry of hand strikes came at her, knives met knives, clinking and scraping.
Lavana was fast—that was her strength.
A barrage rained down on Magda, daggers cutting so quickly through the air as to be nearly invisible. Already her breath labored, her vision tunneled so there was nothing but the flash of knives and Lavana’s glittering eyes. Behind her, the press of the wall, Lavana driving her towards it to pin her.
Blocking one strike and then another, her hand came up directly before Lavana’s face, and she retracted her blades.
Lavana’s brow plunged—a moment of confusion.
Magda threw an elbow across her face, knocking her aside. She dodged back to the middle of the field.
The dueling grounds seemed to shrink and expand from second to second. So that Kaelan appeared a lifetime away, but the precipice only steps, when she knew that in fact he was closer.
Lavana gave her no respite, no chance to think or plan.
She attacked and Magda defended, until Magda was at the edge, heels pushing dust down into the mist.
This was one of the reasons she’d lost to Alanna all those years ago . . . avoiding the ledge at all costs had forced her again and again to sacrifice advantage.
But she wasn’t afraid now, not of heights anyway.
She spun from Lavana’s swiping attack and backed into the center of the field again.
All she needed was one good strike. The ironwood wasn’t very long and wouldn’t penetrate Lavana’s armor. Magda needed to get in close and fast.
Lavana was the only one attacking. And so it was inevitable one of her blows caught Magda eventually, slicing across her hip, below her breastplate and above the scale shielding her thigh.
A searing pain shot into her chest and down to her toes, pumping even more adrenaline into her bloodstream. The wet burn of blood ran down her leg, soaking into her clothes.
Her teeth gnashed, but she refused to cry out.
The crowd’s voices grew distant. Was Kaelan calling her name? Through the blur of battle, the drum of her heartbeat, she couldn’t be certain.
She staggered.
Lavana slowed to smile at her impending victory—just long enough.
That single moment, pain-filled as it was, was the second she needed.
She dodged Lavana’s next strike, raking her knives as she feinted, tearing through the buckles fastening Lavana’s breastplate and through her clothes, to the tender flesh beneath.
Time slowed, Magda could make out each drop of blood that flew from Lavana’s body into the air.
Lavana stumbled, clutching at her wounded side.
Then Magda spun and attacked.
But Lavana had recovered from the shock of injury and held her at bay, not allowing her to get in close enough to use the ironwood.
Still, Magda drove her back—downward slice, upward cut, sweep the ankle.
Lavana blocked and blocked and spun away, right into the wall.
Magda unleashed another spate of strikes, keeping her pinned, seeking an opening.
But Lavana wasn’t to be overwhelmed. In spite of the sweat rolling in crystalline beads down her forehead, off her thick eyelashes, around those eyes hard as gemstones, her focus remained unwavering.
And then the chance came and Magda rushed into it, slim as it was.
The longer the fight went on the worse her chances. She simply didn’t have the stamina.
Strikes came in fractions of heartbeats, blocks just as fast.
When she saw Lavana’s face would be left open in the next move, she snapped back the blades of her left hand, all but the ironwood, and drove it
towards Lavana’s throat.
In that moment, the world melted away, until it was only her arm tracking through the air to Lavana’s pulsing vein.
Sounds went mute. All sense of her own wounds, her own breath, her own pulse, vanished. Time seemed to stop.
And that was when she saw her mistake.
Too late.
The opening had been there, but she wasn’t fast enough to seize it.
Time leapt back up to speed.
Lavana ducked the ironwood, came back up on the outside of Magda’s left arm, spinning.
All five of her daggers drove deep into Magda’s exposed side.
She lurched.
Pain exploded and then ebbed away just as fast, tricking her for half-a-breath.
The fleeting thought skated through her mind—That didn’t just happen.
But it had happened.
Her whole left side went weak. Her leg gave out. Her arm turned limp. She buckled and crashed to her knees.
Pain like oil lit aflame rolled through her, sucking the oxygen from her lungs.
Every desperate beat of her heart, grasping to hold on, only seemed to push her further away.
Away from the field and the Spire and the world all around.
Away from her breath and her body and her life.
Lavana gripped her hair and yanked her head back.
She had drawn her daggers back into their sheaths. Blood dripped over the metal—Magda’s blood.
In Lavana’s hand, Magda’s three-sided ghast blade. It flashed with some reflected light, a torch maybe, lightning perhaps.
A second, two, had passed since Lavana’s daggers had sunk deep into her flesh.
Time warped, speeding and slowing at once.
Sweat or tears or rain traced the vicious sharp planes of Lavana’s face that were filling her vision.
Without a word, Lavana brought the ghast blade down towards her throat.
A single brilliant burst of pain, so intense it spun a delicate spider-silk bridge across that chasm between agony and revelation—the physical left stranded while the light of consciousness rushed onward, breathless, freed, towards the High Road and the Godlands.
And so it ended.
She died.
Or so it seemed.
For somewhere along that rushing road, she heard a voice say,