“Why you—”
Black fury rose in a wave. “You might not be a shit person, Drummond. You may even be a good advisor. But you’re a fucking terrible father.”
Shard’s head snapped back as Arla’s father unleashed a right hook.
Righting himself, Shard licked the blood off his lip, grinning and advancing. “And a fool,” he stated.
“Stay back, whorehound,” Drummond started.
“That’s right, old man,” he said. “I was the son of a whorehound. I’ve seen worse things in a single day than the summation of all the bad things of your entire life. And if you don’t stop telling your daughter who and when to marry, I’ll tie your hands and feet together and give some of my old buddies a call. Hell, I’ll even show them to your door and keep guard.”
He had no such ‘buddies,’ but Drummond didn’t need to know that.
“I shall inform the king and queen of this.” He turned on his heel.
“The queen, one of my closest friends? And the king who will do anything for her?”
Shard’s bluff depended on Drummond’s ignorance that the queen was currently ignoring him.
The older Bruma stilled and then whirled back, marching up to him. “What I say to my daughter is no concern of yours!”
“It is when I can hear you shouting at her through my fucking wall,” Shard said angrily. He contemplated the man. “Do you honestly believe anyone is fooled by your games? The prince can see Arla coming from a mile away. If he was interested, they’d be married by now. Are you blind?”
Drummond paled and hope briefly flickered in Shard’s mind.
“What has she done?” the advisor whispered.
Shard gritted his teeth. Really? That was what he’d gotten from his threat? That Arla had screwed up Drummond’s plans for greater prestige?
Blood trickled down over his chin and he thought of the day thus far. Jovan’s anger, Lina’s avoidance, and Arla’s . . . whatever that was in his room earlier.
“Fuck it,” he announced, snapping out a fist to connect with Drummond’s jaw.
A gasp echoed from his left.
Arla stood there, eyes rounded and fixed on her crumpled father.
. . . He couldn’t catch a damn break.
“Sorry,” he muttered at her, striding for the nearest stairway. Or a passage. Maybe a hole. Just anywhere but here or around people. Or any hint of her.
“Wait,” she called.
Shard exhaled, shaking his head. “I don’t want to fight again, Arla. I’m tired.”
“I don’t want to fight either.”
“You don’t?” He glanced back, trying to ignore that she was the most beautiful woman he’d seen in three worlds and ever would.
“Is that so hard to believe?”
Arla stepped over her father.
Thinking about it, Shard pursed his lips and nodded. “Yes. It is.”
She stopped a couple of meters from him. “What you said last night.”
“Which part?”
She glared at him, crossing her arms. “The part about saying something if I cared.”
His mind stuttered to a halt. Was she about to tell him how she felt? He’d given up hope of that.
“I will not go against my father,” she said, dropping her gaze.
She was changing the subject.
“Why?” he asked, genuinely curious. “In the time I’ve known him, he’s done nothing but treat you in the same way you treat others. And you mentioned something about telling me if you cared. Let’s get back to that.”
Arla’s eyes widened, and the ice mask was back. “My father will not entertain your suit, but if you still feel . . . something for me, there might be a way around it. One I’ve planned for some time.”
She still hadn’t answered his question. Had she made a plan to be with him or just to work around Drummond so she could marry anyone other than Ashawn? He couldn’t tell.
“Which is?” Shard watched as she licked her lips.
She was nervous.
Arla tilted her chin. “For some time, I’ve been proving to my father that the prince doesn’t care for me. After what you said, he will finally agree. My father would prefer me to marry someone of high birth, yet, aside from Prince Ashawn, there are none of higher birth than myself—and of suitable age—left to marry. There are only those of equal or lesser birth in the tri-worlds. I am over twenty now. You’re aware that this is considered old to be unmarried?”
What? “Why are you telling me all this?” he butted in.
Her blue eyes fixed on him. “My father is beginning to panic. Already he is mentioning names for my hand that he never would have uttered a year ago. All my father needs is a reason to agree. You are an advisor. You may not have been born high, but your children will be.”
Shard’s mouth dried, but he kept up his calm front, the energy from the brawl still thrumming in his veins. “I’m too tired for guessing. You need to spit it out.”
“Win the tournament,” she blurted. “Win the tournament and become the first-ever winner of the Interworld Games. I will make a deal with my father that my hand will be offered to the winner. He’ll agree. I’ll make sure of it.”
Uh. “What?”
“Win it.”
He stared, sure he’d just heard wrong. “Win the tournament. The Interworld Games?”
“That’s what I said,” she snapped. “I thought you had more brains than the other men in this castle.”
She wanted him to win the games. He wasn’t even participating in them. How was he meant to win? And why was she only telling him this now? Clearly, she’d thought this through at length.
If Arla had planned this for him, she could have filled him in at any time in the last nine months. . . .
“And if another wins?” Shard asked her flatly.
She pressed her lips together, holding his gaze.
“Fuck, Arla.” He gripped his dark blond hair. “This isn’t even about me, is it? How many men have you said this exact thing to?”
He lifted his head again, whispering, “Is all of this just about the woman in my bed?”
Her chest moved up and down rapidly. “No, it’s not.”
And yet Shard just didn’t know. “If it is, then let me clear that up. I slept in the kennels last night. Nothing happened.”
“I said it’s not about her.” Ice flashed in her eyes.
Shard searched her face and then let it go. “If you say so.”
He closed his eyes and tried to sort through the battering ram she’d just hurled into his stomach.
“Do you know that you’ve done everything but answer the simple question I asked you last night?” Shard asked. “Why should I even try to win the games for you when you can’t tell me that?”
“You’re not winning the games for me, it’s for my father. So he can be happy.”
The anger that Drummond had initially inspired reared up.
“Arla, cut the crap. I’m not fighting this tournament for your damn father. If you care for me, tell me I’ve got something to fight for. Or grow up and stop torturing me.”
She glanced down at her father and blinked, her icy façade peeling away until he could see the woman beneath.
“I,” Arla began, her face ashen.
Drummond groaned and she leaped in the air, her cheeks flushing as she cast a furtive look Shard’s way.
“You have something to fight for,” she hurried to say, breaking their gaze.
And still she hadn’t directly told him how she felt.
If you care for me, tell me I’ve got something to fight for.
Clever beauty.
Shard watched her hurrying back to the food hall, and a wide grin spread across his face. If scraps were all she’d offered in the last year and a half, then Arla had just offered him a steak.
He’d take it.
“Fuck off,” the king boomed.
Shard stood before Jovan’s massive desk, hands behind his back. “I real
ize my recent actions shouldn’t make you want to approve my request.”
“You realize right.”
Jovan scrawled on a page and slid the parchment to Landon, who sat opposite. When a person hurt the feelings of the king’s queen, apparently that person lost the right to a private audience.
“I need to fight in the tournament.”
Jovan ignored him.
Landon swivelled in his chair. “Might I ask why?”
Ignoring the fact that the Tatum just asked a question, Shard answered, “For a woman.”
“You wish to fight in the tournament for Arla?” Jovan asked, finally looking at him.
Shard dipped his head.
“Last I heard she’d rejected you outright.” The king snorted.
Was anyone unaware of his personal life at this point?
“She needs to convince her father that I’ll be a good match. And this is apparently the way to prove myself to him.”
The king returned to scrawling on parchment. “Well then, you fighting is pointless. You certainly won’t win. I’m fighting.”
“So am I,” Landon added, accepting another piece of parchment from Jovan and studying it before looping his name at the bottom.
They would be his toughest opponents, along with Lina and Rhone.
“I’d be grateful for the chance to try,” he said in the silence only interrupted by the scratching of their quills.
Jovan slapped his down and leaned back, surveying Shard with predator’s eyes.
“I want Arla off my hands,” he stated. “She annoys me, and she annoys my queen. In general, she’s an antagonist in my assembly, and that overrides anything useful she does to help.”
Shard didn’t take the bait.
“She can be an antagonist,” he answered smoothly. He forced down the familiar urge to rise to her defense.
The king’s eyes glinted. “Not just can be. Is. So if I drop a fighter who has earned his or her place in the games, you better damn well marry her and take her away. Far away. I want her gone from the castle to a house in the Inner Rings.”
If they ever got married, Shard had planned just that. And he’d fight tooth and nail with Arla for it. She had to be removed from her father to gain a sense of clarity. Only then could Arla explore the other sides of her personality that Shard had experienced firsthand—if in brief snatches.
But he felt odd agreeing to Jovan’s demand. Shard didn’t own her. He couldn’t answer for her.
“Arla has been told how to act her entire life, my king,” he replied after quick reflection. “I believe it is best for her to be removed from the castle and Drummond. In time, she can grow. If she’s given a chance.”
The king studied him and Shard remained mute, his breath lodging in his chest.
“That was not a yes.” The menace in the king’s rumbling voice lifted the small hairs on Shard’s nape.
Beside Jovan’s desk, Kendra squawked loudly. Her fists punched overhead from where she’d lain slumbering in her cradle.
The king leaped to action, displaying the very same speed he’d used to kill men, and was beside his daughter in an instant.
“Hush, Kenny,” the king cooed, rocking the cot. “Back to sleep. Sleepy sleep.”
Landon slid an amused look at Shard.
Kendra’s squawks turned to wails.
Jovan glared at Landon. “Look what you did.”
The queen’s brother smirked. “I didn’t do a thing. You talk too loud.”
“Laugh now. The time will come when you forget what sleep is.”
Jovan lifted his eyes from the Tatum as Kendra’s wails escalated to screams. They fell on Shard.
“Why are you still here?” he barked.
Shard stilled. “You haven’t given me an answer, King Jovan.”
The king picked up his red-faced child, clucking nonsense at her and throwing her high overhead. The screaming took on a furious edge.
“Wrong thing to do, wrong thing to do,” Jovan fretted, bouncing her and searching the chamber.
Picking up the pile of parchment, Landon made for the door, stopping to clasp Shard’s shoulder.
“You can assume that is a yes,” he said in undertones. “But I’d leave before he realizes her nappy is full.”
Chapter Seven
Shard sank into another stretch, listening to the sounds of the gathering crowd in the tiers above. Each world had a section beneath the Dome to warm up.
“Hey, Shard?” Blizzard said from where he leaned against the wall.
“Yeah?” Shard grunted.
“Do you feel bad that someone got dropped just because you have connections?”
Ice darted his eyes between them as he stretched.
Blizzard straightened. “Because that’s exactly the kind of injustice that has led to the divide between rich and poor. As the minister of the people—”
Avalanche groaned, and Shard silently agreed. The minister of the people could rant for hours. No matter the value of his content, no one wanted to be caught in one of his lectures.
“So what’s first up?” Shard asked loudly.
“The Dome will be split into seven sections for each test,” Ice said. “Strength, agility, accuracy, spear, bow, sword, and dagger. People will be in elimination pools over the day and then the top seventy go into semi-final pools tomorrow—kind of like the underground pit tournament. The top seven enter the finals on the third day. Group fight on the last day.”
The points from the group fight didn’t count toward the solo category. That way, there was a possibility of two worlds claiming victories.
Each world had brought fifty fighters. “So the person with a high score in several categories, or at least reasonable scores in all, will win overall,” Shard said grimly.
Shard trained every day with the other Bruma in the castle. The fighters selected for the group category had trained separately for two hours daily, but aside from that, he’d trained right alongside the chosen contestants for the Interworld Games. Shard was confident about his skill in comparison to most of his Bruma opponents. His real competition was confined to the royalty of each world and the trainer of the Ire. Though he couldn’t discount the Elite who made up at least half of the Solati spots.
Really, he had no idea what the Ire had in store for him. But if some of the top fighters from each world knocked each other out of the running, he might stand a shot.
Shard could surmise Arla had chipped away at Drummond’s ideals of who she could marry for some time. Her father wanted her already married, but the list of eligible suitors was growing thin. If Arla succeeded in securing Drummond’s agreement to her plan, the older advisor would have to accept a marriage born of legacy and prestige for his daughter, rather than the high-born union he’d been after.
And apparently legacy and prestige from winning the Interworld Games was enough.
Really, Shard didn’t know why Arla had decided to manage her father this way. But she’d finally given Shard something to go on.
In his entire life, he’d only burned to win once; when he ran from the Middle Ring—away from his father—to the Outer Rings. He’d won then. And success never meant so much to him as it did at this exact moment.
If this was what Arla needed to choose him, he’d forge on through this last hoop. Giving up on her was a stupid idea anyway. Snapping or scratching, Arla was it for him. Love, addiction, hate, attraction—Shard didn’t care. He wouldn’t rest until she was his.
“What do you suppose he’s thinking about?” Ice asked.
Shard jerked, staring at the faces contemplating him.
“Food or a woman,” one of the Bruma called.
Loud laughter rang through the enclosed space and Shard ignored them, sinking into a set of push-ups.
He’d just finished when a bell tolled. The muffled roar of the crowd overhead gave all the Bruma fighters underneath pause. There were a lot of people up there.
A watchman pulled their entrance door wid
e open from the other side.
“Game time,” he called. “Everyone out.”
Shard entered the line filing into the Dome.
The last time he’d been in this exact situation, he and nearly all the members of Alzona and Tricks’s Barracks were being led to their slaughter.
Oddly, he felt worse about entering the Dome now.
The roar of the crowd increased tenfold when he entered. Shard lifted his eyes from the sandy and cobbled floor of the Dome to inspect the space. The floor was a huge rectangle, tiered seating rising up on each side. Most of the floor was cordoned off into seven large sections, one for each category. A stage and open area for the fighters to stand made up the rest.
Most of the crowd was a wave of white and blue. Even Bruma from the Outer Rings were dressed in the right colors. The hosting world was allotted half of the audience space—for which Blizzard had demanded a fair ballot so all three rings had equal access. The remaining half was split between the other two worlds. Oranges and reds took up the space immediately to the left of where a semi-circle platform extended slightly over the Dome. This was the space for royals and their court—or those of high rank. The greens and browns of the Ire occupied the right side of the semi-circle platform.
Everyone he could see was on their feet and shouting.
Despite his nerves, the thrill of old raced through him. There was a reason he’d spent eight years in the pit. One, because he was skint and needed coin. Two, because nothing could beat the heart-pounding uncertainty of a fight. Nothing but the touch of Arla’s lips on his, perhaps. Or what he expected it might feel like.
The king, queen, Tatum and Greta, and the Ire leader, Yarik, and Rhone entered onto the Dome floor via a second door. Rhone had married a woman from the Ire and then moved to the sanctuary to train them for the games.
They strode toward a wooden stage erected beneath where the royals and court members sat.
A table had been placed there, and a large object covered by a gold sheet rested upon it.
A quick glance behind him told Shard the opponents from the Ire and Osolis had exited through the other two doors.
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