by Jessica Gunn
The referee handed me a red-handled blade. A Fire Circle knife. I shouldn’t have been surprised in the least that they had access to these. I took the knife and righted it in my hand. That was some damn good confidence they had that I wouldn’t attack the referee.
Or they know you’re not that stupid.
“And here,” the announcer said as Kian stepped out from the shadows on the other side of the ring. He didn’t appear to be any more excited about this than I was. In fact, he looked pretty damn angry.
“Crimson’s most prized fighter once upon a time,” the announcer continued, “who lost to the Masked Hunter in Midnight’s ring for one of the largest prize pools in the history of the Arenas. Another Fire Circle Hunter. Shall we show them what we do to Hunters in Landshaft?”
The crowd cheered, the sound roaring throughout the space. It was unnecessary. I was already more than aware of what became of Hunters in this city. I’d experienced it once myself.
I looked to Kian as the crowd continued their thunderous cheers. His brown eyes met mine and I tilted my head, an unspoken question on my face. Are we really going to do this?
Kian’s expression became emotionless, which I took as a yes. For the immediate moment, it didn’t appear we had another choice.
The referee handed Kian a knife as well and we took to squaring off, circling each other while the referee left the center of the ring and the announcer continued on with his words.
It was only then, while we went around and around the outside of the ring, that I noticed what was off about Kian. It wasn’t where we were, what we were doing, or how screwed we were.
No.
It was the bulging of Kian’s veins in his hands and arms, the hint of orange ember flakes in his eyes when the lights from above caught them just right.
My breath hitched. Jerrick or whoever had been holding Kian for the past several hours had given him Demon’s Blood. A lot of it.
Kian’s eyes started to glow that shade of orange I’d come to hate and I fell into a ready stance.
This wasn’t just a game of stalling Jerrick and Mason anymore. If Kian wasn’t in control of himself, there was a very real chance I’d be fighting for my life.
The referee backed up against one wall. “Ready, set. Match start!”
Chapter 15
The second the match started, Kian lunged forward with the Fire Circle knife. I dodged easily. Somewhere inside that Demon’s-Blood-twisted mind of his, Kian’s reflexes had gone out the window. That was the tradeoff: more power for poor reaction time. And if I could keep ahead of it, if I could predict the strange motions of this fight, I’d get out of it without either of us getting hurt.
Because Kian was barely Kian anymore. And if any part of him was still in there, I could almost guarantee he was kicking himself for being stuck in this position. Again.
“Kian!” I called as I ducked out of another wild swing. “It’s me, Ava. Just stop for one moment.”
Kian’s orange eyes glowed brighter with fury that wasn’t entirely his. He grunted and swung again, stepping in tight motions. Hard to predict. Getting harder and harder to dodge. This swing, right at my throat, almost drew blood.
I kicked up, planting my foot along his thigh, and pushed with everything in me. He staggered backward, cocking his head like some feral animal.
“That’s right,” I said. Maybe if I kept talking, I’d eventually get past this twisted, half-demonic exterior to the real Kian. “Me. I beat you in the ring once with you on this shit. And again in the basement of Midnight. Chill the fuck out and listen to me, Kian.”
He hesitated. Just for a moment, but it was long enough that through the orange glow in his eyes, the real Kian shone through. He lifted an eyebrow in question.
I nodded. Draw it out. Stay in control.
Not that he could hear me, much less understand. But when Kian swung again with the knife, his movements were more controlled, calculated. Kian came in close, swiping once again at my throat, and although I was sure it looked much closer from far away, I saw the blade miss completely. He wouldn’t have missed that if he’d been actually trying.
Good. Maybe after everything, Kian had finally built up some sort of resistance to Demon’s Blood.
Or he’s so deep in it that he’s unable to think. Maybe that’s why he can fight now. Maybe it’s a trap.
There was only one way to find out.
I lifted my hands, sending my left fist toward Kian’s face. He blocked it but almost missed the follow-up swing with my Fire Circle knife. Kian grinned, although it wasn’t the same impressed grin he’d give me if we’d been sparring back at Fire Circle Headquarters. Something cruel laced it instead.
“Fight it,” I said as we squared off again, circling around each other as the crowd above us roared with excitement.
Kian lunged again, his trained body finding the movements of battle as easy as mine did. We danced around each other, striking out and blocking every single blow. When I punched, he knocked my hand away, and when his knife came flying at my face, I’d duck. Again and again. Even on Demon’s Blood, his unpredictable movements were as familiar to me as my own two hands. We’d largely been trained by the same people, after all.
We broke apart after what felt like minutes but had probably been less. I wiped sweat from my brow, but at least there was no blood, not yet. I closed my fist around the knife handle once more, looking at Kian for any sign this was all just an act. He’d come down off the Demon’s Blood eventually—hell, maybe fighting and sweating would actually help move it along quicker. Actually, if I could keep dodging his attacks, we’d be exactly where I’d wanted.
I just wasn’t sure I could.
I raced toward Kian first this time, opening with a barrage of attacks to his face, ever-watchful of his knife hand. At least two of the blows connected, but neither of them slowed Kian down any. I sidestepped a knife attack and readied to swing back with my own, but pain sliced across my shoulder as Kian’s blade came back quickly, searing open my skin.
I hissed as blood began to flow, though Kian didn’t give me long to recover. He doubled back, twisting and slamming me in the gut with a fist before sweeping my legs out from under me.
My back slammed against the hard ground. All the air in my lungs whooshed out past my lips. I gasped for air as Kian’s body hovered over mine. He knelt, a knee on either side of me, and brought his hands to my throat.
Panic swept my veins as I looked into his glowing orange eyes. Shit. I should have just knocked him out from the start, ended the show, and hoped Mason and Jerrick hadn’t wanted us to fight to the death. And still, the irony of this moment wasn’t lost on me. Kian had had me in this same exact position in Midnight’s ring months ago.
“Kian…” I croaked out. “We’re just… puppets…”
His grip on my throat weakened. Kian’s forehead creased. There it was, that hesitation again. Kian was in there and he was listening. I just needed him to listen harder.
“Fight!” Jerrick shouted. I only recognized him by the gruffness of his voice and the command the tone held. I didn’t dare break eye contact with Kian to find where he stood, though. The intent was clear enough.
Kian’s grip stayed loosened as he turned his face toward the crowd. “We’re not your entertainment!”
Yes! Kian must have built up an immunity to Demon’s Blood after all. And considering how the last couple times he’d taken it had gone… His eyes still glowed orange, but now he was beginning to stand up and leave me on the ground.
“You are our entertainment tonight, if you want to live,” Jerrick said. The crowd booed again, loud and disappointed. Except it was clear this fight wouldn’t stop unless one of us died. Jerrick’s statement was a farce.
Kian turned and offered me a shaking hand. I took it and he pulled me to my feet almost too aggressively, as if he didn’t have as much control as it seemed.
“No,” Kian said.
Some of the people in the front row,
still above us in the ring of audience seats, stood up and shouted louder. This wasn’t the fight they’d paid for.
The gate I’d entered through opened as Jerrick spoke from above, saying, “Then let’s give you another incentive to fight, shall we?”
A half-dozen Talon soldiers escorted more people through the gate. Krystin, Ben, and Brian all squinted as the lights from above shone down on them. I gulped.
Jerrick was crazy. Certifiably so. And these people followed him? They wanted him to possibly become Emperor of Darkness? There was no way. No way at all Aloysius would be unseated for Jerrick and this insanity.
Ben looked us over as they approached, bound at the wrists. “You okay?”
I nodded, then turned to Kian, who didn’t really respond. No matter what he said, the glowing orange tint to his eyes would speak to a whole other story.
“I’m not going to fight fellow Hunters, you asshole,” Krystin spat in Jerrick’s general direction. “I don’t know what possessed you to think we would.”
You know, Kian’s and my previous occupation notwithstanding, I thought.
If she heard it, Krystin didn’t give me any indication of it.
“Oh, no. You misunderstand me,” Jerrick said as the gate on the other side of the ring lifted up. “You’re not going to be fighting each other. I think we’ve seen how that will go.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched as the referee, who’d been silent and pressed against a wall until now, snuck through the gate the others had just entered through. The crowd’s cheering grew louder, more positive, and that… definitely was not a good sign.
What did they know that we didn’t?
I grabbed Kian’s hand and squeezed it once. He returned with a squeeze of his own. Kian was still there, still working through the Demon’s Blood. As one gate shut, three figures walked through the other. As soon as they stopped inside the ring, the gate was lowered and locked. Each person—demon, most likely—had a cloak over their heads and draped across their shoulders and back, masking their features entirely.
Except for their own glowing eyes.
My heart sank to my stomach. This was the real entertainment. Jerrick wanted us to fight the forced-changed Ember witches. He wanted us to suffer for our decisions not to align with the Neuians.
And suffer we would. For a short time. Until our magik flares took us or, for Kian and Brian, their bodies were burned alive.
“Tonight we demonstrate our strategy to take out all of the Neuians,” Jerrick called into the stands. The crowd quieted down when they realized it was him, reducing their shouts and cheers to nothing more than mild chatter. “With an army, we can take them out of the picture. With an army, Landshaft will no longer have to stand in Darkness’s shadow. Fight!”
The moment the word left his mouth, all three of the force-changed Ember witches lunged for us. Krystin twisted out of the way, raising her bound hands over her head at the same time, and slamming them into the back of one witch’s neck. I grabbed my knife from the ground and ran over to her, undoing her rope binds. Kian did the same, freeing Brian and Ben between dodging swings from the witches. They hadn’t been trained in hand-to-hand combat, that much was obvious. But all they needed was a single touch and we’d all be screwed.
I dropped and swiped my leg out, knocking one of the witches to the ground, but another grabbed me from behind and wrapped an arm around my neck, their hand coming dangerously close to my skin. But then we surged forward a step and the weight was gone.
I glanced behind me to see Brian nod at me and continue on, throwing punches at another one of the witches. Everything went smoothly until a gust of Ember witch ether encircled the entire ring. I gasped, falling back against Kian. If the twisted part that made them volatile was in their blood, would that also transfer to their magik? Mason had burned both his and Jeremiah’s hands to kill him. But I didn’t want to assume anything about these witches. Not anymore.
“Enough!” Ben shouted. “We’re all on the same damn side.”
“Not today, Neuian,” one of the witches yelled as they lifted their palms and sent a ball of glowing red-orange ether flying right at him.
Ben ducked out of the way of the first and narrowly missed the second. And despite the requirem holding his and our magiks at bay, the Neuian eye tattoos lit up. Ben held his ground.
“This is crazy,” Brian said as we fell back into a circle, watching the rest of the ring from every direction with an ally at our backs.
“The Ether Head Circle will send troops here if we die,” Ben said.
“You so sure about that?” Krystin asked. “They’ve been waiting for me to die for years.”
“They have to,” Kian said.
I shook my head but didn’t say anything. No, the Ether Head Circle didn’t need to do anything. We’d come here of our own volition, knowing every single one of the risks. If they sent troops to Landshaft and failed, they’d leave themselves wide open on other fronts.
Besides, I doubted Hydron had enough of those aura-sickness dampening pills at their disposal. And Hydron still didn’t know about the other three Circles.
My stomach churned as the Ember witches closed in. Speaking of the pills, I was pretty sure the dose I’d taken before leaving was starting to wear off. And judging by the paling look on some of the others’ faces, it was probably safe to say that theirs were too. If the pills wore off completely, we’d die. Our souls would collapse under the weight of so many demonic auras.
It was just another one of several obstacles in the way of getting out of Landshaft. But personally, I’d rather die fighting.
“End them!” Jerrick called from the stands, louder than the audience, which had hushed to watch carefully what was about to transpire.
The Ember witches all snarled and leapt forward, magik swirling from each palm. I lifted the knife in my hand, ready to attack, but a glowing white ball of ether forming in the center of the room caught my attention. The air around the ether ball shifted slightly, sort of like what happened when a teleportante was about to appear.
“What the hell?” Brian asked, also watching this. Krystin smiled a little.
In the next breath, two figures emerged from the area: Veres and Shawn, both armed with magik in one hand and a sword in the other. It looked like Veres had borrowed someone’s water-elemental powers, as she had water swirling rapidly around her hand.
What were they going to think when they found out Jeremiah, another water-elemental user, had died here doing this?
“Shawn!” Krystin called out as the gates opened again and Talon soldiers fled in.
Shawn nodded to her and crossed the ring to her side. She grabbed his hand and their bodies began to glow with a faint white ether outline.
Veres crossed to me and grabbed my hand too. I flinched, just for a moment, afraid of what she might be trying to do. She looked up at me with an unspoken question.
Veres wanted to borrow my magik. Well, it wasn’t exactly doing me any good right now. I nodded to her and squeezed her hand and let go of Kian’s.
“Ava?” he asked, but I gestured to Veres right as my body felt even more fatigued than after that last requirem. I swayed where I stood, but Kian caught me in his arms.
“I’ve got you,” he said against my ear as he looked on ahead.
The crowd by now had lifted up from their seats. Cheers and shouting had gone from loud to deafening. A voice—Jerrick’s, I realized belatedly—rose over the din on a loudspeaker.
“Enough!” Jerrick shouted. I glanced around in an attempt to find him and instead found Mason leaning against one of the gate entrances just… watching. A grim look had darkened his features and expression, but he wasn’t saying anything. His gaze found mine and he dipped his head some as though in acknowledgment.
Acknowledgment of what?
Another set of hands took mine and Brian appeared in my view. I looked down to where our fingers interlocked. The sight almost gave me vertigo with recognition.
The others had joined hands too, save for Veres at the end. Veres collected portions of the earth beneath her and lifted them up in a circular barrier around us.
“I said, enough!” Jerrick yelled again, silencing the rest of the crowd right along with us.
“Not tonight,” Veres said. “We’re taking them home.”
“And risking war?” Jerrick asked her before turning to Mason. “Collect your pet.”
“I am no one’s pet,” Veres spat. “I should have killed him when I’d had the chance.” She turned to Mason. “Next time I’ll make sure to remove your head from your body before leaving.”
“You may have to,” Mason said as he pushed off the wall. “Sadly, there will not be a next time.”
“Let’s just go,” Krystin whispered to Shawn. “While they’re distracted.”
Veres snarled. “Not before I level this city to the ground.”
Okay. As much as I knew Krystin hated Landshaft and all that had happened to her—and as much as I was more than sure Veres could destroy a good portion of the city using my magik—wasn’t that sentiment a bit overkill?
“Veres,” I said.
She turned to me. “No. Their reign of horror is over.”
Jerrick chuckled. “Not today it’s not. Soldiers!”
The Ember witches leapt forward along with Talon soldiers. Krystin grabbed hold of Veres at the same time and we clustered together. Before any magik or other attacks hit, we were gone in a single teleportante.
Chapter 16
Veres screamed as soon as we landed back at Fire Circle Headquarters. She rounded on Ben, who’d led the teleportante. “Why did you take us away from Landshaft?”
Ben gave her a hard look. “I’m not in the business of risking an entire party for something like that.”
“For destroying a city of demons and slavers?” Veres hissed and then paced a few steps away. “We had a chance.”