by K. F. Breene
“I had nothing of value to add.” He slung his crossbody satchel over his shoulder and affixed his suit button.
Kieran nodded to Demigod Flora, the Demigod he’d beaten to secure Dylan, and received a slight bow in return. He was too tired to care about how good that looked.
Demigod Lydia slipped by, her head down and her hair covering the scars still evident on her face. She wove between the other leaders without acknowledging anyone.
She is beat. She’ll be useless within a decade.
Kieran let his father’s voice slide right by. It had come much less frequently today than last night as Kieran got more acquainted with his role here.
He turned his head away to ignore Lydia. At the edge of his vision he glimpsed a somewhat glimmering, hazy area. It almost looked like Zorn’s gaseous form.
Kieran squinted, trying to peer past the throng of leaders to get another glance. It wasn’t Zorn, he knew, who was downstairs somewhere, clustered with Lexi and the others, but Kieran could’ve sworn it was the same magical look as his friend’s gas form. Something rarely seen this side of the fae border. But when the throng of people opened up again, allowing him to see better, nothing was there. His mind was clearly playing tricks. Not surprising, given how mentally exhausted he was.
Lexi’s momentary worry last night drifted into his mind. Frowning, he moved to see one last time. It was no use, though. Not to mention Lexi could still feel Zorn’s soul in his gaseous form. The two issues couldn’t be connected. Right?
He turned his attention back to Dara, somewhat surprised she was heading to lunch with him instead of her other friends. He was thankful, though. As far as status went, he knew where he should be—on the outskirts with almost zero pull—but that didn’t fit the way he’d been acknowledged by the big players. He had the feeling no one knew what to do with him, and so he’d take his cues from Dara.
Take every advantage you can. Climb every stair offered, no matter how distasteful, until you make it to the top. Once you are powerful, you can avenge any wrongs dealt you during your rise.
His father had never put much stock in morals.
“It’s a good sign…that you kept quiet when you didn’t have anything to say. A lot of newbies aren’t so wise.” Dara glanced at him. “I may not like the parts of you that are so…heavily trained, but I trust this man beside me. I trust that I can speak to him about my concerns, and he will hear me. I trust the leader that garners such loyalty from his inner circle. Everything else is details. I think aligning with you will help me the most. I feel it in my gut.”
“Ah. Now we come to the crux of the situation.”
“Yep. You didn’t think I was doing this for you, did you?”
He chuckled as she led the way into another room—a dining area set up for lunch. Dozens of single-occupant tables were arranged in tiers so as to give everyone a view of the open-air courtyard down below.
The courtyard was as fastidiously maintained as the gardens outside, and it had clearly been designed to provide ammunition for various magics, from the vines climbing the back wall to the deep pool of water in the corner, surrounded by rocks and metallic objects.
Red splotches marred the gray gravel path running through the space.
It was then he noticed the woman pulling herself along the floor, her right arm not working, her leg mangled. A thick line of crimson trailed in her wake.
No one reacted or moved to help her.
Kieran’s stomach flipped over. The leaders would enjoy their lunches while watching various teams battle for dominance. There was very little chance anyone would die under their watchful eyes, but seeing that badly wounded woman pull herself along did something to him.
“You okay?” Dara sat at one of the tables, three rows from the lip of the balcony.
He hesitated next to the individual table beside her. He might’ve gotten a few nods and a couple of glances from the big dogs, but this was way, way above his position. Dara might be a level five, but she was respected. She had history here. No way should he be allowed to sit next to her. He’d said barely a dozen sentences all morning, choosing instead to try to take in all the incredible nuances of the problems being discussed. He certainly hadn’t given anyone cause to believe in his political future. Nothing so far should’ve elevated him this high. Nothing.
Take the seat, his father’s voice shouted.
“You’re okay there,” Dara said quietly, looking straight ahead.
Kieran’s heart hammered, as though someone might forcefully remove him at any moment. “But…”
Magnus trod down the steps at the side of the room, heading toward the front row. He glanced up as he passed, taking in Kieran’s hesitation. His nod was so slight that Kieran wasn’t sure it was meant for him.
“Sit,” Dara said through clenched teeth.
Not wanting to lose the opportunity, he lowered as quickly as he could, fighting the desire to wipe the nervous sweat from his brow.
“I shouldn’t be here,” he whispered as Demigod Larigold, as regal as they came, made her way to the front row.
“Honestly, Kieran, no one knows where you fit.” Dara took a menu from the waiter who’d stopped in front of her. Kieran took one next. Demigod Phyllis sat at the table next to him, her jowls shaking as she got settled. She smiled in greeting at him and took her own menu. If she thought he didn’t belong, she gave no sign of it.
Below, the woman in the courtyard still pulled herself along, the trail of blood seeming unnaturally bright.
Before Lexi, he would have barely noticed that woman. He wouldn’t have had the urge to send someone to help her, or to lift her up and take her to get care. He would’ve only taken note that she’d lost her battle.
As a young playboy with no thought of a political future, he’d traveled the globe and visited many in the magical community. Battles like this, on a much smaller scale, were used for entertainment. Often the combatants were poor and unimportant, chosen for their desperation and for the fact that no one would miss them if they didn’t make it out alive.
Now all he could think about was how unnecessary this was, leaving that woman to fend for herself. How brutal and twisted. Didn’t her team want to help her? The woman was already beaten, so why demoralize her as well? It wouldn’t make her better—it would only make her bitter, fearful of messing up, and more prone to snap. It would drag the team down as a whole.
He’d never realized the degree to which Lexi had changed him until this moment. He’d never been more thankful.
“Kieran?”
It took him a moment to realize Dara was still talking to him.
“Sorry, excuse me, what was that?” He leaned back, forcing himself to relax.
“I was saying, you’ve already earned your stripes and then some. You haven’t even held your territory for a year and you’ve already improved it. Valens was known as one of the best businessmen around. For you to improve upon a thriving territory is pretty spectacular. That alone is blowing people away. You also turned a sticky situation with Magnus into…whatever is going on now. Did I hear right, he wants to have a father-daughter dinner? What happened to killing all his kids?” She shook her head when he didn’t answer. “You’re not following the norms, and you’re not shy about using your power and might. It’s exhilarating to watch, and so far it’s worked for you, but I think everyone is kinda holding their breath for you to mess up, you know?”
“Basically, I am walking on a dagger’s edge, and if I misstep, I’ll cut my nuts off.”
She laughed and leaned back so a younger guy with a tray of water could place a glass before her. “It won’t be you doing the slicing, but yes, basically.”
“What in the ever-loving fuck?”
It took Kieran a moment to recognize that voice. It took him another moment to clue into Lexi’s proximity. His mind had been spinning from the overload of information this morning, and since he’d only felt mild anxiety through the link, he’d let her drift to the back of his mind.
<
br /> Now, she came roaring back, front and center.
“What is she doing here?” he asked, sitting up as straight as he could so as to see down onto the battlefield floor.
“Apparently someone thought she’d be good entertainment for us today.” Dara gave him a grim look. “She has a blood offering, right? She will heal?”
“Yes—”
“Who does this woman belong to?” Lexi strutted out into the center of the open space, stopping beside the woman dragging herself along. Her face showed all the disappointment and annoyance she usually reserved for Daisy and Mordecai when they were caught doing something wrong.
Zander, walking down the side of the room with Juri on his arm, flinched at the outburst. Magnus turned in his seat, just barely, and glanced back at Kieran. That look was clear—Kieran was doing a piss-poor job of teaching Lexi to color inside the lines.
Right then, Kieran was feeling the press of that dagger’s edge beneath his feet.
9
Alexis
“Leave her be,” Zorn said in a low tone, standing off to the side with everyone else. The wounded woman was the only one on the battlefield, left there by her teammates.
I breathed slowly through my nose, trying to calm down.
So far, everything had seemed very organized inside the Summit building. A staff person had greeted us at the door and asked us to sign in so we could battle other teams in the few spacious courtyards. Upon learning who we were, he had looked us over, counted us up, and shepherded us off. The situation had seemed so mundane, so practiced, that I’d forgotten what sort of world I now lived in.
Three teams of people waited off to the side of the courtyard—our crew and our soon-to-be opponents, fresh and ready to do battle, plus this poor woman’s team. The others were bleeding and broken, too, but none of them had suffered as much damage.
Not a soul seemed to give a damn about her. It was the scene in the garden all over again, only this time no one had run away in fear—this time, they were watching the show.
What was with these magical people? There they waited, strong enough to carry their teammate but hanging out off to the side so she could drag herself off the battlefield.
Fire rose through my middle. Why would they want to demoralize a teammate? What possible good could come of it? I couldn’t imagine leaving Bria to drag herself away like this. Or Boman or Thane, or any of them. It was bullshit.
I rounded on her teammates. “Why don’t you help her?”
A man with a face like the bottom of a shoe after it stepped in dog poop sneered at me. “What business is it of yours?”
“Don’t you give a shit about her?” I demanded.
“She’s learning what it’s like to lose,” the man said, lacking an ounce of sympathy.
“No, what she’s learning is that she’s on her own. Do you know what that means?” I paused for a moment, this close to gripping his soul and forcing him to his knees. When he stared at me silently, arrogantly, humoring me, I continued. “It means your team won’t be a team at all—it’ll be a collection of individuals. When it comes to survival, each individual will only look out for number one. If that means another teammate goes down, well, at least it wasn’t them, huh? At least they weren’t the ones dragging their bleeding asses across the gravel.” I pointed down at her. “This makes you weak. All of you. This is a stupid and despicable thing for a team leader to allow. Are you that team leader?”
He continued to stare, looking at me like I was nothing.
Anger turned my vision red. The cats came to sit by my side. Laughter bubbled up, the situation so absurd I was momentarily at a loss for words.
“You’re a fool,” I spat out. “She’s not the only one who lost the practice fight. All of you did, you dumb shit. If we take care of our team today, they will take care of us tomorrow.” I shook my head. “I’d offer to find you in the halls to teach you a lesson—make you drag your stupid ass around— but none of you are up to it, clearly. If you ever want someone to ring your bell, though”—I spread my hands wide—“I volunteer.”
I sighed and looked down at the woman, her face incredibly pale. She’d lost a lot of blood.
“Jerry, help me,” I said. “She’s enormous.”
The woman lifted her bleary eyes to me, but she didn’t say anything. In her weakened state, it looked like it took everything she had not to pass out.
Jerry strutted out, all shoulder and brawn. When he met me beside the woman, his hard mask dissolved into one of sympathy. He helped me gently hoist her up, taking care not to touch her ripped-up limbs, and carried her to the side.
Absolute silence rang through the large area as I returned to the middle of the space, ready for battle. I was fired up now. I was ready to bust some heads. This place was ridiculous, the setup shameful, and now I wanted to let off some steam.
It took me a long moment to realize we had an audience. They’d been there the whole time, and I’d been so focused on all that blood, and all that pain, that I hadn’t noticed.
It took me another moment to realize Kieran was in that crowd, looking down on me with pride swelling through the link. Magnus was there, too, his mouth a thin line of disapproval.
I stared at Magnus for a moment, not backing down. If he considered doing the right thing weak or out of character for a magical person, then we’d just have to agree to disagree. Or, hell, maybe we could get in a loud, drunken argument at a holiday dinner. That would make us family if nothing else could.
“Now that you’re done making a show of yourself, can we get started?” Zorn asked as he stalked into what I now thought of as an arena.
I motioned for Daisy and Mordecai to get out of the space as Bria wheeled in her bodies and unstrung her backpack.
“They must participate,” the man with the clipboard said as the opposing team spread out along the sides of the arena, one hunkering in a solitary bush.
“They are teenagers and one doesn’t have a blood bond or any magic. They were not signed up. They will wait outside,” I said.
The man looked at me steadily, almost bored. “They entered the room, and so they will participate.”
“Door is still open. Daisy, Mordecai, get out of here!” I hollered.
The man turned, walked out the door, and shut it behind him before the kids had moved a muscle. The lock clicked over.
I started laughing, near tears. The Demigods looked down with flat faces, not an ounce of emotion between them, Zander’s wife among them. Apparently, her love was just for her husband.
“Do none of you have children?” I demanded, looking up. “This seems legit to you?”
“It’s fine, Lexi, we got this.” Dylan took my arm. “Don’t beseech the Demigods—they’re as far removed from decency as a pack of people can get. We can handle this on our own. No one will touch the kids, I swear it.” He turned me away, and I felt the turmoil within Kieran. Given he wasn’t saying anything, I shoved our connection to the back of my mind. He was no help to me, clearly. “You can drop everyone to their knees, and I can fry them. Nothing to it.”
“Mordecai has the blood offering so keep Daisy in the middle,” Donovan said, jogging to her far side. Jerry stepped to her other side, and the ground beneath us rumbled. “Lexi, in back. You’ll end it too quickly. Let’s have a little sport. These very important people want a show.”
“Do we want animated cadavers, or no?” Bria asked, kneeling beside her open backpack.
Rather than wait for Bria’s magic, slower and clunkier than mine, I reached for the spirits I trusted, pulling Jack to me first, then John, Chad, and Mia. I stuffed them into bodies and started them out of the cart. Then I grabbed some of the other spirits who hung around our house, crazy ones driven mad by Valens’s imprisonment, and gave them body suits. I even grabbed Frank, just because he could throw a wrench in anyone’s plans. I wanted them all running around, causing a ruckus.
As my team fanned out around a very annoyed Daisy, who did not
want to be protected, I walked to the side, in full view of the Demigods.
Nervous anticipation bubbled through my middle and set loose butterflies in my stomach, a feeling I always got before everything went haywire. Now was a great time for it. If these people wanted a show, I would damn sure give them one.
“We ready?” I asked my team as our opponents braced themselves, their eyes tracking the newly animated bodies. They’d clearly never seen a Necromancer get to work so quickly.
“Lexi, what’s going on? Where am I?” Jack said, jerking and rocking, trying to get a lock on his new digs.
“Alexis Price, I was having a nice little day there, looking at the ocean. Why am I in a dead man’s skin suit?” Frank hollered.
John and Chad stood mostly still behind Jack, having much more experience. Mia hung back, watching the enemy. She didn’t need her legs; she had her magic to transport her from point A to point B.
“Great googly moogly, who’d you stuff in those?” Bria asked as I marched the crazier spirits off to the side, jerking and screaming and trying to beat on the walls, themselves, or each other. Only I could hear the screaming, since they were spirits and their dead bodies didn’t have working voice boxes, but their movements sold the effect.
“A few who will provide great distraction,” I said. “What do we do now, wait for a whistle?”
“I don’t want any part of this,” Frank grumbled. “How do I get out of this thing?”
“We raise hell,” Thane said, standing in the back with his arms crossed, as calm as could be. He wouldn’t be going full Berserk, I had faith in that. He knew better than to turn when we were trapped with him.
“Okay, then,” I said, raising my voice. “Take ’em down!”
I set the bodies loose, and they sprinted forward, or to the side, or jumped around and waved their arms.
“Where’s Kieran?” Jack asked, not going active yet. He clearly hadn’t looked up.
I shoved him at the enemies behind Chad and John, who’d already started to run forward. “Give ’em hell, Jack!”