by R. K. Thorne
He stood up. “You take the bed; I’ll take the floor.”
“Not a chance.” She stood up now too. “You’re competing. Fighting. You can’t be all stiff and achy for that.”
“You’re competing too. If you pass out and don’t feed me magic, we’re both screwed.”
“Magic so you can cast what? They smell blackberries, and you’re done for.”
“I thought we’d at least cheat enough to heal me.” He smiled. “Just a little?”
“I think I’m rubbing off on you in all the wrong ways. But cedar is an unusual smell. If I cast the spells, we’ll be in even bigger trouble.”
He grabbed her by her shoulders and marched her to Pyaris’s cot. “Then you can use all your energy to heal my aches and pains in the morning, because you won’t need it for anything else. C’mon now.”
But when he released her, she spun in his arms, catching his elbows before he could quite let them fall.
“Let’s both take the bed.” The words escaped her before she could second-guess them, and she winced.
He shook his head and opened his mouth to say something.
Before he could, she dove. This might be her last shot, for all she knew. On tiptoes, she crushed her mouth to his, looping hands around his neck and pulling him in hungrily.
He gasped and was still as a statue for a moment. And then the tension abruptly eased. He melted into her, his lips giving in to the kiss, teasing her mouth open.
A pounding at the door cut through the silence.
“It’s me! I’m back.”
They broke apart, breathless and wide-eyed.
“That’s Pyaris,” she murmured. “Damn.”
He bent down and pressed one more hard kiss to her mouth, then strode to the door. It left her swaying, and a little dizzy.
But that last one… he’d kissed her of his own accord. She dragged the back of her hand hastily across her mouth.
“Don’t bar that, I’m headed back out again.” Pyaris waltzed in, all smiles. She had the glow of a feast, or wine. Or a lover’s attention. That was nice—even if the lover was Kedwin. “I just forgot the pie. Did you have any?”
Lara shook her head numbly. “We were just finishing up. Everything was delicious. I can’t thank you enough.” Thank the goddesses the words came automatically.
Her friend swept a pie into her arms, beamed at them, and headed back toward the door. “We’re barely started with the festivities—so I’ll see you in the morning. Good night!”
Nyalin replaced the bar on the door with a thud like a mountain crashing down. But he didn’t move. He ran his hands through the air and stared at the closed door for she didn’t know how long.
The air was tense, and thick, and awkward.
“Lara—” he started, finally turning. But he stopped when he saw her face.
“This isn’t just about gratitude,” she whispered. “Can’t I have gratitude and other feelings too?”
He swallowed.
“You’re not just a… convenient coincidence to me. Not just a less bad fate than Andius. Don’t you see that? I could have sworn you felt something too.”
“Tomorrow is coming whether we like it or not. What we feel doesn’t matter.”
“It matters. I’ll make it matter. There has to be a way.”
“That’s not true. Things don’t always work out, just because you work hard or you want them to. There’s not always a way.”
She gritted her teeth at the echo of Da’s words. “Well, there is a way for you to kiss me right now. If you want to.”
“You think that’s going to make it easier for me to watch Andius win tomorrow? To know I can never do it again?” He took a few steps toward her as he spoke, crossing half the distance, then stopped.
“I don’t want it to be easy for you. It shouldn’t be easy. It should be hard, because none of this is fair.”
He was breathing hard. “I…”
“If we can’t work a miracle tomorrow, we lose all this. The days practicing. The evenings. All of it.”
Some of the agitation seemed to drain out of him at that. “I’m going to miss it.”
“Are you giving up? We may lose the war, Nyalin, but we are fighting. We are fighting. That matters.”
“I know.”
“Then don’t give up on me yet.”
“I would never.” He frowned, coming another few steps back to her. “How can you even say that?”
“Because there are only two reasons not to kiss me right now. One is that you don’t want to. The other is that you’ve already given up.”
He flinched. His eyes dimmed with hurt.
She stepped closer to him. Barely a pace apart now.
“Kiss me,” she whispered. “And sleep beside me until sunrise. In case it’s our last chance.”
He took a measured breath. That subtle hurt in his eyes melted into wariness, and then… determination.
She crossed the remaining distance between them. His hand found her hip; he bent his head and closed his eyes. And she raised her lips to his for one last taste of freedom.
Chapter 17
The Wind
“And now we see how the goddesses favor you all.”
Outside of the stadium, Nyalin shifted from foot to foot among the sixteen final contenders. They clumped around the officials of the final phase. Cerivil stood at their center, his expression stern, with several officials including the old woman at his side. She held a simple basket in her weathered hands, a closed sphere with one hole in the top just large enough for a hand to reach in.
Even Nyalin stilled as she raised her chin, preparing to speak. The wind teased at the bottoms of the tan and brown crossovers of those gathered, the only motion in a long tense moment.
“Who asks their fate of the goddesses—” she started.
Andius stepped forward and thrust his hand in before she’d even gotten the words out. He drew out his shard and shot his hand into the air, holding the shard high.
“Eight.”
The old woman held out her hand, but he tossed it on the ground at her feet. Her eagle eyes narrowed as he stalked away. Andius cast a vicious glare at Nyalin too, before striding off.
And what had gotten into his usual charismatic self? The knowledge that there wasn’t a real clanblade waiting at the end of this contest? Or the escape of his prisoners? Even if Andius made a fake sword to spite Lara, that wouldn’t be the same for his magical potential. A fake blade would be dwarfed by the real clanblades of other clan leaders. If he could even make a fake at all.
But he wasn’t going to need to, was he? Because Nyalin was going to win.
He swallowed as the line moved closer to the woman. Another contestant drew a thirteen, then another a seven. Laughter and jeering went up as he and Andius sized each other up with laughing eyes and nods.
The pit of nervousness in Nyalin’s stomach deepened. There was too much knowing in those eyes. Even a few officials seemed to be nodding, too. Maybe it was just encouragement. Maybe something more.
Faytou stepped forward and drew. Two.
Nyalin strode up after him. Might as well get this over with. The inside of the basket scraped his fingers with its rough weave, and he accidentally jammed a bone shard into the tip of his thumb before he got a grip on one and pulled it out.
He blinked at the number painted in russet ink onto the large fragment of bone.
“One,” he said softly.
He glanced at the old woman, who gently took the shard from him as he turned aside—and drifted toward Faytou.
“Looks like it’s you and me, friend.” Faytou’s smile was weak but not forced as he patted Nyalin on the shoulder. “There’s no opponent I’d rather have.”
Nyalin snorted. “That’s kind of you to say. It’s probably because you know you can beat me.”
“I’m trying to be brave. I’ll be going up against an Obsidian, you know, unlike those fools.”
Nyalin scowled but cut it off at t
he glitter of amusement in Faytou’s eyes. “You’re just trying to make me mad, so I’ll get hasty.”
“What other chance do I have to beat an Obsidian-trained swordsman?” Faytou gave him a wink. Hmm, perhaps he was saying that loudly not just to tease Nyalin, but so the other contestants would hear. Whether that was a good or bad strategy, he wasn’t sure.
“I don’t want to fight you at all,” he admitted. “Certainly not first.”
Faytou shrugged. “We’re goddess-chosen to fight. Sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you don’t.”
“Which one is this?”
“I’m not sure.”
The early morning sun wasn’t doing much to fend off the cold, so Unira pulled her cloak a little tighter around her.
Zama, apparently unaffected by anything so mundane, grinned and took a bite of his doughy bread puff. “I had no idea when you called me here I’d be going to sporting events. This is even more fun than I imagined.”
She shrugged. “Just think what the future might hold.” Like the sight of this ridiculous building in ruins.
Drums pounded and sticks clacked, stoking the audience and signaling the start was near. The longing for the fight throbbed around her. For these barbarians, it meant choosing a leader, but to her, the sound was the heartbeat of drums of war. Not so long ago, such energy seethed through every clan, toward each other and toward the Mushin. The energy was so powerful it felt palpable in the air.
The public stadium echoed with hundreds of excited Bone Clan voices, too, but she and Zama sat surrounded by the paid guards of her household. Any minute now, they’d begin.
And the death of Linali’s spawn would be soon to follow. By the hands of her puppets. Or her own, if necessary.
Her sources had searched all last evening, but none of them had been able to track the bastard down, much to her annoyance. Not annoyance—rage.
“Your life is so unpredictable.” Zama popped the last bit of dough in his mouth, a mocking twist to his lips. Did he actually have a stomach to digest any of that or was there just a portal to some other world where chewed bits of dough were popping out and landing on someone’s head? Perhaps a mess for servants in some other realm.
His attention, however, intensified, so she turned her gaze to the sand in the center of the stadium just as the drums came to a halt.
Silence fell. Clan Leader Cerivil stood front and center, and the top sixteen contenders were entering the stadium behind him, walking in pairs.
A speech about the ideal qualities of a clan leader. Yada, yada, kindness, generosity, peacekeeping, blah, blah, blah, wisdom, honor, whatever. Everyone knew this Contest would end in blood. It was the last and final Contest for good reason.
Because all the wise words in the empire wouldn’t change the fact that everything always came down to blood. Who could draw more of it, when, and if they wanted to. In combat, in birth, in death.
Even Cerivil admitted it: “The phase will end when the last contestant remains standing.”
The crowd liked this bit of theatrics and sent up a feisty cheer.
“Contestants driven to the point of exhaustion shall yield and be removed from battle,” Cerivil continued. “Magic is strictly forbidden. Officials will be monitoring for any scents as well as using their Ward spells to be sure none is used. Lastly, all fighters must fight their current opponent until one of them yields before moving on to the next. Initial matchups are goddess-chosen, but after these matches are decided, anyone is free to choose who they will, until we have our winner.”
How cute, they had rules and pathetic attempts to make things fair. Nothing in life was fair.
She scanned for Linali’s whelp. And yes, there he was. He’d been matched with the third-place contender, a young man of barely thirteen. She frowned at such an easy match. Of course he’d get off easy, riding on her reputation.
Goddess-chosen, what a bunch of dragon droppings.
With a crash of the gong, the fighting began. She scanned the other competitors— who would be a challenge and who would fall quickly? Just because they could earn points with magic didn’t mean they knew a sword’s hilt from its point.
“Oh, this should be fun,” Zama murmured. “Look—they must be friends. They don’t want to hurt each other.”
She refocused on the boy. Ah, yes. The two were tentative with each other, slow. The younger man took a chance at a kick as their swords crossed, and they passed each other.
The kick landed with a dozen times more force than he’d applied, and Zama cackled. It connected with the back of Nyalin’s knee and sent him toppling forward with a grunt.
“Oh, good one. Keep it up, my friend.” She took a bite of her own snack, a fluffy strawberry confection.
“Would have been better if I’d gotten it a little sooner. The side of the knee is so much more devastating. But I’m still learning the boy’s timing.”
The young man hung back even more now, but he had to fight. His next swing got lucky and hit his opponent’s sword squarely when it would usually have missed.
Nyalin easily deflected it but clutched at his arm.
“What did you do?”
“Only gave that strike the force of a boulder smashing, that’s all.”
“Ahh.”
This repeated several more times, with high lunges and dives followed by crushing blows. And then suddenly—the blows seemed to stop.
Zama frowned.
“What’s wrong?” she hissed, fighting a shout. “Why did you stop? Break his arms!”
“I didn’t stop. Someone is pushing back. Someone other than him.”
“You mean someone is defending him?” she growled. She scanned the stadium, before stopping, realizing that was far too obvious. Perhaps her instincts weren’t so paranoid after all.
Zama began to vary his attacks, and Unira watched in horror as only some of them got through.
Linali’s spawn still took a beating, but he kept his moves measured, controlled, his passion low. Confusion creased both fighters’ features.
Hah. Let them wonder.
Zama, always one to push a boundary, steered the young man’s next opportunistic kick off-center a bit—straight into Nyalin’s kidney.
Unira could barely contain her giggles. “The neck! Go for the neck! And stick to the blade. You’ll never kill him this way.”
A few people nearby sent her frowning glances. She rolled her eyes. As if they could prove anything. The demon’s magic had no scent unless he wished it to, and it wasn’t Unira doing a bit of it. They’d have to assume she was cheering for the little underdog.
Zama ignored the onlookers and shrugged. “The young one is cautious, even more so now. We must bide our time for the right opponent.”
Unira nodded her agreement. But then her eyes caught on a few of the details of the boy’s sword. The engraved inlay. The glistening red scabbard.
How by Seluvae’s dark hand did that boy have Linali’s sword? Where had he hidden it all these years?
She stood straight up. Something about the motion or perhaps her intensity drew the boy’s gaze, and for a moment their eyes locked. He scowled at her.
She forced herself to sit and gritted her teeth. Today she would destroy that pup once and for all. And she even knew what to get as a memento.
Nyalin wasn’t sure what it was about the woman who stood so abruptly in the stands that caught his eye. But for a moment, the fight froze in time, and he’d only seen her.
It’d been barely a moment, strange and cold, and then she sank back into her seat. Even now, though, he could still feel her dark eyes scowling at him.
The crash of Faytou’s sword against his broke his gaze.
He staggered back. But there was a darkness there almost blocking out his vision—in the corner of the stadium and the corner of his mind. He couldn’t blot it out. He glanced back again.
She had black hair that cut off sharply at her chin. Her gown was clearly the finest black silk, adorned in a fili
gree of silver. An Obsidian? Not someone he recognized, which seemed a little odd, as anyone of import had usually visited Elix’s house enough for Nyalin to catch a glance.
And there was someone beside her… His gaze darted to the stands again. Silver eyes caught Nyalin’s and bored in like a thunderstorm rolling at him, a wave tumbling him over, dragging him down into the sea—
The next crash of the sword came even harder, and much faster, and Nyalin realized why. From Faytou’s eyes, he was realizing it too.
“What is going on?” Faytou whispered. “Who… Why?”
Nyalin shook his head minutely before he lunged, then retreated. “I think we know why.”
Nyalin furiously parried a series of blows, dancing back. Panting, he twisted and swung wide now. The slice went horribly astray, almost as if knocked aside in midair.
Faytou spun too and pushed him back with a marvelous lunge. By the Twins. If only Lara weren’t at stake, he might even wish for Faytou to win. The kid was very good. At best, they were equals, and Faytou was five years his junior.
Some of those feelings were chased away by the next unnaturally heavy blow that left only aching joints behind. He clutched at his shoulder with a growl. He wouldn’t last, if this kept up at this rate. Meanwhile, Faytou’s face had gone pale with horror—and a little rage.
“Goddess-chosen,” he was murmuring, mostly to himself. “How dare they. And how…”
His arm flooded with warmth.
That’s my doing, murmured Yeska. No scent to dragon magic, you know. Although sometimes I like to add in a little cinnamon, just for fun.
A little busy here, Yeska.
Someone is cheating. Or should I say some thing? Whoever or whatever, they have no scent.
Faytou returned with an unusually timid thrust, and after knocking it aside, Nyalin risked a glance at Andius. He looked just in time to see that Andius had defeated his man. The man, who hadn’t bowed out as quickly as Nyalin had worried he would, was sprawled unconscious in the sand.
So much for yielding. At least he didn’t see any blood.