Kerrigan’s face was almost unidentifiable the next morning.
Even Theo did a double take when he saw her at dawn. She didn’t blame him or anyone for the looks. Her face was puffy, and she had two black eyes from her broken nose, which likely needed to be reset. Her neck and chest were still covered in blood. She was a fast healer, always had been. Even still, she looked like a mess.
“What the hell happened to you?” Theo asked while they waited for Constantine to show.
“You should see the other guy.”
It was a somber statement. Not a boastful one.
Constantine strode out of the front door in blue Andine silk. His dark hair was pulled back off of his face, and he wore a determined expression. Evander followed on his heels, but there was no sign of Danae.
“Myron is dead,” he announced without ceremony.
The gladiators were battle-toughened enough not to make a sound. They just glanced between each other. Theo caught her blackened eyes. Then, he glanced down at her ravaged neck and chest. His eyes widened as he pieced together what must have happened.
“He dishonored himself, and no rights will be held.”
Expressions were grim at that. But he had tried to kill her after all. In cold blood. For the slight of her taking his place.
“To the coliseum. Form up.”
Kerrigan fell into step beside Evander, but neither spoke a word. Constantine took the helm and guided them like a marching army through the already-bustling streets of Carithian. The excitement around the main event was contagious. People were hustling to get their work done early enough to still make the fights. They passed the crush of people hoping to get better seats by coming early and entered the coliseum through a side door. Constantine sent his men to their reserved seats with a warning to Evander to mind their behavior.
A Domaran woman with dark hair and a curvy figure bowed slightly at their approach. “This way.”
Constantine and Kerrigan followed her beneath the coliseum to a waiting area with separate rooms for each of the competitors. They saw no one as they entered their room. The space was barely bigger than a cell with a jug of wine and some cheese and bread on a platter.
Kerrigan released a breath as she sat down in an empty chair. “What now?”
“Now, we wait.”
She didn’t bother asking for how long. Constantine wasn’t in the sharing kind of mood. And truthfully, she wasn’t either. She was both jittery and exhausted. Not a good combination when going into a life-threatening match. So, Kerrigan decided to burn off some of that energy by warming her muscles up. She couldn’t sit around and psyche herself out.
Evander had sketched out the way the tournament was set up. They’d ended up with sixteen competitors in the final, after four more had dropped out, and split them into two brackets. Eight opponents on one side and eight on the other. She was in the first bracket, which meant four matches today for her side and four matches tomorrow for the other side. Then two matches a day for each side of the bracket. A semi-final fight for the winner of each side of the bracket. Then, the winners of each side would compete against each other in a fight to the death.
No names had been announced. She had no idea who her competition could be. At least after she won the first round, they could watch whoever was left and get information about who she was up against. Evander was taking notes in the crowd about each person for them to go over when she got back to the estate.
Just as she’d begun to work up a sweat, the same woman appeared in their room.
“Time for us already?” Constantine asked in disbelief.
“No,” she said with a head nod in his direction. “An audience has been requested with the competitor, Red.”
“An audience?” Constantine arched an eyebrow. “With whom?”
“Doma Vulsan.”
Constantine blinked. Kerrigan shivered. Well, that wasn’t good.
“The Doma wants to meet her?” Constantine asked.
“An audience has been requested. We should be quick. He does not like to be kept waiting.”
Constantine exchanged a look with Kerrigan. She wanted to say no. He must have seen it on her face, but there was no possible way that she could do that. Vulsan would kill her for her audacity at denying him. He might kill her anyway if he found out who she was. Scales.
“This way,” the woman said demurely.
They had no choice but to follow her back out of the holding quarters and into the coliseum above. Up and up and up. Until they were past the cheering crowds watching the lower fights before the main event. They climbed until reaching a row of boxes inset into the otherwise free-for-all stands. These boxes were reserved, and in them sat people of importance. Kerrigan recognized Senator Augustan and his wife, Iris, in one of them. To her surprise, Tarcus was seated with his wife and an older gentleman who must have been his father.
At the sight of her bruised and bloodied face, Tarcus’s eyes rounded in horror. He came to his feet suddenly, jarring his wife’s drink and sending the red wine splashing against her white dress. She jerked back in outrage, and her servants rushed to help clean up the mess. But Tarcus’s eyes were only for Kerrigan. She couldn’t help it. She smirked in his direction before disappearing out of view.
Then, they were before the box for Doma Vulsan Andromadix. Power radiated off of him before they were even allowed inside. To say it was overwhelming would be an understatement. It was as if she were standing before the sun and hoping not to be burned. He was a fireball of energy. The power he possessed nearly brought her to her knees.
Not to make the same mistake twice, Kerrigan dropped to a knee in his presence and felt his gaze drift over her disfigured face. Constantine was at her side, bowing to his conqueror.
The fury rose up in her. How could anyone go up against the likes of the Doma if just one of them had this much power? The Andines had never stood a chance.
“Rise,” Vulsan said with an almost-bored voice.
She came slowly to her feet and got her first up-close look at him. He had fair skin, but there was nearly a glow to it. An energy that made him special. That revealed his rank. His hair was dark and close-cropped with just a hint of curl at the temples, and he had eyes so blue that she could have dived into their oceanic depths. His jaw was square, his nose pointed, and his cheekbones high. In the white toga, embroidered with Doma gold at the edges, his muscular physique was plainly on display.
A handful of servants fanned him with big, broad woven fans. Trays of food and wine were displayed all around him. A man took a bite of everything before it made it to Vulsan’s plate. A taster. A half-dozen beautiful women in nearly sheer Domaran dresses were splayed around him. One was even lying across his lap with her butt in the air. His hand gently stroked the woman’s exposed rear.
Kerrigan could barely keep the disgust off of her face. This man knew vice and reveled in it.
“So,” Vulsan said, “you’re not a Doma.”
She didn’t know if she should speak. So, she remained silent.
He laughed, and it was a boastful, hearty thing. As if the idea had always been outrageous to him. “And they called you a Doma. Look at you.” She didn’t have to look down to know what he saw. “Did you tell them that you were a Doma?”
This was a direct question, and he finally looked into her emerald eyes when he asked it.
“No, sir,” she answered.
“I thought when I saw you on the street …” He trailed off at that. As if admitting that he remembered her from the street was some sort of weakness. But it was hardly that. She had felt the terrible, inexplicable connection when his eyes settled onto her. Not that he’d recognized her. She’d be dead if he had. Still, it wasn’t something she could explain. She’d known him for who he was. Perhaps he’d known her for who she was as well. Denied it to himself somehow. And it’d all led to this moment.
“But you’re not one of us.”
“No, sir,” she repeated.
He stripped her bare with a look. As if he was attempting to sus out exactly what it was about her that intrigued him. Because despite his bored demeanor, he was intrigued. That was a problem in itself.
“That was my fault.” Constantine spoke up.
Vulsan snapped his head away from Kerrigan to Constantine.
What was he doing? Taking the heat off of her and drawing a Doma’s attention to him. Was he insane?
“Explain.”
“I knew she was not a Doma. I thought it would up the hype around her. She is such a small thing. The crowd needed something to latch on to. And the Doma … excellence was but fuel to a fire.” The way he said excellence was almost deferential, but not quite.
“And who are you?” Vulsan asked.
“General Constantine Pallas of Leon.”
Vulsan raised an eyebrow. “Leon.” His eyes flicked down Constantine’s front before a slow, cruel smile teased on his lips. “Oh, I remember you. The kurios.”
Constantine stiffened at that word out of Vulsan’s mouth. “Just a general now.”
“And your wife. I remember her.”
It was a testament to Constantine’s restraint that he didn’t punch Vulsan in his stupid mouth.
“How you have raised yourself up,” Vulsan said. “Interesting.”
He did not say it as if it were interesting. It was a mental note to ruin Constantine’s life. Kerrigan had no idea why he had stuck his neck out for her.
“You are dismissed.” His eyes snapped back to Kerrigan, and he grinned. “Good luck.”
Kerrigan bowed again and then followed Constantine out of the box. Her heart was racing from the interaction, but she was glad that it was over. Glad that she had survived her interaction with him. And strangely, that Myron had beaten the shit out of her last night. She didn’t think that Vulsan would have dismissed her if she had been whole. The black eyes and blood were as much a disguise against his scrutiny as anything she could have done herself.
Once they were free of the inspection from the wealthy boxes, she released a deeply held breath and clutched on to the side of the coliseum.
“Constantine,” she gasped.
“I know.” He crossed his arms over his chest and tilted his head back to the sky above. “That has never happened before.”
“Why did you stick your neck out for me?”
“Because I know exactly what Doma do when they’re interested in something.” He met her gaze. “I wasn’t going to have him take you away. I won’t let that happen again.”
She swallowed. “Thank you.”
“I should have done more a long time ago.” His words were weighted with more than a decade of sorrow.
Her time with Constantine had been a series of ups and downs, but she understood him in that moment. It was hard to blame him when he was just trying to survive.
“Come on,” Constantine said. “They should be announcing the fights any minute.”
They turned to go, and then a woman’s voice called out, “Wait.”
Kerrigan turned in confusion. Did Vulsan want to see them again? She sure hoped not.
Instead, the woman appeared, and Kerrigan thought she might pass out from shock. The spirit teacher who Kerrigan had crossed the spirit plane with, who lived in another world entirely, stood before her.
“Cleora?” she gasped.
“Kerrigan!”
And to Kerrigan’s surprise, the impossibly tall woman enveloped her in a full-body hug. “You’re alive.”
Constantine looked on in confusion as Kerrigan patted the woman’s back. “I’m alive.”
“You didn’t make our last meeting.” She held Kerrigan at arm’s length. “What are you doing in Domara?”
“It’s sort of a long story.”
“You should be on the other side of the dimension. We should be meeting for our monthly meetings. I don’t understand.”
Cleora, who had always been patient but stern and maybe a little condescending because of her brilliance, now seemed utterly flummoxed. Her white-blonde hair had been pulled back into an intricate design and gone was her teaching attire. Instead, she wore the white and gold-trimmed toga that Kerrigan had come to associate with the Doma.
Kerrigan understood at once. “You … you serve him?”
Cleora swallowed. “I do. I hoped for you to never know what that meant.”
“But how? You’re a professor at the university.”
“Yes. Well, I don’t know how long you have been in Domara, but very few people belong wholly to themselves. My position at the university is a commission given by the Doma, and I serve at their leisure.”
Kerrigan was horrified. Was anyone in this world free? “I’m so sorry.”
Constantine cleared his throat. “Not to interrupt, but we must get going.”
Cleora straightened. “No, you have to drop out of the tournament.”
“I can’t.”
“It’s not what you think. It’s not …” She vibrated with frustration. “You don’t understand Vulsan. He’ll want you dead just for suggesting you could be a Doma.”
“But I didn’t say that I was.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she admitted. “Use your magic. Enter the spirit plane. Get out of here. Find a way out.”
Kerrigan swallowed. “I … I don’t have any magic anymore.”
Cleora blinked at her. “No, but … how?”
“We don’t have time for this,” Constantine said. “I don’t know how you know Kerrigan, and I’m sure you’re only trying to protect her, but she is going to win this tournament.”
“Who will her debt transfer to?” Cleora asked without guile.
Constantine clenched his jaw. “That is the way of the world.”
A boom came from the audience, and cheers went up.
Cleora looked back the way she had come with open fright. “I have to go. He won’t accept my absence for long. You are certain on this path for yourself? You could still back out. I would help you in any way that I can.”
“I have found that no one in this world can do much to help any other,” Kerrigan admitted sadly. “I have to do this.”
“I see you are set in your ways.” Cleora sighed. “Well, if you win, will you be at the celebratory party? We must speak more.”
Kerrigan looked to Constantine, and he nodded. “I’ll be there.”
Cleora squeezed her hand. “Don’t die.”
“I don’t intend to.”
Then, Cleora was dashing back to Vulsan’s side. Something that made sense after every other interaction they had ever had. Cleora had seemed scared and bullied far too much for Kerrigan’s liking but had never revealed the reason behind it. Now, Kerrigan understood.
“I don’t know how you know a professor who works for the Doma,” Constantine said with a querying side-eye. “You are full of surprises.”
“It’s another long story.”
How to explain the spirit plane, crossing dimensions upon it, and Kerrigan’s desperate need for a spirit teacher, allowing her to meet Cleora just when she’d needed her?
“They all are with you.” Constantine gestured to the stairs. “Let’s win this and give you another story.”
“With pleasure.”