Kerrigan was first.
Constantine grinned like a kid opening presents on Geivhrea. “Good.”
“How is this good?”
She stood at the threshold of the arena. She was warm. A sword was in her hand, perfectly balanced to her build. She was ready to get this over with, but she couldn’t see how going first was a tactical advantage.
“In the past, they have lined up the fights based on who they believe will give the audience the best show. The later fights are the highest attended.”
“So, they think I’m going to lose easy.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “And they’re going to be wrong.”
“Which means I need to put on a show.”
“That would be in your favor.”
She swung her sword lazily in her hand, just keeping her body ready. “I’ll see what I can do.”
They would underestimate her for all the reasons she had always been underestimated. But she only had one shot at this. After today, they would know she wasn’t to be trifled with.
A voice in the arena had been speaking for several minutes, and he boomed, “The moment you have all been waiting for!” The crowd cheered in response. “Our first competitor for your enjoyment is a Fae-touched princess from lands unknown.”
Kerrigan whipped her head at Constantine.
He shrugged. “I didn’t tell them anything. It’s all part of the spectacle.”
“This beauty is a newcomer to the tournament circuit. A rare gem in a sea of men. And … a Doma no less.”
The crowd gasped. She couldn’t see out to the stands, but it sounded like thousands of people had gotten to their feet and were stomping against the ground.
“You’ll find out for yourself today!” the man roared exaggeratedly over the sound. “Your first competitor, Red!”
The grate pulled upward on a pulley, giving her an unfettered view of the arena center.
“Good luck,” Constantine said.
She saw the fear in his eyes. She smirked. “I’m not going to lose. I had a good teacher.”
“You’d better not. I was just starting to like you.”
She laughed and swung her sword one more time. “The feeling’s mutual.”
Kerrigan stepped into the sand to a roar of applause. A chant began. Not her name. She was used to hearing Red on repeat in the Dragon Ring. It was one of the reasons that she had picked it.
Instead, the stands were yelling, “Doma!” over and over again.
Could be worse. Vulsan wasn’t pleased by her using the term, but he’d dismissed her as not a Doma within seconds. The announcer might be in trouble, but right now, Kerrigan had other problems to deal with.
The arena felt immensely bigger than it had when she looked on it from above. And she would have the entire thing to herself with her competitor. Whoever he was. The announcer was waiting for the cheers to die down before moving on to the man who would face her from the other side of the arena.
Her heart raced as she took in the thousands of people looking down at her. She could pick out the boxes that she’d been to earlier in the day, but that was about it. All the faces blurred together. She wouldn’t have been able to pick out Evander even if she’d tried. She turned her attention away from them and focused on what she had. The pit was empty. The dividers that had kept the lower fights separate had been removed. She had been permitted one sword, but no shield, which was probably for the better. The only shield she had ever trained with was a magical one. She never would have managed it within the week. It would have just dragged her down.
Kerrigan had been so focused to the plane around her, figuring out any tactical advantage that she could, that she hadn’t been listening to the announcer until he said, “Allow me to introduce last year’s champion, Marcellius!”
Last year’s champion.
Kerrigan flinched at that, even as she dug her feet in and prepared for her opponent. Constantine had told her that she was fighting Ciseron—a giant of a man, but nothing spectacular. It was who he had expected her to compete against. He’d even gone into the specifics of what he knew of the man. Long reach, slow to charge, excellent swordsman, partially deaf in his left ear. She’d had a plan.
And now, it was shot to shit.
Marcellius barreled out of the opposite side of the arena to a round of glowing adoration. His name was praised from the stands. He raised his arms in the air. He clearly had their favor. It made no sense that he had been paired against her. He should be in a fight of his own, where he could put on a better show. They should have expected the Fae-touched princess, who was stupid enough to claim Doma status in a non-magical fight, would not survive against a grunt, let alone a show against their previous winner.
Kerrigan glanced back at Constantine, but the grate was closed. She couldn’t see him, and she didn’t know what advice he would give her even if he could. Marcellius was a champion. She knew what she would have to endure to beat him.
“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” Marcellius asked when he caught sight of her. “I was told that I’d be fighting a Doma, not a little girl.”
The crowd laughed at his jeer.
Kerrigan let her sword hang lazily at her side. “Is that the best you can do? A little girl?”
He grinned at her. He was Domaran with coppery-tanned skin and dark hair to his shoulders, which he’d left unbound. Kerrigan had braided up the sides of her red curls and tied it back off of her face with a cord. She’d had one too many fights where her hair was a factor to let it all run wild.
“You’re about to see the best that I can do.”
“Oh, I’m looking forward to it.” Kerrigan winked at him and raised her hand in a beckoning gesture. “Come fight the little girl, you big, strong man.”
She’d turned the tables on him, and now, the crowd was laughing with her rather than at her. Marcellius felt the air shift and narrowed his dark eyes.
“I’ll make this quick,” he growled, then dashed toward her.
Her eyes tracked his movements, looking for any weaknesses in his build. Nothing jumped out at her immediately. His weight distribution was spot-on, and he held his sword like a hardened soldier. But even if he had no physical weaknesses, she could break him mentally.
Just as he reached her, she grinned and darted out of the way. Marcellius went flying forward, his momentum carrying him past her. She raised her sword and swatted him on the butt.
The crowd roared with laughter.
She brought her sword up to meet his wild swing, fueled by anger. Their swords clanged noisily together before she jerked back another step out of his way. “I thought you said you were bringing your best.”
“Only cowards run away.”
“I wasn’t running,” she said with a smile.
His footwork was simple but effective as he circled to the right. She matched his steps. Easy shifts in the sand that were more relaxing than threatening. He wouldn’t lull her into complacency though. She had lived and breathed this. Riling him might not have been her best move, but it was the only one she had at present.
Marcellius shifted into an offensive step. She could almost guess what he was going to do next. She used the advantage to duck under his sword swipe, and then slid through a series of movements, coming up on the other side of him and kicking him hard in the back of the knee. He stumbled forward. It was only a couple of steps before he recovered. Faster than she would have wanted. She’d just jumped back to her feet and faced him when he was barreling toward her again.
The crowd chanted, “Doma,” again into the air.
She’d gotten at least some of them on her side. She was the underdog. She needed all the help she could get. But she needed to actually fight now and not just tease Marcellius.
She let the crowd fall away. The noise a buzz at the back of her mind. As her training took over, she let her feet carry her of their own accord. Muscle memory rose her sword at the correct moment to clash against his longer, broader sword. Vibrations rocked up her arm at the sheer impact. She gritted her teeth. It was why she had been trying to goad him rather than fight him head-on. He was bigger, taller, stronger than her. That was obvious to anyone who looked on, but she didn’t have to play his game.
Kerrigan used all of her might and pushed Marcellius’s blade off of hers. He came at her again just as fast. She parried each of his moves, letting him maneuver her ever backward across the arena. Sand kicked up in her wake, a cloud forming where they had been.
A new scenario came to her mind. She smiled crookedly at Marcellius as he pushed her backward again.
“Why are you smiling like that?” Marcellius snarled. “You’re about to lose.”
“That’s why.”
His brow furrowed. “I wasn’t even supposed to be in this fight. Now, I have to deal with stupid little-girl mind games.” He clashed against her sword hard enough to rattle her arms. She grunted from the force of holding her sword up. “But Vulsan will reward me richly for destroying a Doma pretender.”
Kerrigan’s mouth formed an O of sudden understanding. “Vulsan put you up to this.”
“I don’t see what the point was,” he said, continuing to jab and thrust his sword toward her. She managed to meet him for every stroke, but her arms were getting heavy from the effort. “You’re not a Doma. Just because you look like one doesn’t mean anything. But I’d love to put Doma killer on my list of credentials.” He grinned as if he were the cleverest person to ever live.
Doma killer. Well, Vulsan probably wouldn’t like to hear that, now would he?
Kerrigan let the anger from all of this settle into her bones. Vulsan wanted her dead. Even if he didn’t know who she was, he still wanted her dead. He’d sent one of his champions to make it quick. Pathetic.
Well, she’d show him.
“I’ll give him your regards then,” Kerrigan said.
Marcellius gave her another dumb look, and she let her sword slip off of his next attack. He hadn’t anticipated her miss. His thrust passed straight by her shoulder as she ducked and rolled beyond his reach. The crowd yelled. Though it was hard in her haze to know whether it was excitement or outrage. Whether for her or against her. Marcellius caught up with her. She jerked her sword up at the last second to stop his next assault. But he leaned forward toward her, placing all of his considerable weight into the movement, and slowly, the sword inched closer and closer toward her face.
“Any last words?” he growled as the edge of his sword nicked her cheek.
She laughed. “Yeah. Duck.”
He blinked. “Duck?”
Then, Kerrigan threw a cloud of sand into Marcellius’s open eyes. He coughed, scrubbing at his eyes as he pulled away from her. She rolled to her side, kipping back to her feet with the smooth agility she’d honed over the course of her life. Marcellius barely met her next thrust. She wielded her sword like an expert, putting on the show that she’d promised. Showing just enough of her skill for them to realize that she’d let him get the upper hand, but she’d had it under control all along.
When he came at her again, she dragged her sword across his soft, exposed belly. He roared in pain and dropped to his knees. She grabbed him by the back of his head, letting her hand sink into the mass of dark hair that he never should have left down in a serious fight.
The crowd gasped as the tides turned in a matter of seconds. They weren’t shouting, “Doma,” anymore. Her name was on their lips.
“Red! Red! Red!”
“No, please,” Marcellius cried, begging for his life.
He’d been put in this position by the Doma. They were all just puppets, having their strings pulled. Still, she had to win.
She hated this part. She’d never done fights to the death for Dozan. He’d wanted her to, but it was senseless. This wasn’t war. This wasn’t a battlefield. It wasn’t even that moments when she had been beaten in the streets as a child. The same thing that had awakened her spirit magic and blasted her would-be murderers away from her. Dozan had saved her after she collapsed, but she would never forget again what that had felt like. She’d killed people before. This was the first time it felt senseless.
Vulsan had gotten to his feet. He was the adjudicator of these events. He’d demanded a fight to the death, but now, with his champion easily in her hands, it was his decision to make.
The crowd silenced as Vulsan raised a fist. At least Constantine had prepared her for this. Vulsan would choose if she had to kill Marcellius. Though she could barely see him across the span of the arena, she knew exactly what he would do based anger he hid behind his perfect golden face and the cruel twist of his lips.
His thumb went down.
“I’m sorry,” Kerrigan said to Marcellius, and she drew her blade across his neck.
The body collapsed forward into the sand, dead when she released him.
She felt sick to her stomach. Killing should never be for enjoyment. Even as thousands of people jumped to their feet and yelled for her. She’d won. She’d done what she had come to do, but she had done it at Vulsan’s command. And she wanted him to know that she knew it.
She stomped across the arena until she was directly before his box. He hadn’t taken a seat. He watched as her rage carried her to the space before him. The Doma had been on high for so long that he clearly didn’t even consider her a threat.
With a battle cry, she lifted her sword in the air. The crowd screamed their approval. But it was only Vulsan who truly saw that she was pointing her sword at him. That she was challenging him for what he had put her through. The change of opponent to try to get her out of the running quicker.
He’d lost.
She’d won.
Then, she slammed the blade into the sand until it hit hard earth and stayed there. With Vulsan’s eyes still keenly on her, she dropped a mock curtsy in his direction. No deference in the movement at all, as she never took her eyes from him. He didn’t move or give any indication of what he was feeling, except the briefest tip of his head.
He understood. He certainly understood that she was suicidal.
No one went up against the Doma and lived.
But there had to be a first time for everything.