Constantine was still scolding Kerrigan the next day about her display. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
“Done what?” she asked with an eye roll over breakfast.
“You know exactly what you did.”
“You told me to put on a good show.”
He huffed. “I didn’t tell you to taunt a Doma!”
“The crowd loved it.”
Which was true. The crowd had completely drowned out anything Vulsan or his little announcer could say after her curtsy. She’d strode out of the coliseum a hero. Turned out, all the people Vulsan kept under his thumb didn’t like it any more than she did.
“Tread lightly. You’ve proven yourself now. The next competitor won’t be so easy.”
“When do I face him?”
Constantine shook his head. “Her. Senovara. She’s from Gallia, an island country in the north.”
“Domaran ruled?”
“Of course.”
Kerrigan blew out a breath. “Is there anywhere that Domara doesn’t rule?”
“Aye. But nothing within a thousand miles.”
“Gods,” she muttered. “So, Senovara?”
“Next week,” Constantine told her. “Today, there’re the four other competitions. We’ll head that way before the first fight. And tomorrow night, we’ll attend the competition party for those who succeeded in the first round. Then, we’ll train on Senovara’s weaknesses.”
“Right. Until Vulsan changes who I’m fighting again.”
“Then, we’ll train on all the competitors who won,” Constantine said sternly. “Unless you’d rather throw yourself a pity party.”
She laughed at him. “Fair. We’ll train. Vulsan is going to have to kill me himself if he wants me out of the competition.”
“Be careful what you wish for.”
Kerrigan put her fist to her chest and then took her plate to the kitchen for cleaning before running up the stairs two at a time. Constantine would want to leave soon, but sometimes, there were more important things than getting to the coliseum early. Her match yesterday hadn’t started until nearly midday. She had time.
She knocked twice on the door at the end of the hall. “Danae?”
Silence met her. Kerrigan sighed and knocked again.
She’d stayed to watch all the matches until late yesterday, but when she came home last night, she tried to talk to Danae. She had refused to come to the door, and Kerrigan hadn’t had the energy to burst in there and demand her attention.
“You can’t stay in there forever.”
A few moments later, the door creaked out, and a puffy, swollen face with red-streaked eyes appeared before her. “Go away.”
“Your father shouldn’t have left you up here, all alone. You should have come with us yesterday.”
“I’m not allowed to go.”
Kerrigan huffed. Ridiculous. But she decided to change the subject. “I need to go to the baths. I cleaned up after the fights, but I need a soak. Go with me?”
“I can’t leave. No one should see me. I’m a … monster.”
“Why?”
Her eyes rounded. “Why? You saw what happened.”
“You stopped a monster from killing me.”
“It went too far.”
“Am I a monster then?” Kerrigan asked, holding her arms out.
“What? No.”
“I killed a man in cold blood yesterday.”
“That was for the tournament. He would have killed you if you hadn’t stopped him.”
“It wasn’t my first kill. And if anything, the tournament makes it feel worse. It was unnecessary.”
“So was what I did!”
Kerrigan put her hand on Danae’s shoulder. She flinched. “You saved my life. I will never see you as a monster for stopping him. He had every intention of killing me, and he wouldn’t have been satisfied with just my blood in the end. Did I wish him dead? No. But he wished me dead, and nothing else mattered in that moment.”
“I don’t know,” Danae said, pushing back her lank hair.
“The baths,” Kerrigan encouraged. She inched the girl out of the room. “You’ll feel better.”
“Okay, but I can’t go to the tournament. I don’t … I don’t trust myself.”
“You need to learn to control your magic.”
She shook her head vehemently. “I need to learn to hide it better. Maybe … maybe I can get rid of it, like you did!”
She sounded so genuinely excited at the prospect that Kerrigan tried to withhold the roiling pit of despair at those words. Magic hadn’t always been kind to her, but living without it was so much worse. She wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
“No,” Kerrigan said fiercely. “What was done to me was a severe violation. I would not hope for you to ever feel like this.”
“Oh,” Danae whispered. “I didn’t mean …”
“And anyway, they don’t know how to do it here. At least, your father doesn’t. Which is good. I don’t know that I’d even wish it on my enemy.”
“I’m sorry.”
Kerrigan touched her hand. “It’s all right. We’ll figure it out.”
Danae nodded. Though she didn’t appear convinced by Kerrigan’s words. But at least she’d gotten Danae out of the room and to the baths, which were nearly empty, as everyone who could afford to was already headed to the coliseum.
The girls returned, cleaned up. Danae even helped her apply a salve to the cuts Myron had made across her neck and chest. Then, at Kerrigan’s request, Danae reset her nose so that she wouldn’t have a giant bump on it. It hurt something fierce, but otherwise, her injuries were healing nicely.
Constantine was annoyed, as expected, but this stern expression lessened when he saw a smile on his daughter’s face. No matter how he reacted to everyone else, Danae was his whole world. He’d do anything to protect her.
“Day,” he said with a smile. “You look more like yourself.”
Her smile faded slightly. “I suppose so.”
“You could come with us today.”
Her eyes widened. “I’m never allowed to go.”
“We’ll make an exception for today.”
Kerrigan sighed in relief. This was good. Danae needed to get away from this. Kerrigan was glad that Constantine saw that too.
“You’ll have to go without me,” Danae finally said.
Kerrigan put an arm across her shoulders. “Come on. You’ll need to help me strategize how to take out my opponents.”
Danae swallowed. “I don’t know.”
“If you’re up to it, you should get out of the house,” Constantine agreed.
She looked between the two of them as if she were affronted that they were ganging up on her. But she really couldn’t spend another entire day inside, lamenting what could have been. What she really needed was some kind of teacher for her magic. Just as Kerrigan had needed one for hers. But neither Constantine nor Danae seemed intent on doing that. They were too worried about her being discovered by the Doma. And having met a Doma, Kerrigan understood the fear. At the same time, hiding magic never went well for anyone.
“Okay,” Danae finally conceded, another small smile gracing her features. The tournament was too big of a treat to pass up. “Let me change, and I’ll come with you.”
A few minutes later, she was downstairs again in servant attire, insisting on walking behind Kerrigan and Constantine. None of them spoke as they wound through the streets of Carithian and came to the coliseum once more. Evander and the rest of the men had already staked out seats to watch the festivities. Constantine could have procured better seats for him and Kerrigan, as she was a competitor, but he preferred the company of his men. Considering how people acted toward Andines, she wouldn’t want to sit with Domarans either.
The crowd recognized her as she took her seat among them. Many men and women came up to offer their congratulations and press food and wine into her hands. She passed most of it off to the other men but kept a delicious-smelling baked good for herself and tucked a golden flower behind her ear at an older woman’s insistence.
The first fight began with a long, rambling introduction from the announcer. Sitting in the stands made Kerrigan feel so disconnected from the fight. There was none of the adrenaline and fear off of the competitors. She wished she were down below so she could really understand what was going on. But Constantine and Evander kept up a steady stream of instruction for her about both competitors as they watched. Until one man unceremoniously sliced the other man’s head off.
“Alderic wins!” the announcer cried.
She cringed as the crowd cheered. “Gods, he’s … brutal.”
Evander nodded sagely. “He’s from Rutslan. A truly ruthless people from the mountain regions north of Domara and Andine. They wear the skins of giant creatures that roam their lands and share their women.” His expression was pinched. “Domara was reluctant to even bring them into the empire.”
“Well, whoever he’s up against is going to have a tough time of it.”
Constantine frowned. “You could be up against him.”
“Oh, right.” She shrugged. “Well, I’ll be fine.”
Evander smothered a laugh at Constantine’s frustrated expression. “We’ll work on it, General.”
Kerrigan turned her attention back to the arena. The next two matches were much of the same brutality. A man killed a Domaran woman with dual swords, a completely blank look on his face. As if someone had already stripped the humanity from him. The third fight, a Cendrean woman took down a man twice her size, as if it were nothing. The entire match lasted only a few minutes. The crowd booed, but the woman had refused to put on a performance. Kerrigan appreciated the honesty in that act.
“Final match,” Evander said. He stretched his arms overhead. “Should be a good one.”
Kerrigan shrugged. They’d all been disappointing in their own way. They all could have ended with a yield and let the losers continue on with their lives. The death was unnecessary. Just a request from a Doma to slaughter for no real reason. She was more disgusted at it all by the minute.
The crowd went silent as the announcer rose to his feet to pronounce the final pair. The first man was a beast of a man. A Domaran soldier by Evander’s estimate, who’d been dishonorably discharged for crimes against civilians. She couldn’t fathom why they were letting such a disgrace of a man compete. But that was Domara.
“Our final competitor for the tournament. We saved the best for last. You’re going to love this one!” the announcer cheered. “All the way from the Fae lands of Alfheim comes the last full-blooded Fae!”
Kerrigan jumped to her feet as fear shot through her body. This … no, no, this wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be.
“A king in his own right …”
The crowd booed, but Kerrigan could barely hear the profanities they were screaming. The horrors they were spewing for the appearance of a Fae in their midst.
“A shadow-touched male of nightmares …”
Kerrigan closed her eyes and felt herself go light-headed. This had been her big plan all along. Get into the tournament, kill anyone who got in her way, and gain that gift from the gods. Then, she could get out of there to help her people back in Alandria. It was a foolproof plan. She could win against any of these people. But not …
“Fordham Ollivier, king of the Fae realms!”