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Ungur had drawn a Rook piece from the Challenge Vessel. Now, he stood in front of me, a delighted expression on his wide face. Everyone had been roused and summoned to bear witness. During Constanta’s challenge against Ungur, not even the Knights had been present. This was certainly different.
Every Board member was here, including the King, sitting at the head of the room on his throne-like chair on the dais. I assumed he’d brought my brother back to the palace for which I was relieved.
Instead, he brought his robed Black Bishops who now stood at his sides, observing the proceedings from their raised vantage point, heavy hoods over their heads obscuring their faces.
I’d never seen them before, and their presence, more than the King’s, made my insides shudder. A dark cloud seemed to hang around them, and something about the protective way they stood around the King made me think of hellish hounds determined to safeguard their master at all costs.
Flanking the room on their own raised platforms were the Knights. On the left, Traian and his Rooks and Pawns, and on the right, Knight Arcos and his own Quadrant.
Knight Traian ordered a couple of his Pawns to remove the Challenge Vessel from the center of the room. One of them picked up the vessel, the other the pedestal, then deposited both pieces in a corner, out of the way.
I glanced at the King. He hadn’t told anyone he’d fed me his blood and, when he first came in, he’d whispered a warning in my ear, advising me to keep my mouth shut unless I wanted my little brother to experience some discomfort.
“I’ve been gentle with him thus far, Nyro,” he had said in a barely audible voice. “He’s just a child, after all, and I don’t want to break him.”
A chill had gone down my spine at the thought of Timotei being tortured by this monster. I couldn’t allow it, not when Timotei kept facing the consequences of my failures.
Across from me, Ungur practically vibrated with anticipation, waiting for the command to begin. I clenched my fists and, for the first time, noticed that the pain in my hand was gone. I looked down and flexed my fingers. They were working as they were supposed to.
The vampire blood!
My gaze darted to the King. He smiled knowingly. He’d set my fingers straight to avoid them from healing at the wrong angle, and he’d likely done it on purpose, his mind already anticipating this challenge. My entire hand had tingled as they’d dragged me here from the woods. I should have realized what that meant.
Knight Traian cleared his throat. “Tonight, Challenger Nyro Stonehelm faces Challenger Ungur Lowthorn. If Lowthorn defeats Stonehelm, he gains the right to challenge Fourth Pawn Brigita Ashcrag at a later time.
“If Stonehelm defeats Lowthorn, by King Maximus’s order, he will fight Fourth Pawn Brigita tonight. If he is victorious and remains undefeated in every match, he will successively fight the Third, Second, and First Pawns.”
A disapproving murmur went around the Board members. Eyes darted back and forth between the King and me, but no one dared to say anything. The King’s power was absolute, making a mockery of all contracts and laws.
“Let the challenge begin,” Knight Traian said after a short pause, then took his seat.
A few paces in front of me, Ungur huffed like a bull. “You won’t make it past me, thief. This is your death sentence.”
And maybe it was. I would have to fight five people in order to survive the night. There was no question the King wanted to see me suffer, wanted to break my spirit. How this helped him prove I was no better than him, I didn’t know. But I had angered him when he’d been about to kill me. I had shown disgust instead of fear. I’d felt pity for him, and he hadn’t liked it.
Ungur clenched his fists, making the veins and muscles along his thick arms bulge. He’d removed his shirt and boots and wore nothing but his black trousers. Hunched low, he circled, watching me like a hawk ready to swoop down for its prey.
He pounced, coming at me like a boulder, moving much faster than I could have imagined possible from the likes of him. I dodged. A few in the room gasped. I’d moved fast too, faster than I’d ever been able to, and certainly faster than Ungur or any regular human.
His eyes darted toward Knight Traian, then Rook Sanda. They were frowning, appearing as confused as Ungur.
All three glowered back at me as if I were to blame for any of this, but they didn’t as much blink toward the true culprit: King Maximus.
Oh, how they feared him, clinging to their little, pathetic lives. Well, I didn’t give a damn about living anymore. I’d tried to save what little I had left, and I’d failed. Now, my future—if I could devise one by taking advantage of the blood the King had force-fed me—seemed bleaker than any I’d ever imagined, one where I would be more thoroughly enslaved than I’d been so far.
I wanted none of it.
“You did this. You and Sanda,” I said, at last realizing how deceived I’d been to think I’d fooled them. Instead, they’d played me, waiting to entrap me until the moment when it hurt the most and my hopes were at their highest.
Ungur bared his yellowed teeth in an unsightly smile.
“You will pay,” I said, finding satisfaction in the threat, letting the darkness that this place had unleashed in me come to the forefront.
Rage came with it, but it wasn’t the blinding kind I’d experienced in the past. This was different.
Everything came into focus, but especially Ungur. More than that, I thought I could perceive every person in the hall: the Challengers plus the entire Board—all sixteen of them. They were here to see me die and to learn how anyone who tried to steal from the King would fare.
The dimensions of our fighting space took shape in my mind, while Ungur’s rough breaths punctuated a rhythm in my temples. For a moment, I even imagined I could hear his heart.
Then my vision tunneled, and Ungur became the focal point, while our surroundings lost their sharpness. My instincts taking over, I crouched and circled my opponent. A low rumble sounded in my chest. Ungur’s right eye twitched, betraying worry.
A sour smell reached me. My nostrils flared.
Was that fear?
My anger morphed into viciousness. I lunged toward Ungur, arms outstretched. Before he had time to react, my hands clamped on either side of his head. He sidestepped, trying to evade my hold, but his twisting motion only served my purpose.
I pivoted in the opposite direction, violently jerking his head. His neck snapped. The sound echoed through the room. Then he went limp and, as I released him, his lifeless body thudded to the floor.
As if someone had snuffed it like a candle, my viciousness departed, leaving only coldness in its place.
I stood next to Ungur, not even glancing down at him. My eyes were focused on a spot on the far wall. Slowly, they drifted toward the King, who was regarding me with an amused smile on his pale mouth. His red eyes were all-knowing, and his entire expression seemed to say “I told you so.”
With all my might, I clawed my way out of my indifference and forced myself to look at the man I had killed.
His head lay at an unnatural angle, his thick body appearing more like a boulder than ever before.
I had taken a life.
To me, he’d been nothing but a despised enemy, but maybe there was someone out there who had thought better of him, who had, perhaps, loved him. And now, he was gone, because of me.
My hands shook at my sides. I clenched them into fists and stepped away from Ungur, head bowed. I could respect him in death—or more accurately, I could respect death itself.
It had been easy to kill him, child’s play, but that didn’t mean the consequences of my actions should be easy on my conscience—even if they seemed justified. I was better than that. Life was sacred and, as such, it should be respected and treasured.
That’s where King Maximus and I were different, and no matter how much of his venomous blood he fed me, nothing, nothing, would make me forget that.