Chapter Thirty-Four

 

Camina gave the students at the Academy the week off to watch the rest of the tournament. She wasn't sure if she didn't care after Titus raided her students, or if she thought they were too distracted to be effective learners. Originally, she had no intention of going herself, but as she sat at the edge of the bed in her little room at the Academy, knees bouncing with a lingering annoyance in her gut, she decided braving the crowds was better than being alone.

The Terreno was more packed than she'd ever seen it. She had to jostle with men and women in business attire, or drunken college students with neon plastic cups full of alcohol in their fists. The change in five years from when she'd first come to the neutral ground as a new waku made it feel like an entirely different place. A guy with a wave of blond hair and a salmon-colored shirt spilled sticky liquid across her arm when he stumbled into her. He opened his mouth to say something pithy, but the look she gave him had him swallowing and hurrying to catch up to his friends.

She lingered near the entrance of Club Onyx. A few hours of having someone listen to her problems sounded like a nice diversion, but seeing Leesa would only make her homesick for the old days, which didn't exist anymore. Instead, she headed towards the arena where the first fight of day two was due to begin soon. Long lines led up to the gate, with people pushing and shoving to get in before the arena was full. She'd heard there were people camping out the night before. A death on the previous day had tripled the price of the tickets.

"Hey, lady, you can't butt in line," said a drunken guy with a lazy gaze and an enormous neon mug. He reached out to grab her upper arm, so she sent opal energies into his hand, making his flesh heat up immediately. "Hey! What the fuck. What did you do to me?" he asked, pulling his hand away and shaking it furiously. "You're one of them, aren't you? That was a neat trick. Can you do another?"

Camina leveraged her way past him, aggressively pushing through the crowd and ignoring their complaints. She reached the gate and the guard started to tell her that she couldn't come in until he saw who she was.

"Instructor Camina. Please come in through this side gate. There aren't extra seats, but maybe you could use the platform."

She said nothing, heading inside to get away from the sea of eyes on her back. She found a spot along the wall in back partially opposite of the platform, which was currently empty. The arena was a marvel. Nothing as large as the stadiums in the light, but for the Undercity, it was huge. She immediately spotted the stain where the competitor had died the previous day. It'd been a huge topic of discussion at the Academy, with many of her students asking if they'd shut the tournament down because of it. At first she'd been surprised by their comments, but then she remembered most of them had never seen a dead body, let alone been the cause of one.

Movement across the arena clued her to Dominion's arrival. The gaunt city fae took to the platform to scant applause. He seemed unfazed by their lack of adoration.

His arrival signaled the start of the second day of matches. The two competitors took the field, but Camina was barely paying attention because she'd spied a familiar face on the platform with Dominion. The pale-haired Navos was a personal guard, staring over the crowd with a stoney expression, nothing like the cheerful waku she'd come to know during her short time in the Drops. But the change in personality wasn't a surprise, given her own experiences in the Alliance.

She wondered if they'd given him the same course of drugs and conditioning that she'd received after she was captured. Curious, she stared intensely at Dominion and found her thoughts weren't as scrambled as they'd been in years past. She tested her theory by imagining stabbing him through the heart. It brought a wave of vertigo and blurry vision, but nothing like the complete shutdown that such thoughts created previously.

Rising cheers and applause signaled the start of the match. She wasn't expecting to be impressed, especially since she'd heard most of the best warriors had fought on the first day, but the two combatants threw themselves at each other with their signature weapons—twin kamas and a long spear. The second weapon had the reach, but the kamas were effective at blocking and trapping the extended attacks. The match went on for a few minutes, each combatant catching their opponent with glancing blows. The end came when Winchester Caine overextended his spear and Bo Kan trapped the shaft between the kamas and yanked the weapon away. Bo Kan was declared the winner once his opponent yielded with blades to his neck.

The next two matches were less interesting. Camina barely paid attention, even though the entire tournament had been her idea. She checked back to the platform occasionally. Somewhere during the second match, Selena Thule joined her father. She almost expected to see Deacon, but he'd been scarce as of late. The same with Titus Cabone. She understood the latter as she heard there were breakthroughs at their dig site in the Dark Depths. No one explained what it was they were looking for, but she assumed it had to be extremely valuable given the money and manpower that had been devoted to the excavation project.

When the fourth and final match was announced, Camina paid attention. The seven-foot-tall Brodarian was considered by some to be the best warrior, while others named Valor Drux, Angel Chen, or Lady Saha. Camina felt sorry for his opponent. Aman Crownline was outmatched with his heavy mace, compared to the frightening looking weapon called an angerblade held by Noctus Prime. It looked like it was part of a massive machine press meant for cutting thick pipes rather than a weapon to be wielded by a single individual.

The two competitors stood side by side as they waited for the arena surface to be cleaned of blood from the previous match. Aman stared curiously at the ceiling, making her wonder what was up there. She assumed it had to do with his strategy, given the importance of the next few minutes, but found he was only staring at a truncated set of stalactites. The line of limestone extensions had been first destroyed years ago during a duel between Kuma and Pandora, but then shaved down to stubs during the construction of the arena. Why would Aman stare at the old stalactites? Especially at a time like this. She reviewed their conversations at the Academy, but found nothing to illuminate her concerns. Her curiosity deepened as he stepped forward when his name was called, waved briefly to the crowd, and then went through a series of stretches. Something about his mannerisms were familiar. So familiar that she felt like she was seeing double. As Noctus Prime was announced to the crowd, the roar of applause drowned out her thoughts, but did not dissuade her from the idea that somehow, some way, she knew Aman Crownline.