Chapter 30.5

  Days Remaining - 39

  River reached the arena exactly as he’d expected. Beyond that point, nothing would go as expected. Instead of guiding him to his private box—his balcony high above the sand—hushed voices and firm hands redirected him down a service corridor.

  “Are you okay?” Her voice rang out in the unfamiliar baritone of Christoffer Lith. The crowd paid her no mind as she disappeared behind it.

  “Shhh, we can’t let them know we’re confused. It seems she signed up for a battle in the arena.” His voice traveled across their bond, sure that no one else would hear them.

  No ceremony, no smile. They pushed him toward the fighters’ ingress. In a small stone room, they stripped him of his clothes and shoved armor onto his shoulders, buckles yanked tight, a weapon pressed into his palms as if it had always been his.

  He kept his mouth shut even while his thoughts reeled. Confusion could not live on his face. Not here.

  For a few stunned breaths he went motionless. Steel met steel somewhere ahead and the sound rang louder than it should have, bell-on-bell, riding a deep tide of cheers. He shook himself back into the moment and forced his focus outward. Along the edge of the arena the other fighters drifted to the perimeter, watching. A narrow viewing slit, no more than a hand wide, circled the outer wall, letting those waiting below follow the bout above as it moved around the ring.

  He read the match almost at a glance. A close-combat mage—quick hands, quicker footwork—had been snared mid-rush; her boots sank to the ankle in essence-induced quicksand, the sand turned to syrup under her heels. Opposite her, a heavy brawler advanced with the patience of a butcher, shoulders rolling, hammer-high, a grin already forming.

  It wouldn’t hold. River could see it in the spell’s sheen—the color dulled too fast, the heat bled sideways, wrong. Clever trap, yes, but unrefined; the caster’s grip on essence was simply better than the binding that held her. Step by step the big man closed, sword lifted in a two-handed arc that promised an ending.

  River counted under his breath: 5… 4… 3… 2… 1.

  The sand loosened. Her ankle slid free; she rolled hard to her left and the blade hissed past, close enough to comb her hair with wind. She came up in the same motion, a quick, mean jerk forward, and drove both daggers into his belly.

  For a heartbeat the crowd made no sound at all.

  He folded around the steel and went to his knees. She eased back, slumping to the ground as if the fight had been living inside her bones and had finally climbed out. Calmly, almost daintily, she wrenched the blades free and wiped them once along her sleeve.

  A beat—two—and then she lifted an arm. The silence shattered. The arena erupted; excitement rolled the tiers like surf, a wall of sound that made the banners shiver.

  Medics rushed the sand, hands already glowing, but it was useless. The warrior’s essence had left his body; there was nowhere for their light to land, and soon enough they would see it too.

  The day dragged. Bout after bout. Heat, dust, and iron clung to the air. River felt himself draining, the disguise chewing through his reserves as the sun slid toward evening.

  A firm hand settled on his shoulder. “It’s your turn, Lady Beatrix.”

  For a second the name didn’t belong to anyone. He didn’t move, just stared blankly while the handler tried to maneuver him toward the gate.

  The sand beyond the archway breathed; blood had turned the upper layer tacky, tar-thick in spots where the sun hadn’t baked it dry. Above, echoes and cries braided together, bouncing off the stone.

  He had no idea how this had become his path. He sure as hell hadn’t signed up for it—and he wasn’t himself, not really. The wrong skin clung to him, and fear, old and bright, laced his ribs as he stepped forward.

  The King spoke high above; his voice carried, heavy and strong. “A champion of the nobles against the people’s champion; Beatrix vs. Aldius. Let the battle begin.”

  He needed to fight. He needed to win, and convincingly. If he remembered correctly, she—the face he wore—had an affinity for light. Ironic, and yet the theater of it felt grimly appropriate.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  His opponent came into view: a man with a scraggly beard. His eyes darted from side to side as he tried to assess the situation. River felt a stab of pity and buried it; compassion had no room here. The man held a spear in one hand and a round shield in the other, lightning essence buzzing through him, coiling up the haft and licking along the rim as he set his feet.

  From this distance River already knew the truth: his opponent had no chance. Too slow, too green. Too weak.

  The man dashed forward, planted the spear, and vaulted, trying to turn clumsiness into courage. To River it unspooled in slow motion, every thread of essence around the man visible like puppet strings choreographing an earnest, doomed leap.

  River slid into the sand, low and smooth. He swept essence over himself—light bending, sound going thin—and vanished to the eye. A ghost’s pass. He was up behind the man before the leap finished falling apart. His hand found the dagger they’d issued with the armor; his other hand grabbed the fighter by the backplate and yanked him still. Cold steel kissed spine.

  The man froze. The crowd did, too. Noise sucked inward, a held breath circling the arena.

  River knew what the spectacle demanded. He also knew he couldn’t do it—not like this, not for cheers. Killing for fun curdled something in him that he could not afford to lose.

  “Do you surrender?” he asked, voice flat as stone.

  The boos hit first—low, ugly, rolling like a wave over stone. Cries for blood rose with them, hungry and mean. Then, like a knife through butter, the King’s voice slid across the arena and cut everything quiet.

  “Unusual…” he said, almost curious. “Perhaps he wasn’t much of a challenge. Bring out the captain of the royal guards.”

  The crowd erupted. Their answer had been given; their appetites, blessed.

  River released the man and he scurried away, stumbling toward the gate as the iron grille rattled open again. This was different—he could feel it in his teeth. He was hamstrung by the role, limited to only using his affinity for light, and now a real opponent stepped onto the sand.

  He couldn’t die here. He was too close.

  The newcomer dwarfed him—closer to Albert’s size than any ordinary fighter. Bald head that would have shone in the sun if there’d been any, tattoos inked from throat to ankle, each line laid with deliberate care. But it was the eyes that chilled River: power sluiced in them—green, blue, red—three currents crossing without colliding. They reminded him, uncomfortably, of Kidrin’s in the moments before a storm.

  His thoughts were still reeling when the captain dipped at the waist, muscles tensing like coiled wire. He exploded forward. River tried to slip aside, but fatigue made his body slow; his shoulder took the brunt and he folded around the hit.

  The roar of the crowd went thin, far away. Staying alive, suddenly, was the only task worth a thought.

  He sank under his essence, light wrapping him tight; sand and air forgot him as he vanished between breaths. Pain shouted up his arm—left forearm broken, clean as a snapped branch. Essence low. And he was locked, rigid. Every instinct screamed run, hide, get small. The challenge ahead felt too big for what he had left.

  But his friends needed him. That was the math.

  Backing away, he felt the hot arena wall kiss the spine plates of his armor. He slid along it, careful. Out in the center, the captain’s ember-bright eyes swept for disturbance. He saw something—the faintest track, too new, too crisp: the shallow imprint of feet where no one stood.

  Essence flared from the captain’s palm; fire laced the sand in a snarling ribbon.

  That wasn’t the problem.

  Below the sand, something else pulsed—vines and rootlets, nature essence braided tight and masked beneath the heat. It was too late.

  The ground split with an earth-shattering crack. Thorned coils punched up through grit and seized him mid-step. They wrapped the invisible shape of him and squeezed until the stealth bled away like breath on glass.

  The illusion dropped.

  Beatrix stood there, her stolen skin, blood sliding from one shoulder to elbow, face going the kind of pale that isn’t from fear so much as loss. The captain advanced, sure of himself now, sure of his trap; fire simmered at his flank while the living ropes tightened, creaking.

  River saw the King’s smile tilt upward as he stood there, ensnared and unable to move. Sick bastard.

  The captain walked toward him at an easy pace, sword already in hand. No hesitation. His motion was fluid, almost beautiful in its economy, and the blade drove straight through Beatrix’s heart. The crowd erupted—cheers cracking like stormfire. People were on their feet, throats raw with triumph. A noble had been felled; proof, they told themselves, that the high bled the same as they did.

  Or so he thought. The captain lifted his hands, soaking in the roar, and roses began to rain down from the boxes.

  But it was an illusion—River’s last thread of essence spun into one desperate trick. If the man hadn’t bitten, River had nothing left.

  Behind the captain, the corpse wavered, then vanished as if it had never stood there at all. The cheering died mid-breath. Too late. River was already on him, a shadow at his back. The last of Calira’s essence flowed into him as he moved forward.

  He set his teeth and angled the blade to spare a life; the dagger slid between pauldron and breastplate, kissing the gap, slipping past leather into the meat of the chest, missing the heart by a finger length. Close enough that anyone would have thought his intent had been to kill. A soft thud, and warmth flooded his palm as blood ran over his knuckles.

  He poured the last of his strength into the strike, he aimed not to kill but to end it. The man sagged and went down, armor ringing once against the sand-packed boards beneath.

  River couldn’t hold himself upright either. His knees gave, and he folded to the ground. Darkness nipped at the edges of his sight; he fought it, terrified that if he blacked out he’d shed the disguise and surface as himself in front of twenty thousand eyes.

  Healing found him first. Light washed warmly through his limbs, essence knitting around the worst of the damage where he lay unmoving. He didn’t dare twitch. Any motion felt like a door he might fall through, straight into the abyss,and if he slipped now, everything he’d built would break with him.