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Of course. He was healing his leg.
Finish him. Her gaze shot to Endelle, whose voice had pierced her head. Finish him, ascendiate. You have the chance. Finish him now.
Alison had a choice to make. She could simplify her life right now by taking out a key player in the war, by obliging Endelle, by making thousands of Militia Warriors happy.
There was just one problem.
She wasn’t a warrior. She had chosen a healing profession as her life’s work. She had a pacifist’s soul and an antipathy toward causing pain of any kind, even if deserved. To take Leto’s life went against the depths of her character.
She had therefore only one recourse. She backed away from him.
The crowd went into a frenzy of screaming, at least those who wanted Leto dead. Endelle’s faction shouted vile things at her and booed her. They wanted a kill and they wanted it now. As so many times before since she began her rite of ascension, ancient Rome came to mind.
The knowledge of the crowd’s gruesome expectation made her furious all over again. This was Second Earth?
She kept backing away. She shook her head back and forth. She couldn’t kill him even though she knew he wouldn’t show this kind of mercy toward her. The way her arm shook even now, even at the beginning of such an engagement, all he had to do was wear her down and he would succeed in his objective.
A bell sounded. Leto actually stood up and walked to his diamond amid cheers from the Commander’s faction. He had healed his leg. The vampire had power.
Alison moved back to her place, her mind disordered. Given the strength of her convictions, she thought it likely she wouldn’t make it out alive. That she had been able to inflict so severe a cut had been a piece of luck, nothing more. No doubt Leto knew it as well, and he wouldn’t make a similar mistake.
Havily gave her the goblet. As she drank, she set her gaze on Leto. How on earth was she going to defeat him if she was unwilling to harm him?
When the bell sounded again, Leto charged forward, faster than before.
Her act of grace had awakened a demon.
He moved so fast she barely saw him. She fought with all the skill she could muster, streaming Kerrick’s battle images in a constant flow through her mind so that her arms, her legs, every joint of her body knew how to respond, but truthfully what did she have left to withstand this superb, powerful warrior?
From then on, Leto pressed his advantage hard. He used his physical strength to force her into larger and larger movements. As minute piled upon minute, her breathing grew labored and her muscles grew heavy and overworked. At this rate, she wouldn’t last much longer.
The bell sounded.
She received her goblet from Havily and sucked the Gatorade down as though she had been walking through the desert for hours. Sweat poured off her body and she cursed the person who had put her in all this leather.
She was barely refreshed and her breathing hadn’t calmed at all before Leto was on her again. As her ankles grew heavy, Alison’s courage faltered.
Kerrick’s voice and words shot into her head. Use your wits. Think. You can beat him.
His presence had an effect, strengthening her weakened muscles and reflexes as well as her spirit.
Watch him. See how anxious he is to defeat you? Use it against him.
A light went on and her courage returned.
From that moment forward, she began to plan. Though she had an aversion to hurting the man so willing to kill her, there might be another way to finish the battle. She knew humiliation fired him and perhaps would also make him reckless.
“Leto,” she said quietly. Again she could hear her voice amplified throughout the arena.
He scowled and struck harder.
She lifted her sword in answering blows. “You must know by now I won’t take your life.”
“Then you’re a fool!” he shouted, his voice also echoing to the rafters, his sword slashing.
“You must tell me which you prefer, to end this civilly or to be humiliated in front of the Commander and his army.”
These words enraged him. He thrust hard and wild. She had her answer.
She dodged, folded, leaped into the air. His ire overtook his sense. She saw her opportunity.
She leaped again, rolled over his shoulders, caught his sword arm with a deadly slice, and removed it at the elbow. He fell on his stomach, his sword sliding with his arm. He tried to regain his feet, but she laid a shield over his body and set her foot on his neck. Blood pumped from the wound with every quick beat of his heart. He pinched his lips together in a taut line. His face paled.
She glared at the opposition. Silence and horror returned to her. From Endelle’s ranks behind her, a “death” chant began. She felt the blood of the combined warriors rise up. She heard their shouts of triumph as they called for Leto’s death, the traitor’s death.
She knew they had lost innumerable comrades in the many battles they had endured. She understood their hatred of the enemy. Regardless, she couldn’t take this warrior’s life. Everything within her rebelled at the idea.
She was not a warrior.
She touched Leto’s mind. I know you wish for your death, but I refuse to give it to you.
I am proud to die as a warrior. Nothing less will answer. Finish this.
She sank deeper into his mind, doing what Kerrick had called mind-diving, the deep form of engagement that would allow her inside his head, to see his thoughts, his memories. She expected resistance only to find he had released his shields … as though he wanted her to know.
She saw his life. She saw the family he had lost to a squad of death vampires, night-feeders who had been stalking ascenders instead of pillaging humans on Mortal Earth. She saw his level of rage, something she had seen in Kerrick before the battle. She found another smaller shield, a very powerful shield, and pressed. In slow stages, the shield gave way and she saw the truth that could not be told. Oh, God, Leto was a double agent! She forged an instant mental shield around Leto’s mind and her own. She felt other entities pummeling to get in, and knew she had a mere second to absorb this truth. She gasped.
Oh, God, Leto. What am I to do now?
Keep your silence.
Done.
She released him, tears in her eyes.
She took her foot off his neck but kept the pinning shield in place. Blood pumped steadily from the vein of his arm. He would die soon anyway from blood loss if she didn’t do something. She moved swiftly, knowing that if she saved him, he would still be forced to attack her, despite what she had just learned about him.
Too bad.
She lifted her hand and stared into Leto’s eyes. Hold on … we’re going for a ride.
