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Hours had passed since the Games of Fyre opened. There were seven circles of challenges to pass before the winners were declared. The first tested their endurance, the second, their stealth in approaching the enemy, the third, their acumen at deception, the fourth, their taijiu skills. The fifth measured the proficiency of how they wielded their elements; the sixth circle was test of loyalty, and the seventh and final evaluated warfare, combining all elements integral to a warrior.
Each level examined the strength of each warrior. There was no elimination—each contestant had to endure all the challenges. The five warriors that displayed honed chakra strength in completing their tasks at the end of the game would be selected to be a part of the Nurian elite forces, raising their status and improving their wealth. Stealth, secrecy, endurance, perseverance and deception were the characteristics of that exclusive group.
Tehdra gripped the armrest as the first ten warriors strolled forward to assess their endurance, to determine which contestant’s chakra depleted the least.
“Relax, she will do wonderfully,” Quinn m
urmured, glancing at her clenched hands. Tehdra’s laughter rang out as she looked at Bathilda in the arena. “Your confidence in your house is noted.”
A strange kind of excitement held Tehdra as she watched the ten contenders wield their elements in a dazzling display of power and grace. Fire, water, wind, lightening and earth poured forth as they wielded their chakra to harness their elements. Tehdra clapped with the crowd as one of the water wielders wavered but he held onto it. “How long do you think they will last?” she whispered to Ajali.
“Hours. They strive to prove that their chakra strength can withstand the rigors of warfare.”
“Something comes,” Acheron snapped, tension riding his voice.
Tehdra stilled at the tautness that suddenly encompassed the king’s balcony.
“What is it?” Ajali asked, leaning forward.
“It eludes me, but a witch incants. I can feel her spell rippling across my skin. I can feel the words, their intent. Her power spills. Her incantation is strong, but she barely controls that which she calls.”
A cold calmness descended on Tehdra as she listened to Acheron. She sensed nothing, her essence buried under the light of the sun. Her gaze swept the arena, ferreting and seeking danger. Seeing nothing.
“Are you certain, Acheron?” she asked.
“It comes!” He said surging to his feet.
“What comes?” several voices demanded, hands shifting to the hilts of their swords.
“I sense no surge in chakra strength,” Gavyn said, he too standing, and moving closer to his king.
“I feel nothing, Acheron,” Ajali said.
Acheron’s eyes swirled, colors mixing as he whispered, “Words that speak to darkness, that calls and bind, reveal yourself to me. Show me your will, your desire; let me hear the words thou cry.”
He held his hand in a fist signaling silence as his eyes flared with amber madness.
Prickles of power washed over Tehdra’s skin as she observed him.
“The air whispers to me.”
All waited, and Tehdra glanced at the sky, assessing how long before the sun sank.
“I summon thee, I bind thee, darkness, to my will. Bring me the head of the Nurian king.” Tehdra went cold at the words that Acheron uttered.
“It is here!”
Tehdra flinched at the summoned form of the beast that entered the coliseum. Deafening silence descended across the hundreds of thousands of spectators. She blinked in disbelief. Two wolvyes stood in the center of the coliseum like specters of death from the deepest, darkest of nightmares.
Blood dripped from one of its claws as it ripped the contestants to pieces before the crowd could even process that a summoned Darkan in its corporeal form was in the coliseum, in the city of Adara, where millions of lives lived for its destruction.
No, please.
War would visit her home. Nuria would not stand for such an invasion, even though it was not at the order of her king. And if Acheron was right, the beasts’ orders were to bring the head of the king.
She looked at the sky and its red, fiery and intense wash. The sun was just sinking, yet the Demons were there in front of her and thousands of onlookers, roaring in rage. They rose over ten feet tall, massive beasts on two feet. They were hulking, and the vicious fangs that protruded from their mouths were the perfect caricature of evil. The claws on their hands and feet were serrated and lethal. Eyes, red and pitiless, encompassed the crowd that was still rooted to their seats in shocked silence.
She surged to her feet in time with Ajali, Uriah and the princess.
