Seltzen, the man, is large; this is inarguable. Seltzen the wyvern is amountainof a creature with blood-red wings and black, craggy skin the color of charred wood. He rises on two legs as thick as trees, spreads his winged arms wide, and looses a roar violent enough to make my ears ring and send a cloud of sand whipping over us.
“We should move back, Your Highness,” Boyd shouts.
My eyes immediately seek Soren. He hasn’t shifted an inch from his position ahead. How can he not be terrified? Seltzen must be twice his size if not more.
“Your Highness,” Fuller urges at my elbow.
At this second entreaty, the king glances back, and for an instant, our eyes meet. I hope to see easy confidence, that bored self-assurance of his.
I can’t read what I see there.
He turns away from me, and when he slips his robe from his shoulders, I have no choice but to do the same. It’s that or allow the entire kingdom to see me in a state of abject embarrassment.
Fear thrums through me as the guards guide me away. Still, I refuse to hurry. I refuse to think of the monster who could overtake me in two bounds and swallow me in one. I walk with quiet ease, and only when we’re at the lake’s rim and I’m directed toward a roped-off area beneath an elaborate pavilion, do I sit, catch my breath, and direct my eye back toward The Pit.
A transformed Soren awaits me, and the sight of him lost in Seltzen’s shadow nearly catapults me to my feet.
The king looks so small.
I fold my sweating palms together and sit tall. I can’t look nervous, not with the crowd so near and an entire herd of children just beyond the ropes staring at me with wide eyes. I smile at them before returning my attention to the arena.
Dragon and wyvern begin circling one another, and when Seltzen lifts his tail like a snake poised to strike, a new fear takes hold.
“As I understand it,” I say, straining for a light tone, “wyverns’ tails hold venom. Is that correct?”
“It is, Your Highness,” Yarl says at my side.
I don’t take my eyes off the barbed end of the wyvern’s tail. “How strong is this venom?”
“A solid strike can paralyze a dragon in seconds.”
“I see.” My fingers tighten on one another.
Soren…
My lungs tighten as the fighters’ circle shrinks further and then expands, only to contract again. The whole ordeal sets my already frayed nerves on edge. When will one of them make the first move? I lean toward Yarl.
“When do you think they might—”
Seltzen strikes.
Like a whip, the wyvern’s tail flashes out, sand exploding from the impact. I catch a blur of movement within the haze before Soren darts back and the crowd roars their pleasure.
Are they cheeringagainsttheir king?
Seltzen screeches and lowers his body, the tail lashing from side to side. Again he strikes and obscures them within a plume of sand. Again, a streak of movement, and Soren waltzes away. The crowd bursts into laughter at the king’s retreat.
“How long do you think he’ll last?” someone chortles behind me.
“Ah, until he’s bored,” is the amused reply.
My hands move to grip the armrests of my chair. To jest over their king’s fate, to laugh at my own…the cruelness shocks me. I watch with growing despair as Seltzen continues to charge forward.
No, I’ll not sit here and accept this. If I have to go down there and fight him myself, I will.
I startle myself with the thought. What am I thinking? I don’t even know if I can manipulate something so large, especially without any additional water from my canteens. And yet the alternative is what? To let myself be carted off to the wyvern leader like some kind of war prize? I train my eyes on the fight.
Intervening would only invite more challengers. The other dragons would think the king weak. My teeth sink into my lip.
