Page 63 of Blood of the Sands

The Viper faced off against a half dozen fighters, all coming at him together. Despite them teaming up against them, he held them off admirably, parrying an overhead strike from a fighter to his right while stepping back to avoid the blow from a man directly in front of him.

The man with the dirk tucked behind him approached from his unguarded left side. I lurched forward, feet pounding across the sunbaked earth without my direction. The sun glinted off the sharpened blade as the man raised it overhead.

With a clang, it flew out of his hand, spinning through the air before burying itself sharpened point first in the trampled ground. My saber swept through the air from where it had knocked the blade out of his hand to catch the would-be cheater in the shoulder, a blow that would have taken his arm off if my weapon weren’t blunted.

The Viper’s head snapped in my direction, and I caught the briefest glimpse of wide metallic eyes before I spun back to the fight at hand. Between the two of us, the remaining fighters in this knot of combat were taken out quickly.

He eliminated nearly twice as many as me, but soon, the combat around us had thinned enough that our attention drew toward each other. As fiercely as I had leaped at other competitors, I backed off a step, circling around the Viper cautiously. He needed to be eliminated for the sake of Kelvadan, but the speed at which he had dispatched his other enemies left me hesitant. Doubt creeped into the edges of my mind. He was the superior saber fighter.

To my surprise, the Viper didn’t circle at all or advance, instead standing perfectly still with his blade in a forward guard. It might have made me think he was unprepared to block a sudden blow, but my mind rang with alarm bells. A Viper could strike with no warning.

I debated trying to take him off guard with an uppercut from my off hand but dashed that idea. He seemed like the type who had thrown enough mad-cap right hooks in his life to see it coming.

Sensing my hesitation, the Viper cocked his head to the side, and with a deliberate motion raised a hand to crook a finger at me. A deliberate challenge.

My blood boiled and a snarl ripped from my throat. I crouched ready to spring forward sword first.

The gong rang out across the arena, and all fighters raised their hands in unison, blunted sabers falling to the ground in a clatter. The set number of fighters had been eliminated, and the melee was over.

My breath came in quick pants, and I ripped my gaze from the Viper’s expressionless mask to the raised platform where the gong rested. I blinked, finding Queen Ginevra already descending the steps and approaching the line of stones that marked the edge of the arena.

She picked between the fighters who deferentially made way for her. At first, I thought she was heading toward me, and I shrunk back. Perhaps she was going to berate me for not taking the opportunity to eliminate the biggest threat to Kelvadan from the Trials. I wouldn’t blame her, and she didn’t even know how I had pulled him from the sinking sands.

Her course turned to the side though, and she approached an open patch of ground, marked by the dirk I had knocked from a fighter’s hand. She plucked it from the sand, and all the remaining fighters in the area remained preternaturally still as she examined it.

She ran her finger across the edge, and we collectively hissed as a line of red marked her flesh. Blood welled and dripped to the sands at her feet, soaking the gold to a deep crimson.

The blade had been intended to end a life during this melee.

The queen grabbed her skirt, wrapping her hand in the fine linen, seemingly unperturbed by the stain the blood would leave on the pale green fabric. With the other hand, she pointed the offending blade at the at the competitor who had wielded it, standing at the edge of the arena with the rest of the eliminated fighters. He clutched his shoulder where I had struck it, and I tamped down the odd swell of pride that filled me at the sight.

“Seize him. He has violated the sacred agreement of the Trials and tried to unfairly injure a competitor.”

City guards rushed forward and grabbed him. He didn’t resist, his eyes trained somewhere over my shoulder on the battlefield. I turned to see what he stared at, only to be greeted by the retreating form of his intended target. The Viper didn’t look back, walking off the field, his broad shoulders harshly silhouetted by the afternoon sun.

I turned back in time to see the Kelvadan guards wrenching the fighter around, his hood falling from his face in the process and revealing a stony expression. His gaze held no trace of remorse, only defiance as he was turned away toward the city walls.

“Keera.”

I started, heart leaping into my throat as the queen said my name.

“Walk with me,” she instructed, already striding back toward the city as well.

I swallowed thickly as the gazes of the remaining competitors weighed heavily on me. They made my skin itch—a far cry from the invisibility that came with my life of isolation not so long ago. Still, I squared my shoulders and marched obediently after her.

I caught up with her quickly, my long strides carrying me farther than her much shorter legs. I fell into pace at her left, while Aderyn materialized at her right, a protective shadow.

We walked in silence through the city, climbing the levels to the palace at the top. Our steps echoed through the uncharacteristically empty courtyard—most of the usual inhabitants were still mingling in the encampment on the plains.

I looked up at the mounted statue, as I always did when I entered the palace, and finally placed the jolt of familiarity that shot through me. While Queen Ginevra certainly bore similarity to Kelvar, the proud cheekbones and delicate nose were the same as those of the man in the mask.

Erix.

Kelvar’s great-grandson.

I wondered if Erix ever smiled like Kelvar did, full of mischief that would have looked like arrogance if not for the softness of his eyes.

Queen Ginevra and Aderyn were almost to the palace doors, and I wrenched my eyes from the statue, lengthening my strides to catch up with them.