Page 70 of Blood of the Sands

“The fighter from Clan Katal wins the match!”

The Viper stood in the ring over his opponent. He didn’t offer his hand, but he hesitated. His fallen adversary scuttled away on his hands and knees and scurried out of the ring, clearly unwilling to take the assistance up even if it were offered.

A shiver ran up my spine despite the heat of the late afternoon as the next duelists were called forward. If that ruthless efficiency won the Viper the title of the desert’s Champion, peace would no longer be an option for Kelvadan.

My next fight passed in much the same way as the first, my enemy felled by my body before my mind could process what was happening. It might have been Aderyn’s training, embedded in my muscle memory, and letting my instincts be the guide, but the sensation was unnerving. By the time I found myself in the semi-final match, my skin itched as if too tight, and the chatter of the crowd, growing in pitch and excitement, felt like dozens of flies swirling around my head.

The fights grew more brutal, competitors putting more force behind their blows, with each passing match. The only person besides the Viper I recognized that had made it to the duels was Nyra. I blinked in surprise as her name was called, not having realized another fresh trainee was still in the Trials.

I straightened as her fight began, only to slump again almost immediately. Her opponent parried her opening move easily, knocking her blow aside and rapping her firmly on the wrist. The blow caused her to yelp, and her blunted sword dropped to the sand. I grimaced. Aderyn had used that move on me enough that I knew it caused your hand to go numb, your grip useless.

Nyra retrieved her sword and shuffled from the ring as her opponent was declared winner. I fully expected her to brush past me as she left, but she paused, touching two fingers to my elbow.

“Good luck,” she murmured. Then, she melted into the crowd at my back.

It was the first time any of the trainees had acknowledged me since the accident with Dryden. Even those who disliked me were counting on me. My heart hammered.

But every time my name was called, “Keera of Kelvadan,” it served as a balm to my fraying nerves. I represented Kelvadan, and it was a responsibility at which I would not balk. Not when they had given me more second chances than my own parents. After all, I had promised Aderyn I would fight in the Trials, and she had never been anything but kind to me. Even as Aderyn hovered off the queen’s shoulder across the arena, Neven stood stalwartly and silently at my back.

My feet carried me into the ring for the semi-final match. With a quick feint I baited my opponent to parry. Then I ducked my blade under his and drove it forward into his sternum. He raised his hand in defeat. With a single and anticlimactic trap, I had won, moving on to the final match.

The cheering of the crowd at my swift victory clashed with the growing sense of unease.

I watched the Viper fell enemy after enemy, each with so little fanfare, it was if he didn’t find any of his opponents worth any extraneous movement. The woman he had just defeated limped out of the arena after taking a harsh but fair blow to the leg ten seconds after the gong had sounded. Despite whatever luck—will of the desert or otherwise—that had brought me this far, despair began to rise in my throat. Nobody could stand against the Viper’s skill.

“The fighter of Clan Katal will fight in Keera of Kelvadan in the final match!”

The hum that rose might have been from the crowd or the rush of noise in my head. Somehow, this ending had seemed inevitable since the race this morning, but my mind had shied away from the reality of what was coming. There was no way I would make it to the final round, yet here I found myself, walking into the packed dirt circle on numb legs. Now that I was here, I was certain this was as far as my newfound skills would take me.

Neven patted me on the shoulder as I passed him to enter the ring, and I forced my chin up. Even if I walked toward defeat, the people of this city had given me so much more than I deserved. I wouldn’t sentence them to war without a fight.

By now, the sun hung low in the sky, the long shadows lending a dreamlike quality to the affair. Or maybe the feeling of floating while weighing more than Daiti was from the odd way sounds filtered through my ears to my frazzled brain, warped as if I were underwater.

All I knew was that my gaze locked on to the figure who entered the ring across from me, not actually that much taller than me, but larger than life in the way he haunted my thoughts since the day he had first said my name.

Silence hung thickly in the air, and then the gong rang. This time, I leaped off the start, opening with a series of quick slashes. The Viper parried easily, knocking my blade aside, but not throwing any attacks back. We circled each other for a moment, and my gaze darted over his shoulders and chest, looking for any hint of the next attack. I found none.

An overhead cut crashed down on me, and I threw my block up just in time. Unprepared as I was, the force of the blow drove me to one knee. I teetered backward. He raised his hand to strike again while I was off balance, but I let my momentum carry me, rolling backward over one shoulder as his weapon struck the sand where I had knelt just a moment before. As I sprang to my feet, I kicked at his weapon, throwing a horizontal slash, but he was too quick. Reversing the momentum of his blade to knock mine off course.

He circled once again, and frustration bubbled in my throat, the strangled sensation of a repressed scream. He was fast enough that he should have been able to land a blow while I was on the ground, but he hadn’t. The Viper had the audacity to toy with me, even when the fate of the Ballan Desert rested on the results of this fight.

I leapt at him with a flurry of blows, increasing the force behind them until my muscles strained. He matched them, strike for strike. My blade skittered along his, and sparks flew through the air before we separated. I panted, winded from my attack, but if my opponent was tired, he showed no signs.

Now he advanced on me, twirling his blade in an arc I could barely follow. I dodged his strike, but only just, the wind from his sword brushing my cheek as it swished past. He drove me back, attacking in earnest now. I stopped at the edge of the ring, attempting to hold my ground, and our blades locked.

He pressed the advantage of his greater size, bearing his weight down into me. My knees shook as he pushed forward, the blank mask of metal over his face hovering inches over my own. My legs gave out, and I fell to my knees again but refused to let me guard drop and surrender. Still, it was only a matter of seconds before he would overpower me.

The sand beneath my knees shifted, and the shouts of encouragement from the crowd at my back became garbled and overwhelming. I was going to lose. I was going to fail Kelvadan, after I had found my purpose to survive once more in saving the city from this war. All those who had put their trust in me would be lost, and I would be alone again.

A familiar yet unwelcome sensation washed over me, and magic bubbled beneath my skin. The last thing I saw before magic erupted forth from me was widening silver eyes behind a sheet of metal.

Chapter Twenty-Three

The Viper

Screams tore through the air, the sounds whipped away by the unnatural storm, centered around me and Keera. Lightning danced through the cloudless sky, striking somewhere nearby, making every hair on my body stand on end. Footsteps pounded as people fled, but my gaze was fixed on the woman before me, the epicenter of the chaos.

Her eyes were screwed shut and she vibrated with energy, although she remained motionless. If she was aware of the world around her, she showed no signs of it, likely wrapped up in the deafening cacophony that poured in when one opened themselves to the magic of the desert with no filter.