Page 228 of Revels on an Angel’s Grave

He turned too late.

Roremar was slammed to the ground and landed right on his shoulder. Pain radiated down the joint, and nausea swept through him as he rolled to his back beneath the man who had taken him down, trying to get weight off his arm.

He was almost afraid to look—afraid of what lurked down here—but he met a familiar pair of contemptuous eyes.

“Ritheus fucking Svalla,” Roremar ground out. “I’m so fucking tired of you.”

Gritting his teeth over the pain that swept through him with each movement, Roremar swung his good arm.

Svalla didn’t even see it coming as Roremar’s fist nailed his jaw. The crunch was satisfying, but the deranged competitor only laughed and spit blood on Roremar’s tunic.

“You’re finally fighting back,” Svalla said, and he ground one large palm against Roremar’s injured shoulder.

Pain exploded through him. Roremar squirmed, trying to break free. The joint—fuck, his entire arm felt like it was on fire.

Svalla leaned his weight further against him. “You think that’s bad?” He twisted his palm, pressing harder. “How do you think it feels to fucking die? How do you think my brother felt when you pushed that blade into his gut?”

Sweat poured down Roremar’s face. He couldn’t think through the pain. Couldn’t remember what Svalla was talking about.

“Your brother⁠—”

“You killed him! It’s all I fucking see.” Svalla’s knee was dug into Roremar’s gut, making him wheeze for air. “And now you’ll know what it feels like.” A punch to Roremar’s cheek, and his head snapped back, the tunnels dancing with black spots. He couldn’t assemble his thoughts to fight back. “The best part. No one is even going to know it’s my fault you die. Not your cultish fans, and not that Fateblessed bitch.”

That snarled word barreled through Roremar’s thoughts, vision tinting red.

“Don’t fucking call her that.” Roremar bucked, trying to throw Svalla off. But the movement was more erratic than strategic.

Every move sent another bolt of pain down his arm, followed by another wave of nausea.

Svalla pinned Roremar’s good arm down, the crazed gleam in his eye brightening as he hunched closer. “Think I’ll keep her for myself. Take out the others one by one down here for what they’ve done to me.” Roremar didn’t know what that meant, but he was trying too hard to focus his fragmented attention through the agony of his shoulder to figure it out. “Think she’ll spread her legs for me as easily as she has for you?”

Fury unlike anything he’d felt before burned through him, numbing the pain in his shoulder.

“Doesn’t matter,” Svalla said, pressing harder against him. “She will whether it’s easy or not.”

And Roremar exploded.

With the pure force of rage, he ripped his good arm from Svalla’s grasp and swung. His rings landed in Svalla’s eye socket, the metal biting in deep enough to send the man toppling off him.

Roremar rolled to his feet, legs steady but one arm useless. He didn’t have a single damned weapon on him, but Svalla didn’t either. Unfortunately, the man had a few inches and a lot of weight on his side.

Roremar was quick, though. Even without his mind fully functioning, his body reacted on instinct.

Steps light, he swiveled around to the other side of the tunnel while Svalla got to his feet. One of his eye’s was already swelling shut, cheek bloodied and mottled, and Roremar stayed in that blind spot.

Svalla swung around wildly, a roar cracking from his mouth. And the words he yelled next had Roremar even more confused than before.

“Not fucking again. Not my fucking eyesight.”

Roremar shook his head, reminding himself to focus. He didn’t wait to figure out what Svalla meant. He charged.

Roremar caught the much larger man around the gut and slammed him into the wall. They went down again, Roremar’s useless shoulder in pulsing, burning agony, and they became a flurry of fists.

Svalla gripped Roremar’s hair, throwing him to the ground. His head spun, but he reached out, trying to grasp on to anything—a rock or bone shard—anything that could help him.

His opponent’s crazed yelling went on. Things about his vision, about his brother.

“That wasn’t my fucking fault!” Roremar yelled, voice ragged as he tried to extricate himself. He scrambled back.