Page 416 of Commanding Scythe and Sky

I swung again, but he met the motion with his own, sending the haft splintering. My feet slid under the weight of his mammoth frame, and I grimaced. Dropped low. Threw him off balance as I yanked the axe away, snapped the haft over my knee, and adjusted my hold.

He looked at me the way a man surveys an unpleasant task. Like tending to an infection on the underside of a stallion. Necessary but undesirable.

“We fought together in Solskivall!” he blurted, feet scuffing over the dirt as he circled me. “And I would’ve come to your aid in the battle of Grayshell had I known. Kingsley was a fool.”

Solskivall, Grayshell, Kingsley—each name scratched at some distant part of my mind. An ache planted in my chest as my eyes narrowed.

Metal screeched overhead, dust glittering down through the streaming light of the glass far above us, the crowd fading into the background.

“Ally!”

Why the fuck did he keep calling me that?

I threw the axe and used the opening to sprint for the center. Grabbed a shield and a dagger.

“I don’t want to fight you, Alvara.” But that didn’t keep him from advancing. I braced as he swung, steel striking steel with a clang. “You’re better than this, motherfucker,” he snarled. “You’re supposed to be the best of us!” This time it was a roar—a roar as he drove that damn sword toward my chest. I batted it away, confusion fueling my irritation as I studied his eyes. My scalp tingled, pressure building in my mind as that invisible string compelled me forward. Shoving him square in the sternum, I hissed when the man grabbed my wrist. He yanked it up, eyes widening when I tossed the shield to the earth, revealing the blade behind it.

But too late.

I rammed the dagger between his ribs, crimson splattering my skin…

An image flickered in my mind—mammoth wolves at the front of a battle formation.

Blinking, I slid the blade out, sending blood to the earth as a woman screamed.

This was not the scream of a crowd cheering first blood—this was grief, raw and serrated, like the sound had been ripped from her.

“Moros is a mentalist,” the man gritted out, hand flying to cover his wound.

I backed up a step. Another. My trembling hands felt somehow tainted. That tingle in my scalp intensified, whispers filling my ears, chanting for blood, for victory, for violence.

“He’s got his claws in you, Ally, but I know you⁠—”

“Stop,” I gritted out as the whispers intensified, the urge to spill blood sharpening as my fingers curled.

“—Aren and Ansel knew you.”

“Stop it.” The names stung like acid, silver eyes glinting in my mind as I staggered to the edge of the cage, clinging to the bars.

“He means to wield you like a cannon,” he rasped. “Aim you at the heart of Grayshell and light the fuse.”

I wiped the back of my arm over my forehead, another image slamming into my mind—this man, in a suit and tie, beside a woman in white. My fingers grappled for the spear fastened to the metal bars. The ceiling screeched, and I glanced up to see those lethal-looking spikes were only a floor away now.

I stalked toward the shield at the center as the man staggered.

My eyes were only for him.

A red-haired woman burst through the crowd and threw herself against the bars. My palm ached from how tightly I clenched the spear. My eyes widened as she sobbed, “Branoc!”

I looked down to my bloodied hands, and back. Tears streamed down her pretty face as the crowd booed.

“Branoc!” she wailed. The man fell to his knees, hand still clutched to his ribs. Her sobs intensified—raw and haggard as she slammed her dainty palms into the metal.

Heart hammering, I glanced to Marlana on the side of the ring, but her eyes were trained hard on the couple now pressing foreheads together through the bars.

I lifted my gaze to Moros on his dais a floor above.

He jerked his head toward them in an explicit order.