Page 417 of Commanding Scythe and Sky

When I hesitated, the pressure in my skull intensified, throbbing, pressing, like someone was tightening a vise around it.

Throat inexplicably thick, mind spinning, I steadied myself with lungfuls of air and moved into position. Just as I cocked my arm back with the spear in hand, the woman screamed an inhuman sound, and then she was gone.

In her place stood a man who rooted me to the spot.

Rich brown hair, wind-blown and luscious, curling slightly at the top. Tan skin and broad shoulders, a sharp nose, slightly crooked like it had been broken, and piercing emerald eyes.

Marrow-deep terror robbed the breath from my lungs, and I clenched my teeth and fists to keep my hands from shaking.

“Ally!” he snapped like a command.

Pain slammed through my chest, my bones, shredding me apart from within.

The man the shifter called Branoc slumped against the fence.

Liars, all—that’s what Marlana had said. Deceptive by nature.

Even through the agony splitting my skull, I remembered her warning. My body convulsed with inhuman pain as I threw⁠—

And the shifter went down like a sack of stones, red hair back in place by the time she hit the ground. The pain ceased. Gone, more suddenly than it started.

The guards converged. Above me, the metal screeched to a halt as I stared, stunned and wide-eyed, at the two bodies on the edge of the arena, tragically cordoned off by the bars.

Trembling, I stalked for the edge of the ring, eyes on Marlana. By the time I reached the border, the metal was screeching into the stone floor, and I stormed past her, my heart in my throat.

I might be a newborn, but I knew better than to wrap my hand around her throat with witnesses.

The moment we rounded the corner of the hall, I slammed her into the stone.

“What the fuck was that?”

A wicked smile curled her lips. “Feisty,” she purred. “I like it.”

I slammed her harder into the wall. “Who was that?”

“You didn’t like that,” she observed. “Seeing him.”

“Who was that?” I demanded again.

“The man who sold you.”

EIGHTY-FOUR

INSPIRATION

MAGNOLIA

“What’ll you change?” Aren, the beautiful mountainous ass, was barely winded as we reached yet another snow-covered peak of yet another godsdamned fucking mountain. Unbothered. Or at least he put on a damn magnificent show of it, as though it was perfectly normal to trek over steep summits for five fucking weeks eating nothing but dehydrated food packs and a pair of rabbits The Middle sent after taking pity on us.

Was it? Warriors were batshit fucking crazy, I decided.

“Back home?” I panted. My endurance may have improved loads in the last seven months, but it certainly didn’t compare to a jaguar shifter and two Grayshellians. To my eternal amusement, Jason had sprawled out on his belly beside Rika the last time she demanded a rest, and then nearly knocked her over in his insistence that she ride him… like a pony. Rika made the next ascent atop a massive, ethereal jaguar, snuggled into his sleek fur.

It was absurd… and kinda cute.

“With the hierarchy—as their next priestess?”

“Gods, I hope I don’t have to figure that out for a few centuries.”