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The fear in Vercia’s wide-open eyes told me that she understood exactly what had happened.
Kosandion’s voice echoed through the arena. “Cumbr Adgi ar’Muterzen.”
I spun the stone pillar, so Pivor faced the throne.
“Do you have anything to say?” Kosandion asked.
Pivor grinned and this time it looked psychotic. “Fuck off, you dumb prick. You want a piece of me, be a man and get it yourself.”
Kosandion’s face was glacial, as if carved out of an iceberg. “Cumbr Adgi ar’Muterzen, you are hereby expelled from the selection. Your sponsor is disqualified. Their asks will not be honored.”
“I have something to say,” the largest Murder Beak shrieked.
Kosandion nodded.
I moved the lights onto the Murder Beak section and slid Pivor’s pillar toward it, far enough to stay out of reach. The largest bird rose. She was huge with rust and crimson plumage. Her enormous beak could crack a cow’s femur in half. I had seen it happen, because Orro served them bovine bones when they felt peckish and wanted a fun snack.
The leader of the Murder Beaks took a step forward and stepped onto the rail bordering their section. The wicked spurs on her legs were sheathed in razor-sharp metal, and they glinted in the light of the arena. Her talons gripped the stone and squeezed, chipping it. She glared at Pivor with the unblinking focus of a predator.
“Go back to your father, pirate. Give him my message. Your skulls are soft. Your brains are delicious. We are coming.”
She opened her beak and let out a deafening shriek. Every feather on her body stood erect. Pivor was thirty feet away from her, but he jerked back in his seat.
“The Dominion acknowledges the vow of vengeance,” Kosandion said. “We do not bear the Murder Beaks any ill will and hold them blameless in this affair.”
“Fight me, you fucking asshole!” Pivor howled, twisting in his seat. “Fight me.”
“Sadly, someone else has a prior claim,” Kosandion said. “Innkeeper, we are finished.”
Sean raised his hand and his voice whispered through the arena, quiet but heard by every creature there.
“Your welcome is withdrawn.”
The architecture of the inn folded above the doorway, spinning, collapsing, and a door rushed at us and flung itself wide open, revealing Baha-char’s sunshine. The roots of the inn spilled from the ceiling, yanked Pivor off his chair, and hurled him through the door. It slammed shut.
The feed on the screen showed Pivor landing on the big stone tiles paving the alley. He rolled, stopped, spat into the dirt, and got up, his chin jutting into the air. He adjusted his clothes…
A familiar woman dropped from the upper balcony, wrapped in a shawl.
He squinted at her.
She pulled her shawl back, revealing the faint outline of scales on her face.
“Do you remember me, Cumbr Adgi?”
He laughed.
“You beheaded my father.” Long orange blades slipped into her hand from within the shawl’s folds.
“You starved my mother to death.”
She started toward him.
“You butchered my sister.”
He kept laughing.
“You violated my body.”
“And enjoyed it,” he said.
“Today is the day I cleanse my soul of this blood debt.”
“Bring it on!”
She charged him. He danced out of the way, impossibly quick for a human, and swung at her. She dodged. Pivor’s fist connected with the wall of a building, cracking the stone. That explained why he wanted to fight Kosandion.
He shook the dust off his hand and grinned. “Come on! I’m waiting! Come on, come—”
She slipped close to him with deadly grace and spun her sword over his left forearm. Pivor didn’t even register it until his fist slid off his arm and fell to the ground. He bellowed and charged at her.
It took almost two minutes for him to die. She painted the alley with his blood, carving pieces off of him bit by bit, and when everything was done, she gouged out his eyes with her bare hands, cut off his head, pulled her shawl over her face, and walked away, melting into the current of shoppers on the busy street at the mouth of the alley.
Vercia’s honor guard turned as one and exited the stage, heading down the bridge, past me, toward the portal. She looked after them, looked at Kosandion, then back at the screen where pieces of Pivor littered the alley. Desperation twisted her face. She marched to the bridge at a near run. Nobody except me paid her any mind. There was no need to arrest her or charge her with anything. She was a dead woman walking.
Vercia saw me and swallowed. “I want a room.”
“We have no vacancy.”
She spun around and waved at the arena, incredulous.
“We are full, Lady Denoma.” I pointed to the portal. “Please, return to the Dominion.”
She clenched her hands and fled to the portal. The green glow swallowed her.
Good riddance.
I took a moment to savor the cleaner air and turned to the arena. We needed to wish the Murder Beaks goodbye, put everyone else back into their quarters, and prepare for Kosandion’s date this afternoon. He would be having a one-on-one with Cyanide, and I had no idea how it would go.
