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“They are with me. The Red Masks hold the Society. They destroyed half the city. And they pushed my brother out. I will not stand for it.”
“How do we know that you don’t hold their allegiance?” Adelaide asked sensibly.
“Believe me or not, but I was working with Fordham and Kerrigan before everything fell apart. This is not what they want. This is not what I want.”
“What do you want?” Delle demanded.
“To repair the broken glass.”
Delle tilted her head to the side, as if seeing straight through to what that meant. “You seem well, Princess.”
“I am well,” she admitted with an arched eyebrow.
“Then, you are welcome.”
The door opened, and before she crossed the threshold, Dozan was there. His hand reaching for her own. He squeezed it once, a shit-eating I told you so scrawled across his features.
She wanted to punch him in his perfect face at the audacity. And yet … she wanted to kiss him, just to see if he tasted as delicious as he looked.
“A step behind your princess,” she teased him.
“You forget,” he said, wrapping a finger through her ice-white hair, “I am a king in my own right.”
“To no kingdom.”
“Ah then, we are the same.”
They were.
“Then, let us claim a new throne.”
He pressed his lips to the back of her hand, and desire shot through her. An insufferable and relentless know-it-all. And yet … and yet …
“To a new throne,” she agreed.
Then, they stepped across the threshold and into the House of Shadows as equals.
21
The Training
Constantine was true to his word.
The next day, he walked down to the coliseum with her in tow.
“How can I help you?” the same old man asked.
“I have to make a change to my tournament roster,” Constantine said.
The man nodded, as if this were routine. “We’ve had a few come back in and drop out of the main fight. Once they thought it through, they decided to move their competitor down to a potentially safer fight. We’re down to twenty in the tournament. Think it’ll go lower than that by the end of the week.”
Constantine glanced at her. He didn’t want to do this. He’d made it plain last evening that he didn’t want her to enter. If she lost, then he’d never get his money back for what he’d paid for her. Selling her to Tarcus or one of the other senators for a few nights would certainly be easier than hoping she survived the tournament circuit. Not that it would be any better for his guilty conscience. It was Evander who had eventually convinced him. If she could beat Myron in open combat, then he wasn’t ready for the final tournament.
“All right. I have it here.” The man removed Constantine’s original paperwork. “I assume you would like to move Myron to a lower fight?”
“Yes,” Constantine said. “To the staff fighting circuit.”
The man scratched out his name on the final fight and wrote him into the other bout. Then, he made notations on his own documents.
“Just need your mark here.”
He slid the papers to Constantine.
He looked sick. “And I need to add a new fighter to the final fight.”
The man’s eyebrows rose. “A new fighter?”
“Are you sure?” Constantine asked her.
“I’m going to win,” she hissed at him. “I’ll write my own name if you won’t.”
He brushed her off. “Yes. Put it under Felicity.”
“Red,” she corrected.
That had been her name in the Dragon Ring when she was fighting for Dozan Rook. And it was the name that she wanted to keep when she went into the coliseum.
The man looked alarmed. “General, is this the competitor you plan to put in the final fight?”
“Indeed. Put it under Red.”
“She is … a Doma,” the man said. He bowed deeply to Kerrigan. “No magic is allowed in the tournament.”
“She doesn’t have magic.”
“And I’m not a Doma,” Kerrigan added.
Constantine glared at her. “You look enough like them.”
“I have to agree,” the man said. “And if she isn’t a Doma, she is … quite small.”
It was Kerrigan’s time to put the full force of her glare toward the man. “Did we ask for your opinion?”
“Certainly, it’s my place to remind you that this is a fight to the death.” He gestured to her like he couldn’t believe he even had to point it out. “Every round will be a fight to the death. Only one comes out alive.”
“She’s aware,” Constantine said.
“It’s fine. I’m going to be the one who comes out.”
The man shook his head in silent disbelief. “All right. My warning has been rendered. What you do with it is your business.” He pulled the paperwork back toward him, mumbling under his breath, “An Andine putting forward a female Doma as a competitor. Now, I’ve heard of everything.”
But he did as he had been told. He added her name, and Constantine signed for it.
“You have up until an hour before your first fight to withdraw,” the man informed them both. “In case that is of interest to you. After that, you go into the coliseum whether or not you want to.”
