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The roar of the crowd startled me. To my shame, I realized that I’d tuned out my father’s speech, too lost in my somber musings. Thankfully, it had merely been the usual opening of a match with the standard warnings about playing honorably, yet savagely enough to put on a good show.
Father resumed his seat, his hand immediately resting possessively on Mercy’s thigh. She turned her stunning face to look at him with a tender expression that stirred a powerful longing within me. I rejoiced for my father that he had finally found his soulmate and the happiness he deserved. Although I felt no particular attraction to off-worlder females, I couldn’t deny that she was the Magnar’s perfect queen. As part of my duties, I visited every clan of Braxia. Not a single one of their daughters stirred my interest beyond their physical appeal. None had struck me as queen material.
To my right, Krygor had slipped an equally possessive arm around Hope’s waist. He, too, had found his unlikely soulmate in an off-worlder. That Hope was a pureblood Guldan, while Mercy was a hybrid Guldan-Veredian certainly gave us pause. Granted, it was purely an odd twist of fate, but considering the bad blood between Braxians and Guldans, it had raised many eyebrows.
Is my soulmate a Guldan as well?
I shuddered at the thought.
But the loud horn announcing the start of the game reclaimed my attention. As the circular plate in the center of the arena began parting, Gavin and Jorak fisted their hands and bunched their muscles as a deep growl rose from their throats. They were calling upon their Berserker powers. Few Braxian males possessed that ability, which made them honored and respected members of their clans.
Once active, a Berserker emitted an aura of power that spread to every member of their clan and to those they considered as clanmates or family, turning them into Furies. It not only increased their strength and speed, but also significantly heightened their pain threshold, allowing them to continue fighting undaunted even when grievously injured.
My skin tingled, and a sudden wave of power and blood lust rushed through my veins, leaving me reeling. I almost shot to my feet so that I could jump into the arena and join the fray.
“Ancestors!” I whispered, staring in awe at Gavin as the ball shot vertically out of the hole in the center of the arena. “Gavin’s power is insane.”
“You can feel his Berserker aura?” Clan Leader Boros Grumar asked, looking at me over his shoulder with the same stunned expression the other Councilmen displayed.
“Yes. My entire family can,” I said matter-of-factly, while casting a questioning look at my father.
My father and Mercy nodded, confirming they were feeling it, too.
“We also feel it!” Lissy exclaimed with a smug expression that had all of us chuckling.
She was a handful, that one. Full of mischief, clever beyond her years, and far too adorable for her own good… or rather our own. She was the perfect mix of her parents, with Mercy’s Guldan black horns recurving over her head, the viciously sharp tips pointing up, a more delicate version of our Braxian flat, broad nose, and the typical spots that adorned the sides of the necks, arms, and legs of the Veredians.
“The boy must hold you in extremely high esteem then that he would extend his powers to all of you,” Boros said in an oddly pensive tone.
“Of course, he does,” Krygor said, as if implying otherwise was offensive.
“The Xeldar and Aldriss Clans may not have blood links, but wearefamily,” my father said in a tone that brooked no argument.
The proud and affectionate glance Krygor cast towards my sire warmed my heart. He had been his staunchest ally through the darkest days of his reign. Once I ascended to Braxia’s throne, I prayed he would grant me the same unwavering loyalty.
But the clash of bodies below ended further discussions.
Both teams had rushed forward to catch the ball once it would have fallen back down. When Gavin ran straight for Jorkal—the opposing clan’s team leader—I assumed he intended to tackle him out of the way. When he jumped instead, with his foot forward, I presumed it was to kick him in the face.
Wrong.
Having anticipated Jorkal’s defensive response to grab his foot—likely to yank him down—Gavin didn’t give his foe a chance to complete the motion. Instead, he placed his other foot on Jorkal’s shoulder, using it as a steppingstone. His momentum helped him to both propel himself higher and free his foot from Jorkal’s grasp in the process. The movement sent Jorkal stumbling forward. He fell flat on this face at the same time Gavin was catching the ball mid-air.
The crowd’s ecstatic roar drowned out the one that erupted out of my companions and me. Gavin landed, dropping immediately into a roll to absorb the impact of his fall. He rolled back onto his feet, his fist already raised to punch the opponent standing in his path. His rival stumbled backward. Gavin rammed into him to finish making him fall. The boy stepped on his felled opponent while his uncle Dheran and other clanmates knocked the members of the other team out of the way.
As Gavin ran through the field, a chiming sound resonated, giving the five second warning before the first zap. Simultaneously, the tips of the pillars started glowing as a visual reminder of the impending blast. Everyone ignored them, and Gavin continued to run in zigzags all over the field, dodging or knocking down those his teammates were failing to control.
Seconds later, a luminous blast emanated from the ball, tightly tucked under Gavin’s thick arm, and the tips of the pillars as they all released their electric discharge. The boy didn’t wince or falter, nor did the people standing within the radius of the pillars. The first three discharges were easily bearable. It was a sound strategy to hold onto the ball for as long as possible at the beginning of the match, while you still had the strength and stamina to endure it.
You could only score ten times during a match by placing the ball on top of one of the pillars. Once all ten pillars were taken, the match ended. Placing a ball before the first zap gave a single point. After the first zap gave ten points. Each zap after that doubled the value of the points, so twenty, forty, eighty, one-hundred and sixty, and so on. Once a team got a significant early lead, it would then rush to fill the other pillars with lesser points to keep the opponents from catching up.
And did Gavin ever rake up the points!
For the first three zaps, Gavin held onto the ball, eating the blast without flinching. After that, he got creative. While he occasionally threw the ball to his teammates, they systematically threw it back to him as soon as they could. It made sense as he was faster and stronger, more able to hang on to the ball if he got tackled.
He would throw it in the air for himself or to one of his mates a split second before the blast to spare them from taking the damage. When the seventh zap went off, three of Clan Arthol’s members failed to clear the blast radius of the pillars, in no small part aided by Clan Aldriss’s team kindly kicking two of them directly within range. The three men fell to the ground, their bodies contorting in pain from the brutal electric discharge.
Spurred on by their Clan Leader angrily shouting his lungs out at his son from the sidelines to take back the damn ball, Jorkal rushed Gavin. Placing the ball now would give the Aldriss team six hundred and forty points. But waiting for the eighth zap, which was a mere twelve seconds away, would give them one thousand two hundred and eighty points. A gap nearly impossible to overcome.
