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He landed blow after blow after blow. Until Thugar Brood was on his knees in the sand. Dahvid’s chest heaved. He reached down and dragged the pathetic wretch to the edge of the circle. He tossed him to the ground. Dahvid’s sword was waiting there—outside the null zone.
He reached for the handle. It weighed almost nothing. Blood pulsed in his ears. The roar of the crowd thumped in his chest like an anthem. All he could see was Thugar Brood, begging him for a mercy that he’d never shown to Ware. Dahvid licked his lips, set his feet…
Reality flickered.
It was not Thugar. It was the paladin with the shattered nose and the wrong-colored hair. A stranger. Dahvid stood there as the crowd chanted for the killing blow. He was about to oblige them when the paladin collapsed sideways. Unconscious.
A few of Darling’s medics darted out of one of the entrances. Sometimes a death was necessary to sate the crowd. Most of the time, though, Darling liked his challengers to stay in the rotation. Dahvid allowed his sword to flicker out of existence. He’d given away the knowledge of one of his spells. He knew Darling’s people would take note. Likely they had a carefully maintained file on every gladiator, all their strengths and weaknesses and tendencies.
Good, he thought. Let them believe they know anything about me.
Dahvid rubbed the dirt and dust of the arena between his hands and left.
* * *
As they entered their apartment, Dahvid’s eyes flicked over to the left corner. No sarcastic comment issued forth. No raised eyebrow awaited him. Nevelyn was not there. They’d removed her bed to make space for Cath’s artwork and Dahvid’s morning stretches. Nevelyn had also taken all her cloth materials with her. Every experimental weaving. The absence he felt was more than just a physical one, though.
Ever since their escape from Kathor, Dahvid had always had one of his sisters to guide him. It had been hard enough to lose Ava. She was easy to miss. Bright and cheerful and wild like him. They’d always had a lot in common. Losing Nevelyn was more like losing the functionality of an organ. Something vital ripped out of him. In the past few weeks, he’d found himself turning to ask her opinion—only to realize that she wasn’t there. He forced himself to believe they would see each other again.
Before leaving, Nevelyn had also taken all their research on the Broods. She’d left only the information that was relevant to Dahvid’s assignment. A list of Darling’s favorite gladiators. Notes from fights that Nevelyn had scouted on his behalf. This part of their research would help him in his own impossible task: winning a gauntlet.
Darling’s gauntlet was famous in Ravinia. Anyone who came to the warlord and requested to run a gauntlet could not be denied. He welcomed all challengers. The rules were simple. The challenger faced five opponents of Darling’s choosing, one at a time. If they made it past the first opponent, they had exactly five minutes to recover before the next fighter entered the arena. If they won all five fights—they could make a single request of Darling. Only three people out of hundreds had ever survived one. The first victor was Agatha Marchment.
A world-renowned blade master who’d made a name for herself in the War of Neighbors. She swept through her gauntlet without taking a single hit. The next day, Darling announced her as the head general overseeing all the gladiator pits. Marchment’s one wish had apparently been a percentage of Darling’s earnings. The two had worked together for nearly a decade now.
The second was Able Ockley. Dahvid still wished he’d been there to witness that one. The best magical duelist in Kathor. He’d been sent on behalf of the viceroy. Apparently, he hadn’t used a blade at all. No shields. No weapons. Only his wand. Long-range spellwork was crucial in larger battles and open warfare, but Dahvid still couldn’t imagine how a wizard had navigated close-quarters dueling like that with nothing but a wand. After winning, Ockley had negotiated a very favorable trading partnership for Kathor with the growing freeport.
Finally, there was a brutal giant of a man who went by the nickname Creasy. He won his gauntlet the year before—and Dahvid had been in the crowd to witness it. Creasy had pounded his way through the early rounds, then caught some unbelievable luck in his fourth match when one of Darling’s best wizards tripped on his own cloak midspell. The magic backfired and Creasy ended him with a casual stomp of his right boot. What made Creasy’s gauntlet unique was that he beat the final opponent—and died mere minutes after. Bled out before the medics could save him. It was a surprise to many when Darling honored the victory. Creasy’s sister had been granted a single wish, though no one had ever learned what her request was.
Three victors in all that time. The rest of the challengers were dead. Dahvid intended to be the fourth champion. He would win a gauntlet. He would make his one request.
“Distracted?”
It was Cath’s voice coming from the corner of the room. She was seated, working on her sketches. He had drifted again. Drawn through time like a grain of sand in an hourglass. He looked down and realized he was washing his hands in their water basin. Who knew how long he’d been standing there?
“Just thinking.”
“You revealed your null spell,” Cath noted, eyes back on her art. “Interesting choice.”
He grunted in return. “I was just following a hunch.”
“You don’t think Darling will use a proper wizard? That spell would be very useful against a pure spellcaster.”
Dahvid dried his hands on the waist of his shirt. “I don’t think he will now. He knows I can eliminate their magic with a single spell. Besides, most of his elite gladiators are brilliant in hand-to-hand. Casting the null circle would limit me, not them. It was the right move.”
Cath nodded. “I trust you, Dahvid.”
She was focused on her drawing, so she didn’t see his entire body shudder involuntarily. I trust you, Dahvid. Those had been Ware’s last words to him. His brother had looked back over one shoulder with a mischievous grin. Ware had always been such a helplessly restless creature. That night he told Dahvid he needed to get some air. He was walking down to the Lower Quarter for a drink—even though their father had ordered him to stay off the streets. At least until the controversy with Thugar Brood died down. Ware was trusting Dahvid not to snitch to the guards.
He could still imagine his brother’s long hair, tossing bright over one shoulder as he turned the corner and slipped out of sight. No one—not even his sisters—knew that Dahvid had secretly followed him through the busy streets of Kathor.
Thugar Brood had come from nowhere. That’s what it felt like. One second Ware was alone and happy and nodding to every person he passed. And the next second there was a wall of a human being standing before him. Thugar’s foot soldiers fanned out in a half-moon before Dahvid realized what was happening. Ware stood there, completely alone, because Dahvid had kept his secret. None of the house guards had any idea they’d left the estate.
I trust you, Dahvid.
All the stories got it wrong. All the rumors they heard over the years. Ware was no coward. He did not run. He did not cry out or beg for mercy. Instead, he took up his fighting stance. Dahvid knew that Thugar would have beaten his brother in a fair fight, but it had never been that. One of the foot soldiers came in from Ware’s blind side. Another and then another. They rained blows on him until he was sprawled and unconscious in the dust.
Most of the witnesses had fled. Thugar came forward to bind Ware, patiently working the rope around his legs and his feet. Like an animal. Dahvid remained hidden the entire time, too afraid to move. There were too many of them. He was too small. He did not have enough magic. A hundred reasons kept him in the shadows.
