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“Here,” I stated, pushing through and stepping up to the table.
“And High Lord Viktor Adimik of the Night Realm!”
The male on his right shouted, “High Lord Kazimir Vaszoly of the Night Realm and General Drazen Fedir of the Iron Realm!”
Fuck.
Silence fell over those around us, and the thread that tied Izidora to me vibrated with anxiety. Even though I couldn’t see her, I knew she was somewhere nearby, heart racing.
The rest of the matchups were read, but I did not hear them over the roaring fury in my ears. My hand tightened over the pommel of my swords as Kazimir and Drazen, along with two other pairs, stepped into the rings.
I didn’t trust the Night Fae not to fight dirty, especially with Drazen. But Drazen carried his ‘I don’t give a fuck’ attitude right into the ring, squaring up to Kazimir with a bored expression on his face. When the sand turned over, Kazimir sprang forward, his emerald pommel flashing as he thrust his sword straight up the middle. Drazen sidestepped, twirling the hilt of his weapon over his hand before parrying Kazimir’s next strike. Veins of lapis lazuli ran through Drazen’s sword, matching his wings, and the stone glittered as it met the solid steel of Kazimir’s blade. They fought in a flurry of strikes, and all eyes were on them, the other two matches forgotten as they battled for control of their ring.
Drazen’s strength was subtle, unlike Savich’s, and he managed to land a series of heavy blows that had Kazimir backing toward the fence. Sweat poured from their brows, but Drazen’s bored expression never fell, despite the obvious strain as they fought.
Come on, Drazen.
I needed my cousin to win, not only for the Iron Realm’s overall score but to prove a point. The Night Fae might think they could show up and take Izidora back with them, but it simply wasn’t happening.
Kazimir faltered, and Drazen lunged for a yielding blow, only to release a harsh curse as he stumbled over something in the flat, packed-dirt arena. I pressed closer to the fence separating us, eyes trained on the spot where Drazen had been moments before, and I swore a snake lay in the dirt. Squinting, I blinked and looked again, only for that black line to disappear. Drazen had recovered, and the scrape of metal drew my attention to the two males again.
The sand was nearly empty, and my heart pounded in my chest in time with the furious strikes Drazen landed, the very last knocking Kazimir’s blade from his hands. His eyes darted to theglass, then back to my cousin, and I knew he debated how long he could hold this position without yielding so that the round was judged on points. But Drazen already knew, and with the speed gifted to Félvér, he pinned Kazimir against the fence with his blade at his throat, leaving him no choice but to yield.
Kazimir spat out the word like it was poison, and Drazen stepped away, maintaining his nonchalant demeanor. Kazimir hurled more words at him, and they were enough to have the half-Dragon spinning on his heel and stalking back to Kazimir. Drazen’s face was a breath from the Night Fae’s, and his expression was pure fury.
“You’re a fucking cheat, Kazimir. I know you used magic against me, and yet you still lost,” Drazen scoffed.
Kazimir shoved Drazen away, his expression darkening. “You’re just a mongrel playing at nobility, Drazen. Take your filth and crawl back into the hole you came from.”
The two stepped forward again, poised to strike with fists before judges entered the ring and separated them. Drazen's normally cool facade was utterly cracked as he passed me, and I tried to grab him by the shoulder, but he shrugged me off and kept walking. I made to follow him, but my name was called.
My jaw flexed and my knuckles cracked one by one as I entered the ring. Viktor had already taken his place, and the crowd around us was silent as we squared up. Slowly, I drew my sword from its sheath at my side, the deep obsidian veins crafted into the lightweight metal giving it a sinister, threatening appeal. The deep red garnet set into the hilt was the color of freshly drawn blood, and it flared with energy the moment my palms gripped the metal.
The world fell away as my focus honed in on the Night Fae in front of me. Viktor was tall and stacked with lean muscle, but his leather armor was no match for the lightweight metal I wore. The Iron Realm had been hard at work crafting stronger andlighter metal for a century, and in my lifetime, we’d succeeded. Viktor, like most of the other Fae, probably assumed my armor would slow me, and a small smirk formed on my face as I waited for him to underestimate me. Besides, I was the most powerful Félvér to have ever lived, and even the Goddess couldn’t save him from my wrath.
The sand turned over, and Viktor struck first.
His sword speared toward my middle, and I easily parried it away, sidestepping and returning with a slash at his legs. Viktor jumped backward, the tip barely grazing his thigh, before planting his foot and pushing forward, using the momentum of his retreat to swing his blade up toward my chin. I slipped to the side, the song of metal whispering in my ear, then met his sword with my own as he retracted.
Both of us pressed into our blades, trying to force the other to back off first. Sweat beaded his forehead, and I grinned, not even the slightest hint of fatigue gracing my body.
“Guess usmongrelscould teach you Fae a thing or two about fighting,” I purred, sending Viktor stumbling backward with a mighty shove. Without waiting for him to recover, I launched an attack, my sword moving faster and faster with each subsequent strike. The force of our blows reverberated up my arm, but I had trained my whole life to be a weapon, and there was no way I was losing this match.
“Guess you could teach me a thing or two about torture, too,” Viktor snapped, finally planting his foot and putting energy into pushing me backward.
I laughed, a manic, crazed sound that had my blood singing. “If only you knew.”
Feinting an arcing strike, I flicked my wrist at the last second and sliced into Viktor’s forearm, causing his fingers to flex around his blade, nearly dropping it before he recovered, onlyholding it with a single hand. Blood streamed down his arm and onto the dirt beneath our feet, but he did not complain.
The sand in the glass was halfway gone.
“I was there when we rescued her, you know,” he hissed, lunging for me.
“And I remember your smell from when I arrived hours later,” I sneered, swinging my blade, only to pull it at the last moment and blast him backward with a kick to the stomach.
The air whooshed from his lungs as he stumbled, surprised by my change in tactics. His blade barely clanged against mine as I struck again. With a rough flick of my wrist, I finally disarmed him, and he held his hands in surrender.
“I yield,” he grumbled, his eyes harder than rock as he surveyed me.
