Page 56 of Thief of Hearts

“Not my first time.”

He didn’t respond to my jest and instead insisted, “You can’t.”

“Yes, I can. No one gets to tell me what to do. I’m fine. I will win.”

He made a sound like a snarl and then pointed out my opponent for the final match. He was an extremely large man, and for a moment, I saw two of him until I blinked and my vision returned to normal.

“You lost a lot of blood,” Zain said, still trying to get me to give up. “You could pass out in the middle of the fight.”

“Then I suppose that giant stone wall who is pretending to be a man will win. But I don’t give up and I won’t give up now.”

“He has defeated every challenger that he’s gone against.”

“So have I,” I reminded him.

“He’s not bleeding.”

“And he’s not battle-favored. I will beat him.”

“What if you don’t?” A note of desperation tinged his voice.

“I will. Trust me.” My side throbbed but I refused to touch it or let anyone know how much pain I was in.

The extremely large man, whom the announcer called Erebus, walked around the stadium with his arms extended. Many cheered, but just as many booed him.

Trying not to limp, I made my way over to where the fight would be. While Erebus took his bows and accolades, I focused on imagining the fight. I would need strength and speed to fight someone like him. I had to catch him off guard. I wondered if he had watched any of my matches. Would he know what he was up against?

And would I be able to stay conscious long enough to win?

Erebus finally deigned to join us. The referee again reminded us of the rules, and there was a hammer pounding loudly in my head. I shook it hard, trying to concentrate.

When the referee began the fight, I wasn’t ready.

But Erebus was.

He rushed at me and I barely stepped out of the way. But his movement had been a feint and he immediately circled to my left and punched my injury as hard as he could.

Everything went black and I couldn’t help but cry out in pain. The stitches came apart and I felt the warm blood seeping down my side. I became aware of some movement to my right and saw that the guards were holding a crazed Zain back.

I needed to hold on long enough to finish this.

Erebus came at me again, punching. I was a bit off. I could feel that I was slower. Not by much, but enough that some of his hits landed past my defense.

I hadn’t planned on trying to hurt him. I only wanted to win.

But he had decided to play dirty by hitting my wound, and I was willing to get into the mud.

Invara, give me strength.

For a moment my mind cleared completely. Erebus rushed me, intending to shove me down.

I allowed him to get his arms around me but then I changed our trajectory. I threw us to the right so that we both hit the ground, hard. I made sure that Erebus’s head took the impact.

Before we had even finished falling, I was on the move, turning and wrapping my legs around him, holding him in place. Then I used my right leg to hold his right ankle behind my knee. I reached back to grab his foot and pulled, pinning him to the ground.

Then I twisted it as hard as I could, and I could hear the tiny, delicate bones in his foot and ankle break.

He roared out in pain.