Page 16 of Blood King, Part I (Crowns #4)

Chapter twelve

The crowd’s roar was almost deafening. They loved solo fights. Cyrus stood with Manus by the gate to the arena and gripped the side of the fighter’s neck encouragingly.

“We’ve practiced this a hundred times,” Cyrus told him. “Work him high, then drop low. Sweep and end. You get this kill, and you’ll move to starred silver. It will put you in sight for gold.”

Manus drew in a deep breath and nodded. A bronze lock of hair fell over his forehead, not long enough to hinder his sight. It had been longer, but Cyrus had gotten Visa to cut it a few days prior.

Cyrus clutched his shoulders, looking him in the eye. “You will get this.”

Manus nodded again, and the gate rose.

Cyrus cuffed him on the shoulder. “One!” he roared.

“One!” the wall guard echoed.

Manus gripped the hilt of his short sword and trotted to the center of the arena to wait for his opponent.

Why hadn’t he repeated it?

He was nervous.

It was fine.

Cyrus moved quickly and slipped down a narrow circular hall and around to the next gate to secretly watch the fight.

The tiered side seating was packed with throngs of spectators. Cyrus’s eyes traveled over the top observation box in the center stand and stopped when they found the king.

King Orrid—a man as vile as his name sounded—lounged under a draped canopy to shield himself from the harsh sun.

The king considered himself a pious man, having converted to the religion of the Northern kingdoms of Mercia and Aleon.

He’d built temples and pulled down statues of the old gods and erected those of the new.

But he didn’t stop his bloodsport. Did the gods want blood as much as men did?

Mercia and Aleon had no such games, but like most religious men, this king chose what suited his own agenda.

The king’s daughter sat beside him, flashing colored ribbons of her favored fighting houses and clapping gleefully. She was as sordid as her father. The queen rarely made an appearance but frequently hosted private matches at the palace. The whole family disgusted Cyrus.

He swept his gaze to the far side of the king’s platform, and hate rippled over his skin. There, he saw Pyro. Pyro was a usual guest in the royal box, as the king’s premier supplier of the most sought-after luxuries from around the world. And the king and Pyro shared common appetites.

Cyrus kept his gaze on Pyro. When in the arena, he never looked up at him; he never acknowledged him. However, he let himself look now as he made his silent vow again—the only vow that gave him the strength to keep going, to keep fighting. He’d find a way to kill this man.

The excited crowd cheered, and Cyrus shifted his attention back to his friend. Manus was good—a good fighter with a good heart. He’d make a good lead one day.

Manus glanced around the arena. When he found Cyrus watching him, he nodded. Cyrus gave a nod of encouragement back.

The cross gate opened, and Manus’s opponent came out at a run. But instead of breaking into a return run to meet him, Manus widened his stance, as they’d practiced.

The man leapt forward with a deadly initial blow, and Manus caught it with an upswing, knocking it to the side. He used his opponent’s momentum to spin them so that Manus was now on the forward advance, with the challenger forced to fight moving backward.

Manus drove a series of strikes, one after the other. Cyrus’s body tightened in tandem with each move, knowing each play, each blow. Yes. Yes.

Still moving backward, the opponent stumbled. Even at a distance, Cyrus could see his confidence starting to waver. Good. Don’t let up, Cyrus prayed. Manus didn’t. He pressed harder, forcing the sequence higher.

Good. Higher.

Manus drove the exchange to chest level, and higher still. His opponent worked his own counter higher.

And… now.

In a split, Manus delivered a sweeping kick that dropped the other fighter to the ground. He was on him in an instant. The man didn’t even know what hit him as Manus served the lethal strike, finishing him, and the fight.

Flawless. Fucking flawless.

It was a quick kill, a merciful one, just as they had practiced. Better than they’d practiced.

Cyrus panted with relief as a grin spread across his face. Manus did it. He would move to starred silver. Then with ten more team wins with personal kills, he’d get gold.

But the chant from the crowd made him still. The smile fell from Cyrus’s face.

No.

His eyes swept the stands.

No. NO.

The crowd was in bloodlust. It had happened too fast. They wanted more. Manus didn’t have the support of the masses like Cyrus did to get away with quick kills. Cyrus should have known. He should have known.

They chanted for the cats.

Cyrus’s heart hammered against his ribs. It was up to the king. King Orrid smiled as his gaze moved around the arena. Then he looked to Pyro. Of course he’d give the decision to the lord. Pyro was the master—the master of Manus, of his fate.

No. Manus had just made starred silver and was on the cusp of gold. It had been a flawless kill, one Cyrus had choreographed himself. It was a perfect kill by a perfect fighter—Pyro couldn’t allow a crowd call.

Pyro looked back at the king, and Cyrus’s heartbeat nearly choked him.

Pyro nodded.

“No!” Cyrus bellowed, but his voice was drowned in the cheers of the crowd.

Manus turned, and his eyes found Cyrus’s. He lowered his sword, and just stood, staring at his friend. His eyes were full of defeat, full of fear. He’d done everything to perfection, and still, this was what fate gave to him.

“Manus!” Cyrus thundered as the cats’ gates opened with their chains slack, and they leapt for the spent fighter.

Seconds. It was only seconds before Manus’s body was torn and mangled to different corners of the arena.

Cyrus sobbed with rage.

But he could only watch.

Cyrus stumbled blindly through the dark corridor, his face wet with tears and his body aflame with the heat of manic fury. The roars of the crowd shook the arena—calls for blood. More blood. Endless blood.

He found the cell.

The witch said nothing when she saw him, only stared at him with her eyes wide.

“You said you can bring this arena to the ground.” His voice shook as he spoke. “You can kill them?”

Her chains clinked as she gripped the bars of the cell door, drawing as close as she could to him. “I can.”

“All of them?”

“All of them,” she promised.

He had no blade to draw his blood—fighters weren’t given weapons until they lined up to enter the area—but he reached out to her. At this point, he didn’t care what she needed to do to get it. She grabbed his hand and pulled it through the bars, then bit into the flesh of his forearm.

He bared his teeth against the pain but held still.

Then it hit him.

The connection was unlike anything he’d ever felt before.

It didn’t take him into her mind or into her thoughts.

No, it brought her into him . He could taste her on his tongue, something sweet, and her scent of smoky earth filled his nose.

She flooded him—his senses, his body, his mind—all of him.

Icy fire rippled over his skin. Every hair rose on end.

When she pulled back, releasing him, he could still feel her—everything and everywhere inside him, all at once. And he felt like he could crush the earth. Was this the power she spoke of? Was it her power? Was it his?

His blood coated her lips and chin, and her green eyes were now black as night. She tilted her head up toward the ceiling and breathed foreign words into the air.

And then came the pull.

As quickly as she’d spread herself through every fiber of his being, she withdrew, and a new surge of power coursed through him. Through him. She inhaled sharply. He could still feel her—drawing it from him, breathing it from his lungs, prizing it from his veins.

The floor tremored beneath his feet, sending plumes of dust up around them, and the cell doors rattled on their hinges.

She swayed, just for a moment, her breath ragged. Then she laughed. Softly at first, then louder.

“Oh, the power you have,” she whispered.

Her fingers twitched, and the air heated around them. Hotter and hotter, to an inferno—but it didn’t burn him. Suddenly, the chains disintegrated from her hands and feet. Like ash. She turned iron into ash.

Her eyes found his again, and her smile grew. The door to her cell unlocked and swung open on its own.

Cyrus stood frozen. If he hadn’t believed she was a witch before, he certainly believed it now.

She grabbed him and pulled him inside, and the door swung closed behind him. Before he could object, she brought his bleeding forearm to her mouth once more, drinking deeply. Then she closed her eyes, her hands gripping his wrists, and whispered more words he couldn’t understand.

He wasn’t sure what was about to happen. Would things just start to collapse? Or…

The roars of the arena crowd carried through the hall, signaling a kill, and it brought him back to the present. Then he remembered—Kord, Everan. If this was really happening, he needed to get them out.

“Hurry it up,” he said.

“Shut up,” she told him. “You can’t rush the spell.” She kept chanting.

The cheers sounded again. Another kill. Cyrus didn’t know how many men were in the current fight, or how long he had to get back to Everan and Kord. Not long. If they entered the arena, he wasn’t sure how he could get them out, and if they were forced to go without him…

“Hurry it up, witch,” he hissed.

Suddenly, a searing pain shot up his arms, and he gritted his teeth to keep from growling.

Fire—his veins were on fire—and it spread from her hands up his wrists to his shoulders.

He tried to jerk away, but she held on to him.

Dark patterns bled from his skin, forming markings up his arms—symbols of some sort.

Then she released him.

The burn subsided, and he looked down at the ink patterns on his arms. “What is this?” he asked through his teeth.

“Your own power is enough to kill you if you don’t use it carefully, which you won’t because you’re completely ignorant of it.” He was about to object before she added, “Combined with mine, well… You’re no good to me dead. These markings will protect you from yourself.”

He glanced down at his arms again. Why did he need markings? What—

She grasped the base of his jaw and forced his eyes back to her.

“Listen to me very carefully, seer. When the beasts are let loose into the arena, they’ll be free of their chains.

But your blood has to touch them for you to take control.

Until then, they act on their own instinct. You must take care.”

“I’m still going into the arena? And I don’t want the animals. What am I supposed to even do with them?”

“You only need to have a thought,” she told him, “and they’ll follow.”

What the fuck? “What are you going to do?”

She smiled. “They wanted a burning. I’m going to burn this arena to the ground.”

Cyrus paused. “Wait—I have men with me.”

“Then get them out. Because everyone here is going to die.”