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“I can’t fight for sport,” I said slowly, trying to talk my way out of this farce without making it obvious that I had no interest in it at all.

“When the bloodlust takes me I no longer have the ability to shut it down. I lose control. If you put me in a ring with any other Fae here then none of them will be leaving it alive.”

The woman didn’t back down like I’d hoped she would, only smiling widely at my words.

“We’ll stop you before it comes to that, brother,” she said confidently.

“There are more than enough of us to use magical restraint when it becomes clear you’ve lost yourself to the carnage.

” She clapped a hand on my arm and steered me around, turning us back in the direction I’d just come from.

I snarled at her and she jerked her hand away again, but I had no choice other than to keep pace with her. The male who had whistled to me caught up to us in the crowd, his eyes moving over me appreciatively as he made his assessment of his choice.

“We’ve picked a winner in you, haven’t we big fella?” He slapped my arm and I caught his hand in my grip, a violent snarl radiating from my lips as I crushed his fingers in my fist and he screamed as they snapped.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” I hissed at the female while shoving him away from me.

The Dragon fire in my blood was heating, the proximity of so many Fae making my skin itch and all I wanted to do was shift right here in the middle of them all if for no other reason than to make them back off.

“I’m placing a hundred karmas on you to win,” she said excitedly, the two of us leaving the male to croon over his broken fingers.

“I’m Kayla Brimtheon by the way. I’m one of The Matriarch’s adopted children which most people already know but it kinda seems like you’re not from around here so I figured maybe you don’t. ”

“Is that supposed to impress me?” I asked, not knowing what a Brimtheon was but she barked a laugh like I’d been joking.

“It does most Fae. But I guess you aren’t most Fae. What are you anyway? Big bastard like you has to be a Polar Bear or a Hydra or-”

“A Dragon?” I supplied and she laughed again, louder this time.

“Well at least you don’t try to pretend you aren’t full of shit like most of the other assholes around here,” she said.

“Is that so?” I drawled, but if she could sense the irritation in my words or posture she didn’t mention it.

“Mother has a fighting ring set up in the central courtyard,” she explained as we moved through doors and down long corridors towards the heart of the palace.

The crowd never thinned, the scent of smoke clinging to everything as the rowdy Flamebringers played with their fire in the enclosed space, flames flickering all around us.

“This palace is a maze,” I muttered, mostly to myself but apparently Kayla thought we were having a conversation because she replied as if we were.

“Oh I know, right? Mother has been doing some modifications to add a few more direct paths between the halls and chambers here but for the most part we have to take the long way round to get anywhere. It was designed that way in case of siege. You know, back when they rebuilt after the Stonebreaker scum tried to seize our city a few hundred years ago. I heard they all ran out of here crying for their mamas but I guess they still managed to destroy the old castle.”

“Is that so?” Funny how her history had rewritten so much of the truth.

I’d seen the old castle fall and in the ten years that had passed after then while I was still a free man, the entire city of Cinder Vale had still been under the command of my people, not hers.

Yet she believed they’d been run out of here on the day the castle fell.

History, it seemed, was as riddled with falsehoods as ever.

“Yeah, then the Fae who replaced it with this palace decided to add a damn confusing layout to the design in the hopes that if the Stonebreakers ever came back, they’d have a much harder time of overrunning the place.”

“A pointless exercise,” I said flatly. “Stonebreakers would simply do what their name suggests and break the walls down rather than waste time trying to run around them.”

Kayla blinked at me, her mouth dropping open in horror at that suggestion and I wondered if I’d said too much before she forced a laugh.

“Never,” she dismissed. “These walls are three feet thick and reinforced with stone and steel within the hardened glass. They’d waste all of their magic on trying to get through the outer wall and have none left by the time they made it inside.

We’d burn them all alive before they even managed to realise their mistake. ”

It was endlessly tempting to press my hand to the nearest wall and make the entire thing collapse just to call her out on her bullshit but I forced myself to resist the urge, thinking of my spectre and nothing else.

“I guess you aren’t from Cinder Vale then, as you know none of this?” Kayla asked when she received no reply from me.

“No,” I grunted.

“Accent like yours would have to place you at the…southern border? Maybe? Honestly, I never really travel aside from to the battlefields and back so I don’t know as much about the distant strongholds as I should.”

She clearly expected a reply but I had no way of knowing whether any of the Pyros cities I recalled the names of still stood anymore, so I chose silence again.

“Did you hear we caught the Sky Witch?” she asked brightly, apparently hunting for something to occupy the silence between us.

My steps faltered as she inadvertently gave me the opening I needed.

“Bullshit,” I said, stopping dead and forcing her to halt with me.

“It’s not,” she replied defiantly.

“I heard she can’t be held in any prison because she turns the hearts of Fae to her favour so easily that the guards set her free any time she’s captured.”

“That happened in Cascada, not here. We aren’t so easily conned by a pretty face in Pyros.” Kayla narrowed her eyes at me suspiciously but I barrelled on.

“I was in a battle where the Sky Witch was present once,” I said, taking a guess that she must have fought against Pyros enough times for that to be plausible and hoping I wasn’t asked for details on which battle. “Her power was unlike any other I’ve seen.”

“Yes, well it’s still no match for The Matriarch’s,” Kayla said proudly.

“When will she hang?” I asked roughly.

“Not sure yet. She’s still locked up. I think mother is picking her tiny little brain apart piece by piece. We’ll probably get the order to march on Stormfell soon, every bit of information we’ve stolen from the witch assuring our victory against them.”

“She’s locked up here?” I asked sceptically.

“I didn’t know there were dungeons in the palace.

” In fact, I knew there weren’t any dungeons here because I’d interrogated several guards about it and left them choking in puddles of their own blood in payment for the information they’d squealed.

Not that any of them had given me a scrap of the knowledge that Kayla was now offering me so freely.

Perhaps I should have played nice from the start.

“There aren’t dungeons here,” she agreed, glancing around before leaning in conspiratorially. “But we do have a cage for feral beasts beneath The Matriarch’s chambers. She’s in there. At night you can hear her sobbing and pleading to be let go.”

Now I knew she was full of shit. The spectre I knew would sooner choke on her own tongue than utter a single plea, no matter the duress she was under. But I sensed there was some truth in the boasts Kayla was making. She was here. Now I just needed to figure out where The Matriarch’s chambers were.

“Will my reward for winning this brawl include a front row seat to the execution?” I asked.

“Sure – I’ll save you a seat. We’re all hoping that Mother decides to let each of us take a turn cutting pieces off of her too.”

“Good.”

I started walking again and Kayla directed me down more long corridors before finally leading me through a pair of wide double doors which led out into a huge courtyard.

The crowd was thicker than ever but over the head of the surrounding Fae I could see the wide arena which had been roped off for the fight, bloodstains already marking the sand.

I followed Kalya to the ring, taking in the towers around us, surmising that the largest of them was most likely to house The Matriarch’s quarters.

An imposing woman sat on a throne-like chair on a dais behind the ring with sleek braids in her long, black hair, a group of Fae surrounding her on seats of their own, ready to watch the fight.

There was no question as to who she was.

Power oozed from her, eyes lowering as they moved her way, Fae simpering and bowing around her though she paid them no mind.

A golden chalice was clasped in her manicured hand and she leaned in to say something to the man seated beside her before taking a sip from it. The Matriarch was a woman who commanded power from every look she cast, those dark eyes having laid upon countless of her murdered enemies.

I was about to turn away from them to assess my opponents but my gaze caught on the little blue Sayer Dragon which was now perched on the shoulder of the man The Matriarch was speaking to.

His eyes moved over me without any real curiosity, noticing, assessing, dismissing before he looked on to the next fighter approaching the ring.

“Do you want me to place any bets on your behalf?” Kayla asked and I considered her for a moment before taking the bag of coins from my pocket and handing it to her.

She arched a brow at the weight of them. “Are you hedging your bets? Placing some on your opponents to lessen the sting if you lose and-”

“All on me,” I said dismissively “What are the rules?”

“Rules?” she laughed, shaking her head. “No rules, just winners. Try not to kill anyone, but like I said, someone will haul you off if you lose your shit. You won’t be the first warrior to fight here with demons from war haunting you.

Shift, don’t shift, use magic or don’t. Are you going to use your own blade or just go rogue? ”

I looked over the ring, noting the weapons which lay scattered around its edges, swords, daggers, axes.

All close-range weapons which were best for putting on a show.

Nine other Fae were already moving into the ring, some of them stripping so they could shift; a Manticore, Griffin and Werewolf already prowling across the sand.

I sighed and took my jacket off. The thing was tight across my back and restricted the movement of my arms. Aside from that, I needed nothing else.

“Look after my things,” I commanded, thrusting the pack into Kayla’s arms.

Everything of mine and my spectre’s was in there aside from the two pieces of comet we’d stolen from Zayad.

Those were tucked firmly in my pocket, their immense value keeping my magic fully replenished at all times.

Not that I could use it here. But luckily for me, Dragon fire could pass for Pyros flames easily enough so I’d be able to make use of it during this brawl in place of my earth magic.

I wasn’t concerned about her searching the pack as I’d warded it against intrusion and was confident in my own power being more potent than hers.

“Why do you look like this is a supreme waste of your time?” Kayla asked me as she adjusted the pack in her arms.

“Because it is. I’m bored already.”

She arched a brow, eyeing the ferocious-looking warriors who had already taken their places in the ring but I ignored her. I had things to do and beating these assholes to a pulp hadn’t been on my list for today. Though I could admit that it wouldn’t hurt to blow off a little steam.

I stepped over the rope and The Matriarch grinned, leaning forward in her chair in preparation of the entertainment.

Another of the Fae in the ring with me shifted, this one transforming into a towering Bear. I could have eaten each one of them alive in my Dragon form but I supposed there was more sport in doing this in my Fae body.

I hoped my spectre appreciated the effort I was going to on her behalf.

“Fighters ready?” The Matriarch called and none of us protested. “Then begin!”