Page 54

CHAPTER

Fifty-Four

“I F YOU’RE HAVING second thoughts,” Neema said, deflecting an elbow strike. “Just tell me.”

“I’m not having second thoughts.” Cain tried a jab to the ribs. “Can we talk about this later?”

“When? You’ve been avoiding me all day.”

He pushed her backwards. As she fell, she snatched his waistband and dragged him down on top of her.

They looked at each other.

“That was not a fight move,” he said.

They wrestled on the ground for a bit. In the crowds someone said, “Eight, I don’t know where to look,” and her friend said, “Yes you do, Jandra.”

Cain was winning, no question. But Neema, who had every intention of losing, had still got in a couple of accidental strikes. The Raven warrior style she’d absorbed from Sol was as persistent and devious as he was, and it was becoming second nature the more she used it. She would make a defensive move, it would open up an opportunity and… it was hard to resist a quick jab. A rake of the fingernails.

The bell rang, ending the first round. Vabras waited for them to get to their feet, then called out the winner. “Raven contender.”

“What?” Cain rounded on him.

In the stalls, people stood up to show their disapproval. They wouldn’t boo the High Commander, they weren’t idiots. Instead they called “Fox!” and waved orange ribbons in support.

“You’re not serious, Vabras?” Cain gestured to the crowds. “I won that round—they all saw it. Listen to them.”

Vabras turned to consider the crowds in each of the three stalls, singling out the louder members for attention. As he caught their eye they fell silent, and sat down. Lowered their orange ribbons.

Cain strode back to his corner, scrubbing his hands through his hair in frustration.

Ish Fort climbed the steps to join him, hood pulled low to conceal his expression. The Fox abbot was not happy. “You’re letting her distract you.”

“It’s not her.” It was that book. That bird. That story. He couldn’t shake it from his mind. But he couldn’t tell Fort that. “The fight’s rigged. What do you expect me to do?”

Fort thrust a pair of daggers at his chest. “Whatever it takes,” he snapped. Under his hood, his eyes were blazing.

Cain turned the daggers and offered them back, hilt first. “We said batons.”

Fort strode away, back down the steps.

Cain looked down at his contingent. They were all wearing the same resolute expression. Three of them were sitting on his weapons chest, arms folded. Whatever it takes.

The bell rang for round two.

Neema’s weapons had been returned to her chest overnight. They wanted her to win this time. She had selected the war fans again, holding them closed up like sticks. Defence only, she promised herself.

Then she saw the daggers.

“I’m sorry,” Cain said, and lunged forward.

Snapping open a fan, she blocked the strike. The dagger scraped across the iron ribs with an ugly sound. Cain’s face was set. No conversation, no distraction.

They settled into the fight. Neema made no attempts to advance, but she was defending herself too well. Cain needed a definitive win. He had to make a move. He had to keep her safe.

Disarm her. Both weapons. Even Vabras couldn’t deny that.

He lunged again. Deflecting his blade, Neema caught the back of his hand with the edge of her fan, drawing a thin line of red. She closed both fans, turning them back into batons. “Sorry.”

He licked the blood from his hand.

A shiver, a ripple. A voice, closer than it should be.

Did she hurt you, my friend? Let me help.

Cain blinked, and his eyes shifted from green to yellow. Pupils a vertical slit. The eyes of a fox.

The eyes of the Fox.

It smiled, tongue licking its teeth, and threw the dagger.

Neema’s reaction was too slow. Some part of her still saying, even as the blade flew from his hand— Cain would never do that. As another part of her answered— That’s not Cain.

Panicked, she lifted her fan to deflect the blade—and nicked the side of her neck with her own weapon. The razor-sharp edge sliced through her skin, opening a long, neat tear along her throat. Blood streamed from the wound.

Cain was in the air, leaping high, his second dagger in his fist.

His eyes shifted mid leap, back to green—and he saw Neema, bleeding and terrified below him. No. He twisted out of the way and landed hard on his knees beside her. The blade skittered across the platform, out of reach.

The bell rang out.

“Neema.”

She put a hand to her neck, eyes wide with shock, blood streaming over her fingers.

He crawled over to her. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. Everything went blank. Neema, I would never… I would never… ”

Medics arrived to inspect the injury. It was serious—she needed urgent attention or the wound could tear further.

Vabras considered for a long moment, then turned to the crowds. “Victory to the Fox contender.”

Cheers and orange ribbons.

The medics walked Neema to their white canvas tent and got to work cleaning her self-inflicted wound. They told her she was lucky she hadn’t hit an artery. Cain arrived, in a terrible state. “I’m so sorry… I’m so sorry…” She sent him off to make some tea. He needed to do something to help, and she needed time to think, to understand what had just happened. As a nurse dabbed numbing cream on the wound she dropped into a trance, returning to that moment on the platform…

Yellow eyes. A sharp grin. A dagger sailing towards her.

Yellow eyes. A sharp grin…

“We’re done,” the nurse said, tying off her stitches. “Thanks for sitting so still.” He dabbed more ointment on to the wound, and fixed a bandage. Another scar to add to her growing collection. She’d be as battered as Tala before the Festival was through.

Cain returned with a pot of green tea and sat down next to her on the bench. He moved to take her hand, then thought better of it. “I’m so sorry, Neema. I was standing there with both blades in my hand. And the next thing I knew…” He gave her an anguished look. “I could have killed you.”

“It wasn’t you. You didn’t throw the dagger.”

“But—”

“It wasn’t you. It was the Fox.”

He froze.

That confirmed it. “You knew, didn’t you? That’s why you’ve been avoiding me.”

He rubbed his face, to stop the tears from forming. “Early this morning. There was a book lying on my bed. A book that was also… Look, this sounds insane but…”

“It was also a bird,” Neema finished, for him. A bird I am going to throttle the next time I see it. “We’ve met, unfortunately.”

“Oh,” Cain said. “Right. Well… it told me a story about the Fox. How it lives in this world by jumping from host to host. Except it’s not a story, Neema. I don’t know how to explain it, but there is something inside me.” He pressed a hand to his stomach. He was trembling—she’d never seen him so scared, so off-kilter.

“You have a fragment of the Fox inside you.” It made perfect sense; Cain was the most fox-like Fox there was.

“Not just a fragment, Neema. All of them. ‘All the Foxes that were, all the Foxes that are, all the Foxes that will be.’”

Neema’s throat closed. She had asked Sol—does Cain have a fragment of the Fox in him, and he had paused before saying no. Not one fragment. All of them. Scheming, devious creature. That’s why he didn’t want Cain to win the throne. He’d known the Fox was right there with him. The First Guardian. And the man she loved. “Cain,” she said, and wrapped a hand around his wrist. She couldn’t imagine what that revelation was doing to him.

“It’s been there for a very long time, hidden away. Some part of me knew, I think—on the deepest level. But this is different. Now I can sense it. And it can sense me. We’re both awake at the same time and that is bad , Neema. That is not supposed to happen.” He pulled away from her, sliding further down the bench. “The boundaries have blurred. I can feel it testing them, trying to slip through. That’s what it does, that’s its nature. But if it takes over…” He recoiled at the thought. “You have to keep away from me. I’m not safe to be around.”

“Cain, listen to me.” She took his hand again, and pressed it to her heart. “I am not afraid of you. I trust you.”

He smiled, sadly. “That’s the problem. I don’t.”