Page 26 of The Sun God’s Prize (Child of Scale and Fire #3)

They call my name again, and I’m moving, see the terror in the eyes of the three fighters I stalk toward. I don’t even wait for the announcer, unbridled rage taking me over, and when I look up, there’s blood on my hands, I’m licking it from my lips, and they’re chanting.

Over and over, the crowd is chanting.

Re-ma-lla. Re-ma-lla .

Brem is terrified when I rejoin her and slaps me hard across the face when I snarl at her concern.

“Fucking get it together,” she snaps back.

I barely feel it, but she’s right, and I jerk away, but I’m nodding, taking a drink, pacing a little.

Even that repetitive and restless motion I conquor at last, coming to stand on the edge of the sand by the low wall, alternating my attention between the fight going on in intervals and staring hate and death at the Sun God.

When Brem goes out again, she’s poetic, but she faces two men who look identical, and I know she’s in trouble when the first one of the twins—they must be—takes out their other opponent with a bare motion I struggle to track.

And then the two of them are circling her, treating her like prey. I know it before they strike.

She’s been set up to think she can kill one of them. But the other one will kill her first.

I have to get to her, but it’s too far, much too far, and she’ll be dead between one heartbeat and the next. Just like that, I’ll lose Brem.

She does what I don’t expect, even as I inhale to scream her name. She drops to the sand, prone, rather than taking out the obvious, the invitation to cut open the target she has available to her a lure to open her to death. And when she does, the sword meant for her—

Slices through the twin she was lured in to attack. Slain by his own brother. Even as my friend—my clever, amazing, fucking epic friend—flips over and drives her sword up and into the guts of the one who intended to kill her, his blood pouring over her where she lies.

He collapses on top of her, and for a moment, she’s pinned. The crowd holds its collective breath, only roaring to life again when she pushes him off and springs to her feet, doing a trio of backflips away from the bodies, spraying blood as she goes.

When she lands, she holds her arms up and outward in victory, and they go absolutely wild.

They love her, and so do I.

Brem returns to us after retrieving her weapons. I hug her, squeezing her far too hard, the blood of her opponents making her slippery.

“Enough, Remi,” she says, laughing. “I told you I’d make it to see you win.”

This is not what I’m used to at all, this kind of fighting, this battle that is no war.

I’ve never been emotional on a battlefield, commanding troops, leading charges.

But that’s an ebb and flow and a tide of attack.

This is something far more intimate, and while I despise the crowd for their excitement, I understand why they’re into it.

I might win, but my heart might not survive.

Three more times I fight three opponents, three more times I cut them down and accept the accolades and the chanting of my name.

More fighters have left the contest, perhaps a dozen or so of the hundreds still standing when I look up and note that the sky has taken on the tones of twilight.

At least none of them are faces I know, Onu and Carrigan both wounded, my stable, too.

Even Brem. “I’m stepping out.” She cradles her elbow in one hand, nursing an injury she received in her last fight.

It didn’t stop her from taking out her opponents, but I’m happy to hear that she’s done.

With the rest of our stable yielded, conceded, I don’t have anyone else to worry about but myself.

And from Brem’s grin, she’s not angry about it.

“Romouth will be delighted,” she says. “This is the furthest our stable has ever come, Remi.” She hesitates, smile fading, though it’s fixed and rigid again a moment later.

“Besides, we all knew how this would end.” She looks up and out over the crowd, still screaming. “You’re going to win.”

“I am,” I say, eyeing the last of the competitors. Wait, I do know one face. Sukes of Zandir salutes me from across the sand. “Take care of your arm.”

She shakes her head. “Not until it’s over.”

I don’t tell her that I wanted to ask her to stay, and am grateful she’s here when the next fight is announced. I’m not in it, or the one that follows. In fact, I’m not called at all until only two men remain, facing off against one another, and I realize I’m being held for the final bout.

“They’re betting on you,” Brem says. “And against you.” She nods at the masterres and mistresses , how they talk back and forth, accepting that they are wagering either in favor of my success or my death. Romouth doesn’t look my way, but nor does she appear concerned.

All while the Sun God yawns and says something to the young man, who laughs in return.

I’m formulating an idea that’s truly terrible when the tall, burly fighter with a massive scar across his back goes down, though he’s not dead, just wounded enough to concede.

Sukes allows it, backing away, though the crowd is furious with him for not killing, and now, I know, in this final round, they’ll be out for blood.

His or mine, I doubt they’ll care.

Then again, it’s not his name on their lips. As I cross the sand, the War Queen’s daughter called one last time, they’re chanting before the announcer can finish. RE-MA-LLA, RE-MA-LLA echoing, bouncing from tier to tier, reverberating until my whole body vibrates with the sound of my name.

RE-MA-LLA, RE-MA-LLA —

It’s impossible to block it out, but it fades finally as I salute Sukes.

“Somehow,” he smiles, “I knew it would be you.”

He attacks without warning, no quarter in his eyes.

Which is good, because I plan the very same.

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