When I didn’t reach to take his sigil, he threw it at my feet.
“No!” Ander said sharply, reaching as if to stop it. The metal rang as it landed on the marble.
Fear’s chin lifted in pride. Anyone else standing unclaimed in this arena would have been proud to have his sigil.
“I choose Clan Amber,” I told him as I reached for Ander’s sigil. “I choose Ander.”
“It’s not for you to choose,” Ander muttered. He let the sigil drop instead, falling alongside Fieran’s. The echo of the fallen metal seemed to echo through the arena.
“This is a matter to be settled between old friends,” Fieran said cheerfully, though his cold gaze on Ander made the tone a lie.
The queen’s voice rose above us all, smooth and victorious. “Two leaders. One recruit. To last blood.”
The courtyard erupted in sound.
Lastblood?
The arena reformed with a violent shudder, as if waking from a nightmare. Rings of fire burst to life around us, hissing through themist rising off the drowned ruins. Flames traced a circle atop the fractured platforms until the three of us stood trapped on a single floating slab of marble hovering above black, fathomless water.
The crowd leaned in from the broken stands, their anticipation a living thing, hungry and monstrous. Other shifters moved away, so the three of us stood at the center of a series of empty platforms surrounded by dark water that lapped angrily.
“Don’t worry,” Fear told me. “The arena will end things when Ander is at the edge of death, but it won’t let him die.”
“You arrogant prick.” Ander shook his head.
“He tried to take you from me. Now he’ll have to pay that cost.” Fieran touched his shoulder, and his blade shimmered into existence. He inclined his head to me—a deeper bow than he had offered the queen—and then he launched himself off the platform.
My knees bent, steadying myself as if I were the one readying for a fight, as my platform rocked.
Ander landed opposite him, the marble rocking dangerously under the impact. Water sloshed up the sides, threatening to swallow the platform whole.
He said nothing. Fieran said nothing.
There was no ceremony between them, no nod, no respect. Just unspoken history curling around them like smoke, as if this fight had been inevitable.
I looked down at how both their sigils gleamed at my feet.
I touched my fingers to the leather cord that still hung around my throat, feeling the weight of the ring between my breasts that still felt like a promise. Fieran had given me his luck.
Underneath us, the ruined arena groaned with marble shifting, sinking, adjusting its height. Alive at the queen’s command, trapped into obedience like the rest of us.
The queen lifted her hand.
“Begin.”
Ander struck first, moving before the queen had finished the word. His blade came down in a savage arc meant to cleave. Fieran twisted aside, letting the blow whistle past his ribs before he snapped forward with a sharp elbow that cracked against Ander’s wrist.
Ander slammed back in with raw force, boots skidding across the slick marble as he drove Fieran toward the edge. Sparks hissed as their swords collided. Ander hammering, Fieran redirecting, each impact ringing out. Smoke drifted around us from the fire, and steam curled up from the surface of the water.
Another strike. Ander lunged, teeth bared, blade aimed at Fieran’s chest.
Fieran’s expression didn’t change.
He dipped under the swing, caught Ander’s arm with brutal precision, and used his momentum to flip him over his shoulder. Ander’s back slammed onto the marble with a sickening crack. The floating platform rocked violently, water splashing up over the edges and soaking them both.
Ander rolled with the impact, coming up on one knee with a snarl, already swinging again.
Fieran met the strike midair, his blade turning Ander’s aside with a clean, exact motion that looked almost effortless. His eyes narrowed. Calculating. Reading Ander like a familiar text.
