She pushed attendants out of the way, shouting, “Get out while you can! Leave!”
The crowd cheering could be heard faintly as they rounded down the stairs. Was the treaty being brought out? Were all the competitors being ushered back into the arena? Would Ulvarth attack them as well? Could Yonlin have been wrong?
A thousand questions swelled in her, each more horrible than the last. Each reminding her of how badly she had failed.Not yet, not yet!every hammering of her heart said, begged. She wasn’t just death and failure. She could do good. She could help.
It didn’t matter if what she was about to do would make her look like she’d lost all her better senses. She was going to run into the arena and drag them all back by force. Alyss. Noelle. Cullen…
Eira raced past the clerics’ room. One more turn of the tunnel. More cheering. She could vaguely hear the announcements that were being made in the distance.
“…the winning team…goes…”
If they were just giving out awards, then the treaty hadn’t been signed yet. Maybe the royals were still gathering. It had to take time to collect them all, right? They could put a stop to all this and then…
She stopped in her tracks.
In the center of the main tunnel, where she’d walked dozens of times now, was a man. He slowly turned to face her, a flash of surprise in his deep blue eyes before his smile turned sinister. His cheekbones were the shape of Ferro’s. His hair was salted.
And, this time, he didn’t wear the clothing of an attendant. This time, he was dressed in plate metal emblazoned with filagree of Lightspinning. He looked every measure of the champion he wasn’t.
“Ulvarth.” His name escaped her lips, as venomous as a curse and as foul-tasting as a poison.
“Eira,” he replied with a serpentine smile. “Are you ready to witness the dawn of a new age of light?”
42
Adagger was in her hand in an instant. Eira glanced right, toward the village. There were several other Pillars there, no longer in the robes of the attendants. They all had a hand placed over their heart, the symbol of Yargen etched by a dagger’s point into the backs. Crimson ran down their torsos from the fresh wounds. One was a woman with steely eyes.
“I’m not going to let you take a step farther.” Eira brandished her weapon, sinking into her stance. Was there a way she could summon Alyss or one of the others to look back here? Could she call for Fritz or Olivin orsomeone?
No. Her friends were too far away. Eira was on her own. What did she do? Stay and fight? Or flee?
“Are you going to kill me?” Ulvarth stopped, staring from the dagger to her face. He seemed more amused than threatened.
Eira’s hand quivered as she gripped the dagger. She should plunge it through his throat. She should be running toward him. But she was frozen in place, her blood colder than the dagger she held. More still than the Pillars had been when she’d exerted her power over them.
“Why don’t you try?” he egged her on. That snapped her to action. She threw the dagger toward him. It shot from her hand, flying through the air, and shattered on a glyph that appeared out of nowhere. Eira glanced between the Pillars continuing their march around him, toward the arena and toward everyone she’d ever loved. She should have used the opportunity to run while she had it.
Ulvarth roared with laughter. “Is that all you have? Such power. Such skill.Wasted. I could’ve molded you. I could’ve made you exceptional.”
She looked to the arena where the Pillars were marching. If Eira had learned anything, it was that she couldn’t do everything alone. She had to get help.Don’t face off against him alone, Alyss had begged.
“I’ll give you one more chance.” Ulvarth took a step toward her, and then another. “Join me. Join my righteous crusade. We can find a place even for a heathen like you. Perhaps, if you work hard enough to appease me, and you dedicate your life to our just cause, I will forgive your sins.”
“I killed your son and you would forgive me for it?”
“Yargen’s ways are mysterious to those who are not her chosen. But I can see clearly.Iknow her intent as her champion. I am here to deliver this land to its one, true destiny.”
The muck in the waters of her mind vanished. For the first time, Eira thought clearly. He wasn’t just a religious zealot looking to pursue his twisted dogma. He wasn’t only out for revenge against the people and systems that had wronged him. He was a man who had tasted power once…absolute, unfathomable power.
And it had been stripped from him by Vi, Deneya, and Taavin.
Ulvarth might believe the dogma, he might want vengeance against the people he saw as wrongfully imprisoning him,framing him for a crime he claimed he didn’t commit…but more than anything, he wanted to be the leader of the Swords of Light again and all the power that came with it. He wanted revenge. Evenmore. His true triumph would come in the form of a single, golden circlet placed upon his brow, plucked from Lumeria’s corpse.
He wasn’t targeting the castle. Yonlin was right. He would kill the royals and step into the vacuum of power he made for himself. He would paint himself as the one to bring order from the chaos of his own making. He was going to use all the reverence of the people of Meru against them.
Another dagger appeared in her hand. She couldn’t let him win. She’d distract him again and run for her friends.
“You still wish to kill me?” Ulvarth’s words turned to gravel. Harsh. Cold. “Die with the rest of them, then.” The world seemed to slow as his mouth began to form the next word. “Loft—”
