The missile struck the center of the combat circle.
The world went white, then—nothing.
26
SOPHIE
Sophie’s knuckleswere white as she leaned against the bamboo railing of the observation tower, her whole body coiled tight.She watched Connor’s battle through military grade binoculars.
The torches in the courtyard created pools of shifting light and shadow, turning the ancient combat ring into something mythic, primordial.Even bloodied and staggering, he was magnificent.So was Sunan.They were a force of nature pitted against a natural disaster.
A nightjar called from the canopy above, its liquid notes floating incongruous through the darkness.Sophie barely heard it.Her world had narrowed to the ten-meter circle where the man she’d once loved, and still cared for, despite everything—fought for his life.
Through the painful closeup of the high-powered binoculars, she saw Connor’s elbow crash into Sunan’s jaw.The impact looked brutal.Sunan stumbled back, his stance cracking.Connor pressed forward with a flurry of blows and kicks.
The tide was turning.Where Sunan had been flash and modern brutality, Connor was endurance and grit.
“He’s winning,” Feirn murmured beside her, lowering his own binoculars, voice tight with something between hope and disbelief.
Sophie couldn’t speak.Her throat had closed around prayers in three languages.The air was cool at this elevation, but sweat soaked her shirt.They were too far away to hear the impact of flesh on flesh, but she could see it—every strike, every stumble, every drop of blood that splattered, black in the torchlight.
She adjusted the focus as Connor landed a devastating knee to Sunan’s ribs.She read the body language—Sunan’s bravado shattering as he gasped, stumbling, falling to his hands and knees.
“The crowd’s reacting,” Kamon observed from her left, his night vision scope tracking the action.“Look at Sunan’s men.They’re getting nervous.”
Sophie tore her gaze from the combat long enough to see the black-clad fighters shifting uneasily.
She refocused on the two men in the circle.
Both fighters were streaked with blood in the torchlight.Sunan had raised his torso but he was still on his knees, swaying now, making no effort to rise.Connor turned his head and extended a hand; his second ran to put a sword into it.He raised the blade for the strike that would take Sunan’s head.
A sound came that didn’t belong.Distant, easily mistaken for thunder if not for the clear stars above.
No one in the courtyard noticed.Connor swung the sword and ended Sunan’s bid for power.
Sophie had heard that sound before, in classified locations where American interests superseded human lives:high speed drones approaching.
“No,” she breathed, the binoculars trembling as she lowered them, searching the sky.“No, no, no?—”
The sound of engines cut through the velvety black night.High-pitched, mechanical.Precision death on its way.
“Radio the fortress!”Sophie yelled at Kamon.“All frequencies!Incoming strike!Everybody needs to run!”
Kamon reached for the tower’s communications gear, but it was too late.
Even as Sophie screamed Connor’s name, she knew no one would hear—but somehow, he turned toward her.Searching the dark for her, the sword dripping at his side.
The first missile hit the eastern wall.Even from two kilometers away, the explosion was incandescent.Sophie’s night-adjusted eyes were blinded as the detonation turned ancient stone to powder.A shock wave rippled out, visible in the smoke and debris, and bodies were flung like dolls.
The second missile struck the courtyard, obliterating the combat circle and all those in and around it.
When Sophie’s vision cleared, where the ancient fighting ground had been was an expanding ball of fire.
The circle where warriors had tested themselves for centuries, where Connor had just won his greatest battle, was gone—and so was he.
“No!”The binoculars fell from her nerveless fingers as Sophie gripped the railing.“NO!”
The third missile obliterated the main hall.Then came a fourth, a fifth.One after another, the ancient towers and buildings fell—flurries of flame, smoke and debris rising in a hellish glow.
