‘This is the test,’ I say as realisation dawns.
‘Are you certain, Rose Kultavaris?’
I swallow hard because if I’m wrong, I’ll lose it all. Yet the Goddess of Life cannot want this of me, surely?
I look again at Jonas. See the way his eyes keep darting to me. See Zara’s mouth foaming as she fights for his death. One of them will die here today, and objectively, there’s only one person I want that to be. Not the one who carried a blinded Rettling off a frozen lake so she would at least have a chance to live. No, it has to be the one who murdered runts for sport.
The air trembles in my lungs. I need to save Jonas because it’s the right fucking thing to do, and sometimes we have to do what’s right, even when it puts everything on the line. No,especiallywhen it puts everything on the line.
I breathe in and step forward, my dagger raised.
A roar tears from Zara’s throat the instant she sees me, the sound more beast than woman. She lifts her sword in a clean arc and the steel sings as it cuts through the air. She is nothing but a fur, leather, and braided hair blur as she runs at Jonas.
Her blade is long enough that a single sweep would send him sprawling – or me should she decide to change targets. I have no shield and no reach, and the only weapons in my possession are daggers, so small they might as well be fingernails in comparison to her sword.
But if I can close the distance between us …
I don’t waste any more time. Instead, I run at her.
Zara’s strike splits the air where Jonas stood less than a heartbeat before, and he twists as best he can, pivoting to escape her blade.
I vault low, and the world narrows to the sound of my heart and the thudding of my boots on the hard earth. It’s loud enough for her to hear me coming for her.
Instantly, she decides I’m the bigger threat – or maybe it’s just the fact that killing me will be enough for her to win by default – and she turns to face me head-on.
‘Fuck you, Kultavaris.’
Unlike all the times I’ve seen her fight before, her sword now swings without finesse or control, rage getting the better of her. Yet she catches my shoulder with the flat of her blade all the same. Pain shoots up from the impact point, and my arm goes numb from the shock, but I roll with it, dropping my weight and tangling my legs with hers in a move Kyor taught me.Go in brutal and precise.
Zara’s taller, stronger, and her sword finds me twice more – once against my ribs, once along my thigh. Both wounds burn, but I can still move, still breathe. I use one of my throwing daggers. Given the nature of the previous trials, it feels like it’s been too long since I had a chance to truly test my ability with the weapon, but the moment it leaves my hand, I know the throw is good. With brutal precision it strikes her in her sword hand. As a shocked gasp flies from her lungs, the weapon drops from her fingers and I kick it away.
‘I can kill you with my bare hands!’ she snarls, but I barely listen. Shehas tried to kill me time and time again, and yet here I am, a finalist in the Ofur.
And. She. Doesn’t. Deserve. To. Win.
I slam into her, deliberately kicking that wounded leg. As she cries out in pain, satisfaction sparks within me. She’s hurt and she’s angry and I just got in another good hit. But I’m not getting complacent. Using my hands, I grab her shoulders, grappling and pushing her down as blood pours from the wound in her leg. I’m close enough to smell it.
Her knees bend, and I’m certain that any second they’re going to buckle, but instead, she strikes out, kicking my feet from under me. The impact robs me of my breath, and that single moment is all she needs. She wraps her arm around my throat, pulling me down into her. As her knees drop, she squeezes tight, restricting the air that my lungs so desperately crave. Within seconds my head is swimming. She is choking me. Killing me. But it’s not fast enough for her.
While her left arm continues to crush my airway, her other hand rakes my body for my dagger. But I know she won’t find it. Because I already have it in my hand.
Perhaps it’s the lack of air or maybe it’s the Goddess’s doing, but either way I feel my heartbeat slow, the surge of adrenaline replaced with the steadiness of certainty.
Now is the time I finally find out what Dinah’s dagger will do. Reading through dusty tomes has left me none the wiser, but books don’t always hold the answer. Sometimes you have to raise your head above the parapet anddo.
Pulling in the deepest breath I can muster, I clutch Zara’s forearm. It’s hardly a lethal place to strike, but maybe I don’t need a mortal blow, not if what happened at the inauguration vows was anything to go by. Picturing Jai and the way the blood gushed from that single wound in his hand, I slice the dagger right across that choking forearm.
Zara grunts in pain as the metal tears through the top layers of skin, but remarkably, her hold on me doesn’t loosen. Fearing I misjudged the blade, I struggle to angle my neck down to look at the arm slowly killing me.
Tears prick my eyes as relief washes through me. It’s not just a trickle of blood seeping from the small wound, but a torrent. It’s pouring, gushing red and hot out of her arm and onto my fighting leathers.
‘What?’ Zara says, her voice now woozy. ‘What have you done, youfuckingrunt?’
Her grip on me loosens only slightly, but it’s enough for me to kick back and push her away from me. I scramble forward on my knees as I breathe deeply, gratefully choking in lungfuls of air. The dagger is warm in my hand, blood sticky between my fingers.
Once my head has stopped spinning, I slowly twist around and face her.
I should feel triumphant. I should feel relief. Instead, a hollowness opens under my ribs as I see the exact moment Zara’s chest stills and her face slackens into something softer, a gentle expression that she never wore in life.
