Cyrus stepped forward, his sword at the ready. “Yes.”
Kamran would not recover.
He grimaced as fresh pain exploded up his neck, across his shoulders. The action was so unrehearsed even Cyrus frowned.
“Fascinating,” said the Tulanian king, who then lifted Kamran’s chin with the tip of his sword. Kamran, who could hardly breathe through the torment, still managed to jerk backward, the movement provoking a fresh deluge of suffering. “You appear to be dying.”
“No,” Kamran gasped, bracing his hands against the stone floor.
Cyrus almost laughed. “Unless you intend to follow in your grandfather’s footsteps, I don’t believe you have a choice in the matter.”
From where he drew the strength, Kamran did not know, but he heaved himself up off the floor with the kind offortitude borne only of a broken man, a reckless one.
Kamran had been hollowed out.
In the space of an hour the threads of his entire life had come apart. He felt mad and feverish in the aftermath; a bit like he was moving through a nightmare. Somehow, the horrors had fortified him. He felt he had nothing left.
Nothing to lose.
He reached for his sword as if his arm wasn’t still bleeding out, as if the flesh of his legs had not been recently charred. It seemed a miracle at all that he managed to lift the blade, face his opponent.
He heard a storm of footfalls then, a chorus of concerned voices as a brigade of guards surged closer to the fiery ring—but Kamran stayed them with a single hand.
This was his fight to finish.
Cyrus glanced at these armed onlookers, then considered the prince for what felt like a long time.
“Very well,” the southern king said finally. “Never say I’m not merciful. I’ll make this quick. You will not suffer.”
“And I,” Kamran said, the rasp of his voice like gravel, “will make certain that your torment is never-ending.”
A flash of anger and Cyrus’s sword cut through the air in a single, blinding strike, which Kamran met with surprising force, even as his broken body shook in the effort. His legs trembled, his arms screamed in anguish, but Kamran would not capitulate. He’d rather die fighting than surrender—and it was this thought that heated his chest, that generated within him a second life, a terrifying adrenaline.
Happily, he would perish in the effort.
With a guttural cry he managed to push against his opponent, launching Cyrus backward, freeing his sword. Kamran advanced without delay, moving now with shocking swiftness as he lunged, as Cyrus parried. For a time all Kamran heard was steel; he saw nothing but the sheen of metal, waves of blades crashing, escaping.
Cyrus feinted, then sprang forward with surprising alacrity—and too late, Kamran felt the burn of his injury. He heard the panicked shrieks of the crowd, but he couldn’t see the laceration; in fact he was hardly able to identify which aspect of his body had been injured.
There was no time.
Kamran moved to stave off a second attack, experiencing a brief moment of triumph when Cyrus fell back with a muttered oath. The southern king rallied without delay, meeting Kamran blow for blow in a series of strikes so precisely choreographed even Kamran was not immune to the beauty of it. There was a rare pleasure in fighting a worthy adversary; in testing, without restraint, the potential of one’s power. But this evidence of Cyrus’s prowess—and lightning-fast reflexes—only cemented Kamran’s certainty that the southern king had earlier allowed Alizeh to overpower him. To the prince, this behavior pointed to one of only two explanations: either she was his superior in their arrangement, or he hadn’t wanted to hurt her. Perhaps both.
Maybe they really were betrothed.
This shattering thought brought him alive with an alarming strength, the breadth of which remained unfamiliar to him. He knew only that his instincts were sharper than he’dever felt them, and he soon saw a faint strain in Cyrus’s face, the sheen of sweat at his brow no doubt mirrored upon his own features. Both were breathing hard, but even as blood dripped down Kamran’s hands, his every motion staining the marble underfoot, he did not tire.
Again, he advanced—
The young men crossed swords in a movement so violent Kamran felt the tremor move through his entire body. They were trapped in a herculean standstill; adversaries locking eyes through the glimmer of their blades.
Then, for no fathomable reason, Cyrus faltered.
It was only a fraction of a second that the Tulanian king frowned, that his focus was distracted, but Kamran did not misuse the opportunity; with brute force he bore down, compelling Cyrus to fall back into a crouch. Kamran had the advantage now—all he had to do was break his opponent. There would be great satisfaction in spearing Cyrus through the heart; Kamran already knew he would have him disemboweled. He would display the bloody organs under a glass cloche in the town square, let the maggots find them and feast freely.
“I feel you should know,” Cyrus said heavily, the fatigue of exertion apparent on his face. “That something is happening to you. To your skin.”
This, Kamran ignored.
