?Percius cocks his head at them before turning around and laying eyes on Mavyn and her exposed body. He freezes with them.
?He has his own scars and his devil wings rest beneath the skin of his back creating his own brand, but they don’t compare.
?Darian’s scars don’t compare.
?The bodies I have seen fight in here who are covered don’t compare.
?Not as all those scarred bitemarks are starker, and the claiming mark over her heart is known.
?My vision goes black for a moment before I can watch her step into the cage. Syphix locks the door and announces something I can’t hear. I can’t help but track every scar visible.
?She had told us. She had laid it all out, had specified that these aren’t even all of them. These are just the ones that are left. The ones she’s forced to wear for the rest of her life.
?She’d been skinned.
?Whipped.
?Broken.
?Yet she walks into this fight holding nothing but power. Looking like she is anything but weak. Facing a being I would not be able to face.
?I get as close to the chains as I can, as close to my fated who has not had proper training in months.
?Percius rolls out his shoulders and then grins at her. “Remember, bloodsucker, no magic.”
?Something about Mavyn hitches and it makes her entire body come alive. She lightly twirls her staff as her aura, which had already been flaring out over the crowd, reaches further. It clings to the room with a darkness even my shadows shy from.
?She points her staff at the devil and then they wait.
?Time seems to still for a moment before the bell dings and Percius moves almost faster than my eye can track. It had been like that on the eastern field. Mavyn and Percius fighting, moving at a speed that turned them into lines of black and red.
?No magic. But Percius never needed magic in a battle. He has his true form. That is his greatest weapon.
?At this speed Percius should have been able to knock Mavyn out immediately, but she moves just as fast. Maneuvering so Percius’s hits are not all power, but he still does hit her.
?I wait, with so much strain trying to stay in control and to keep my shadow forms contained, for her to hit him back. She has yet to even try and continues to block and defend. Though she moves like she’s been training for longer than just the five years possible. Her technique the same that Esmirra had taught me when we would train.
?Except it’s doing nothing because she won’t hit back. Not even when Percius backs her against the chain and begins pounding into her. Her staff falling to the ground, her skin breaking and I can hear the deafening crack of bones as her sweet scented blood spills.
?Percius lands another blow with more force into her stomach before taking a step back. It hasn’t even been a full minute and she already looks spent. Her face lined with agony from the beating and the burning. Even as she blocked and was able to hold it you can see the pain written so clearly on her face.
?It makes Percius frown at her and whispers and sneers go around. Murmurs about the so-called ‘Death Devourer’ being false, or her only power is her magic.
?She slides to her knees and rests her head to the floor while holding her stomach. Percius sneers at her too.
?“Concede,” he demands.
?Her shoulders start shaking and I’m so close to pushing my way past Syphix so I can go in there and hold her. Pick her up and take her far away. I’ll beat Darian for demanding I do this to her. Foolish in thinking she would be ready for these kinds of fights.
?Then I hear her. The crowd quieting as she sucks in a deep breath before. . .laughing.
?Her shoulders shaking were not because she was crying, but because she was laughing.
?Her head raises and red eyes darker than I have ever seen them fluctuate as a ring of black and silver around her iris forms. They burn into Percius and instead of this scene I’m taken back to Asier’s classroom when I was saving Percius and Rovan.
?I think they’re remembering that too because Percius takes a step back from her and Rovan – who I hadn’t felt move closer to me – whispers, “If she writes a fated death blow right now, will you be able to stop it again?”
?No.
