Alucard was a showman, adding flourish and flare, and Lila had been on the receiving end of his games enough times to see that he was now playing with the Veskan, shifting into a defensive mode to prolong the fight and please the crowd.
A cheer rose from the western arena, where Kisimyr was going up against her protégé, Losen, and moments later the words on the nearest bracket board shifted, Losen’s name vanishing and Kisimyr’s writing itself into the advancing spot. In the arena below, flames circled Otto’s fists. The hardest thing about fire was putting force behind it, giving it weight as well as heat. The Veskan was throwing his own weight behind the blows, instead of using the fire’s strength.
“Magic is like the ocean,” Alucard had told her in her first lesson. “When waves go the same way, they build. When they collide, they cancel. Get in the way of your magic, and you break the momentum. Move with it, and …”
The air around Lila began to tingle pleasantly.
“Master Tieren,” she said without turning.
The Aven Essen stepped up beside her. “Master Stasion,” he said casually. “Shouldn’t you be getting ready?”
“I fight last,” she said, shooting him a glance. “I wanted to see Alucard’s match.”
“Supporting friends?”
She shrugged. “Studying opponents.”
“I see….”
Tieren gave her an appraising look. Or perhaps it was disapproving. He was a hard man to read, but Lila liked him. Not just because he didn’t try to stop her, but because she could ask him questions, and he clearly didn’t believe in protecting a person by keeping them in the dark. He’d entrusted her with a difficult task once, he’d kept her secrets twice, and he’d let her choose her own path at every turn.
Lila nodded at the royal box. “The prince seems keen on this match,” she ventured, as down below Otto narrowly escaped a blow. “But who is the Faroan?”
“Lord Sol-in-Ar,” said Tieren, “the older brother of the king.”
Lila frowned. “Shouldn’t being the eldest make him the king?”
“In Faro, the descent of the crown is not determined by the order of birth, but by the priests. Lord Sol-in-Ar has no affinity for magic. Thus, he cannot be king.”
Lila could hear the distaste in Tieren’s voice, and she could tell it wasn’t for Sol-in-Ar, but for the priests who deemed him unworthy.
She didn’t buy into all that nonsense about magic sorting the strong from the weak, making some kind of spiritual judgment. No, that was too much like fate, and Lila didn’t put much stock in that. A person chose their path. Or they made a new one.
“How do you know so much?” she asked.
“I’ve spent my life studying magic.”
“I didn’t think we were talking about magic.”
“We were talking about people,” he said, his eyes following the match, “and people are the most variable and important component in the equation of magic. Magic itself is, after all, a constant, a pure and steady source, like water. People, and the world they shape—they are the conduits of magic, determining its nature, coloring its energy, the way a dye does water. You of all people should be able to see that magic changes in the hands of men. It is an element to be shaped. As for my interest in Faro and Vesk, the Arnesian empire is vast. It is not, however, the extent of the world, and last time I endeavored to check, magic existed beyond its borders. I’m glad of the Essen Tasch, if only for that reminder, and for the chance to see how magic is treated in other lands.”
“I hope you’ve written this all down somewhere,” she said. “For posterity and all.”
He tapped the side of his head. “I keep it someplace safe.” Lila snorted. Her attention drifted back to Sol-in-Ar. Men talked, and men at sea talked more than most. “Is it true what they say?”
“I wouldn’t know, Master Elsor. I don’t stay apprised.”
She doubted he was half as naive as he seemed. “That Lord Sol-in-Ar wants to overthrow his brother and start a war?”
Tieren brought his hand down on her shoulder, his grip surprisingly firm. “Mind that tongue of yours,” he said quietly. “There are too many ears for such careless remarks.”
They watched the rest of the match in silence. It didn’t last long.
Alucard was a blur of light, his helmet winking in the sun as he spun behind a boulder and around the other side. Lila watched, mesmerized, as he lifted his hands, and the earth around him shot forward.
Otto pulled his fire around him like a shell, shielding front and back and every side. Which was great, except he obviously couldn’t see through the blaze, so he didn’t notice the moment the earth changed direction and flew up into the air, pulling itself together into clods before it fell, not with ordinary force, but raining down in a blur. The crowd gasped, and the Veskan looked up too late. His hands shot skyward, and so did the fire, but not fast enough; three of the missiles found their mark, colliding with shoulder and forearm and knee hard enough to shatter the armor plates.
In a burst of light, the match was over.