Kell had beat the Veskan, Rul, by only two points, and lost to her by four. He was out of the running, but Lila could lose by a point and still advance. Besides, Alucard had already won his second match, securing his place in the final three alongside a magician named Tos-an-Mir, one of the famous Faroan twins. If Lila won, she’d finally get a chance to fight him. The prospect made her smile.
“What is that?” asked Ister, nodding down at the shard of pale stone in her hand. Lila had been rubbing it absently. Now she held it up to the tent’s light. If she squinted, she could almost see the edge of Astrid’s mouth, frozen in what could be a laugh, or a scream.
“A reminder,” said Lila, tucking the chipped piece of statue into the coat slung over a cushion. It was a touch morbid, perhaps, but it made Lila feel better, knowing that Astrid was gone, and would stay gone. If there was a kind of magic that could bring back an evil queen turned to stone, she hoped it required a full set of pieces. This way, she could be certain that one was missing.
“Of what?” asked Ister.
Lila took up the dagger hilts and slid them into her forearm plates. “That I’m stronger than my odds,” she said, striding out of the tent.
That I have crossed worlds, and saved cities.
She entered the stadium tunnel.
That I have defeated kings and queens.
She adjusted the helmet and strode out into the arena, awash in the cheers.
That I have survived impossible things.
Rul stood in the center of the floor, a towering shape.
That I am Delilah Bard …
She held out her spheres, her vision blurring for an instant before she let them go.
And I am unstoppable.
*
Kell stood on the balcony of his room, the gold ring on the rail between his hands, the sounds of the stadium reverberating through the metal.
The eastern arena floated just beside the palace, its ice dragons bobbing in the river around it, their bellies red. With the help of a looking scope, Kell could see down into the stadium, the two fighters like spots of white against the dark stone floor. Lila in her dark devil’s mask. Rul with the steel face of a canine, his own wild hair jutting out like a ruff. His pennant was a blue wolf against a white ground, but the crowd was awash of silver blades on black.
Hastra stood behind him in the balcony doors, and Staff by the ones in the bedroom.
“You know him, don’t you?” asked Hastra. “Stasion Elsor?”
“I’m not sure,” murmured Kell.
Far below, the arena cheered. The match had started.
Rul favored earth and fire, and the elements swirled around him. He’d brought a handle and hilt into the ring; the earth swirled around the handle, hardening into a rock shield, while the fire formed a curving sword. Lila’s own daggers came to life as they had the day before, one fire and the other ice. For an instant the two stood there, sizing each other up.
Then they collided.
Lila landed the first blow, getting in under Rul’s sword, then spinning behind him and driving the fire dagger into the plate on the back of his leg. He twisted around, but she was already up and out, readying another strike.
Rul was taller by at least a foot, and twice as broad, but he was faster than a man his size had any right to be, and when she tried to find her way beneath his guard again, she failed, losing two plates in the effort.
Lila danced backward, and Kell could imagine her sizing the man up, searching for an in, a weakness, a chink. And somehow she found one. And then another.
She didn’t fight like Rul, or Kisimyr, or Jinnar. She didn’t fight like anyone Kell had ever seen. It wasn’t that she was better—though she was certainly fast, and clever—it was just that she fought in the ring the way he imagined she did on the streets back in Grey London. Like everything was on the line. Like the other person was the only thing standing between her and freedom.
Soon she was ahead, six to five.
And then, suddenly, Rul struck.
She was rushing toward him, mid-stride when he turned the rock shield and threw it like a disk. It caught Lila in the chest, hard enough to throw her back into the nearest column. Light burst from the shattered plates on her stomach, shoulders, and spine, and Lila crumpled to the stone floor.
The crowd gasped, and the voice in the gold ring announced the damage.
Four plates.
“Get up,” growled Kell as he watched her stagger to her feet, one hand gripping her ribs. She took a step and nearly fell, obviously shaken, but Rul was still on the attack. The massive disk flew back into his hand, and in a single fluid move he spun and launched it again, adding momentum to the force of magic.
Lila must have seen the attack, noticed the stone careening toward her, yet to Kell’s horror, she didn’t dodge. Instead she dropped both daggers and threw her hands up instead of her forearms to block the blow.
It was madness.
It wouldn’t work—couldn’t work—and yet, somehow the rock shield slowed.
Shock went through the crowd as they realized Stasion Elsor wasn’t a dual magician after all. He had to be a triad.
The shield dragged through the air, as if fighting a current, and came to a stop inches from Lila’s outstretched hands. It hovered there, suspended.