The king advanced. I saw him try to draw on her magic as she had attempted with him, but the power slipped away. Though she was bigger, he was more experienced at using magic. He also had the gods on his side, and Ina had only Nismae.
The king took his boar form and charged across the coliseum. The crowd roared incoherently, their screams a demand for blood.
Ina didn’t keep them waiting.
She lunged toward him, breathing a storm of fire into the face of the boar. He waited, unperturbed as the flames scudded around a magic shield he threw up as though it was nothing. What he didn’t realize was how Ina had closed in behind the fire until she stood only a pace away from him. The moment the flames subsided and he dropped his shield, she snapped for his neck. He tore away with a squeal and her jaws closed around his shoulder instead. He struck back immediately, attempting to gore her with a tusk.
I trembled as they fought, unable to do anything to help with the physical aspect of the battle, but still feeling the king’s pain resonate through me. Ina whirled out of reach and reared up on her haunches, never taking her eyes off her prey. The crowd stomped its approval until the earth felt as though it might split in half. In some of the rows near the front, people had begun passing around a container of carmine, painting their cheeks to match the streaks of my blood on Ina’s face.
There were no words for the depth of my horror at that sight.
The king returned to his human form to more easily manipulate magic, giving little indication in the way he moved of the deep wound she must have made in his shoulder. I saw it as he turned to the light—the slow drip of blood from beneath the shoulder piece of his armor. Ina saw it too and took her advantage, pressing him back toward her side of the coliseum. He threw up another shield, this one pulsing with red light. Ina’s flame rippled around it, sending smoke into the sky. He was going to need more power to maintain these kinds of shields, much less heal. And more yet to put himself back on the offensive.
I felt it coming before the king’s magic touched me. He tried to reach through our bonds of blood and drain my magic to use for his own. I whispered a prayer of thanks for my shadow cloak hidden beneath the red wool to protect me from that kind of magic. Ina and Nismae were the ones I’d expected to need protection from. Not the king.
Fury rose, hot in my chest.
How dare he?
With the gods to channel and my blood enhancing him, there was no reason to steal my magic unless he wanted me dead.
Perhaps he did.
I couldn’t trust him—not when he’d left me for dead in Veric’s tomb and now was trying to end me a different way. I’d already sacrificed enough to help both sides of this battle.
I wasn’t going to help him anymore.
I looked around, trying to guess what else he might draw magic from, realizing that only one other person in the entire coliseum glowed brightly in my Sight.
Hal.
The king reached for Hal’s power and began to tug.
“No!” I screamed, but my voice was lost in the crowd.
Wispy threads of magic unwound themselves from Hal as the king drew them in to use as his own. Through my connection with the king, I felt the wound in his shoulder begin to close. Hal stumbled a few steps into the coliseum, like a puppet pulled by strings. Shimmering threads of magic joined the two of them, and the audience gasped in awe. Even the mortals were able to see the transfer of power.
Nismae sprinted into the arena, and then grabbed Hal in an embrace as though to drag him back into the challenger’s quarters. The moment her arms closed around him, the king’s magic exploded against her iron cuffs. The threads snapped loose and recoiled on both of them, sending a shock all the way back through the king to me. Hal and Nismae fell to the sand, unmoving.
It took everything I had not to bolt out of the doorway of the king’s side of the coliseum and straight to Hal, but it wasn’t safe. Ina was still on the move. She arched her neck and opened her wings, roaring with fury, falling on the king more savagely than ever.
Even with Ina’s rage fueling her, the king had drawn enough power from Hal that he was not going to be easy to destroy. He nimbly shielded himself from her and flung magic back into her face, battering her until she slunk backward around the edge of the ring. He was playing with her like a toy. Nismae’s enchantments on Ina had weakened or broken. She had to be unconscious, if not close to death, for that to happen. My heart pounded with fear for Hal. I only knew he was still alive thanks to his aura in my Sight, but it was weak. Too weak.
The entire audience was on their feet again, the floor trembling as they stomped.
It seemed the king was going to defeat a dragon—something unheard of.
I couldn’t let that happen.
The king disgusted me. He’d used me; Nismae had been right. He only cared about himself. In the space of two days he’d shown willingness to sacrifice me for his cause, and now Hal. Neither of us had ever done anything but support him.
The time for loyalty was over—I had no one to be loyal to but my family and myself. I knew what I had to do to save Hal—and my kingdom.
I needed Ina to win.
As volatile and dangerous as she was, she wasn’t as selfish as the king. A chance of recovering the Fatestone from Ina was worth avoiding letting the king achieve his goal of virtual immortality. If the kingdom was destroyed in a few days by Ina’s win, I could run for Havemont and rewrite it. If the king had the Fatestone and destroyed the kingdom over a hundred years or more . . . that future was far too vast to tame and shape.
First I broke all the enchantments on the king. A few murmured words and the magic faded, leaving him painted with nothing but ordinary blood. The only sign that he felt it was the way he paused in his advance on Ina, just for a heartbeat. He believed he’d already won. He still had the power of the gods, and he switched to channeling theirs with barely any sign that I’d inconvenienced him. My blood was of help to him, but not a necessity.
He wasn’t counting on what else I was willing to do to take him down.
I pushed past my exhaustion and reached for the dark river of my magic. I let it flood through me and sent questing tendrils out toward the king. He was so absorbed in sending waves of water crashing over Ina to douse her fire magic that he didn’t notice me. I didn’t touch the magic of the gods, but instead wove my power through the very magic that gave him life.
Then I pulled. Hard.
That stopped him in his tracks.
Ina raised her head. She knew something had changed. The predatory gleam in her eye was back, and she wasn’t going to waste an opportunity.
I waited to feel guilty, but the feeling didn’t come. All that came was a rush of energy flooding in as I stole it from the king, making me feel more alive than I had in weeks.
His face contorted in fear as Ina slammed him to the ground. She tore off his armor piece by piece, giving the audience time to crescendo into a deafening roar.
Between me and Ina, the king was helpless, pinned to the ground with nothing between him and death but cloth and leather. Ina slowly dug in the claws resting on his chest. The king’s scream rose to join that of the rest of the crowd.
Ina’s fangs closed around his throat to choke off the sound. She tore out his windpipe, spattering her white scales with his blood. A pool of red spread beneath him.
Zumorda had its new queen.
CHAPTER 38
I IGNORED THE OVERWHELMING SHOUTS OF THE CROWD and ran into the combat arena.
My focus was singular: I had to get the Fatestone.
Ina still stood over the king’s body, both of them now in human form.
When she saw me coming, she stepped in front of his body like an animal defending her kill. Then she saw where my focus lay. She bent down and tugged the golden ring from his finger.
I came to a stop before her, staring her down in a way I’d never done before. My place had always been to accommodate her, to please her, to love her.
My days of subservience were over.