Drothiker

42.

He could not perceive her behind the horde of baeselk.

Had the blinding pain in his back not made him so utterly weak, had the discharge of blood not darkened his sight at the corners, Azryle might have been able to stand and strangle Maycusen in one motion, and knock Vendrik unconscious, just long enough for the duel to end.

But Azryle felt his limbs giving in, felt his eyes drooping as the dresteen-tipped whip crashed into him over and over and over again. He felt the zap every time dresteen cut his flesh and met his blood, his mejest.

"Looks like it's going to rain," someone in the seats below observed.

Azryle could not overhear Syrene's breathing over those growls and hisses, could not catch any movement behind the baeselk bulwarking her.

Behind them, still lingering by the gate she'd sauntered out of, Rainfang's smile was anything but human, her eyes pools of obsidian, not a hint of whiteness or the lilac. Her fingers were in a movement, as if pulling the strings of baeselk. That dark towering her like death ... Azryle knew it too well, it lived somewhere so deep within himself.

He bore it because he was forced with it ... how did Rainfang ...

"Syrene, please," the woman across the field continued pleading.

He tried not to brood over how Faolin Wisflave and Syrene's cousin had gotten here. Instead—

"Help her," Azryle snapped at Vendrik over his shoulder, whose grip on the whip was tighter than it should have been. "Your fire is no mejest, you can burn the baeselk."

But Rik remained stone-faced, his jaw working, endeavoring to fight this command. He was shaking, Azryle noticed, with the restraint.

"Don't waste your breath, Prince," murmured Felset. "You know he would do no such thing. Since when have you grown so generous—"

Azryle cut her off. "Vendrik," he snarled, his voice merged with a clap of thunder overhead.

Felset angled her head. Her eyes trained on Azryle as she commanded Vendrik and Maycusen, "Begin again. Make certain to strike with your full impact this time."

Azryle's teeth gritted as pain lanced through his whole body at the inhuman impact in the blow. He felt blood flowing to his ankles; it had already soaked his shirt positioned beside him.

Felset crouched at his side. Her hand reached for beneath his chin and forced his head to her.

"Don't think for the second that I have not observed how you look at her with such longing," she gritted. "Your desire to protect her is more than just my command, isn't it? But what happens when I return your feelings to you, Prince? Would you be able to live when the shame of assassinating all those people rushes to you in a wave?" Her hand raked through his hair as the sky grumbled. "Would you be able to face the ruination that will come coursing through you when the memories of what you do in bed with me hit you?" Her hand slid to cup his cheek. "Would you even be able to let her touch you?"

Azryle kept his mouth shut, his eyes on Syrene as the sky flashed again, brightening the baeselk's shadowy figures

"You don't want to be freed, because you don't want to be up against all that will come killing you from inside. Does that little human realize that?"

Felset pushed to her feet, and another blow ripped his back.

His whole body had gone numb—

"If we continue," Maycusen panted, voice steady, "there can be serious damage—"

"There's still flesh left," Felset said simply. "Continue."

"But—" Vendrik started.

"Continue."

And so they did. But then—

The baeselk were all thrown back in a circle, as if an invisible blast erupted amid their group.

Syrene was on her feet, shaking with rich laugher.

Each inch of her was coated with blood, it sprinted down from the open flesh of her neck, her ripped thigh and arm.

Hair drifted above her head, sand all around her circled her in the wind like a small tornado. The wind no one else felt, as if it subsisted only for her.

"I am Syrene Evreyan Alpenstride," she announced to the still-as-death audience, to the baeselk, to the queen. Her voice limned with amusement. "Last heir to the King of Hemvae, daughter of Hexet Evreyan." Her blue eyes buzzing and whirring with bright threads of lightning fell on Deisn. "The only Duce of Tribes."

Felset fell a step forward, a hand gripped the railing, eyes wide. "The King of Hemvae," she whispered to no one particular, her face bone-white, as if just now gleaning something. "Grinon Alpenstride."

Fear was rising in everyone in the arena—the air began reeking.

But Syrene went on. "And I have come to pay the debt."

Then she lifted her sword and drove it through her chest.