“Well done,” he said in a familiar, deep voice. “
Very nice
. I have to admit it’s been a while since someone surprised me. I expected nothing less from you, Overlord.”
As he looked up, Violet’s heart nearly stopped. The smirk on the Raider Prince’s lips was familiar, but the strand of ivory in Areon’s hair was not.
It was stupid. No,
she
was stupid. Babies learned to breathe the very second they came into life, so why was it suddenly so hard for her to remember how to do that. Violet gasped for air, her hands clutching the edge of the podium to stop herself from shaking apart.
Things that should have fallen into place quite a while ago stormed her brain. The last line of the Prince’s letter danced before her eyes:
I hope you know where your heart lies
. And Areon’s words in her ears:
I’m glad your heart lies with me
.
Oh
god
, she was an idiot. She just... She couldn’t...
Halley appeared beside her with a sympathetic smile. “I guess he didn’t have the chance to tell you?” she asked.
“I’m going to
kill him
,” Violet said, her voice shaking so violently she could hardly speak. “I want him to win now so I could kill him myself. Him, then Reim, then that proxy of his...”
“I hope I’m safe,” Halley said.
“I’ll deal with
you
as well,” Violet said, but her anger had no bite. Things had gone upside down and then upside down again. Her world was spinning wildly and she had no idea what to grasp on to.
Areon was the Raider Prince.
Areon
, the man who had made her laugh and who she had liked. The man she had fallen in love with. The Raider Prince had come to her tournament to win her hand, like he’d promised her three years ago. It was so good and so unbelievable at the same time that Violet kept waiting to wake up from a dream.
So many things suddenly made sense to her – every happenstance, every little thing she’d written off as his luck, every miraculous escape. The incident? It brought a loud growl to Violet’s lips when she was forced to consider whether or not Areon’s fall had been accidental. Looking at him standing there with that demon grin on his lips, she was instantly certain it hadn’t.
Perhaps he heard her growl, but Areon looked up at her. No, the Raider Prince looked at Violet, a teasing smile on his lips.
She was going to kill him, or kiss him or rather vice versa. Maybe more kissing and more being in his amazing, strong arms, but she definitely was going to kill him too. She was starting to get why the Overlord hated being mocked.
The idea of her father brought her crashing back to reality. Violet’s eyes snapped from the arena to the high podium where the Overlord was eerily quiet. Everyone waited.
With all sorts of realizations hitting Violet one after another, she finally understood what was going on. The Overlord hated the Prince. During a tournament, all feuds were off, but it only applied to those who weren’t in the arena. Short of killing the champions, her father had his hands free to deal with Areon any way he could think of.
And he had twenty killers at his command to do his bidding, all of whom had just proven they had what it took to take down four
gnaour
– although Areon had done his share.
Violet ran in the absolute silence that had followed the astonished gasp of the audience. Down in the arena, no one moved, but that stillness was deceptive. Violet had watched them for two days, had watched warriors fight all her life, she knew how fast they could move if needed.
The Overlord gave her a heavy look.
“I’m sorry, Violet,” he said. No denial, no feigning ignorance.
“Don’t,” she said. It came out as a command and a plea all at once. Neither moved the Overlord.
“I can’t give up such a chance,” her father said. “And in truth, I don’t want to. He is no warrior. Not worthy of a
calaya
, certainly not worthy of you.”
Violet seethed with fury. “It was you who said the tournament was open for everyone! When I asked you to not let him compete. This is the whole point – anyone could win. You can’t decide the victor like that!”
“I can,” said the Overlord.
Violet gritted her teeth in exasperation. She turned to Irmela, looking uncertain. “
Mother
,” she said.
Irmela smiled to her sadly. “I’m sorry, Violet. It’s his tournament, his trials. If the Prince is worthy of you, he’ll win you.”
Funny how it had sounded true when she said something similar just days ago. Now it made Violet furious. She hated having her own words thrown back into her face. Truly, she was her father’s daughter.
“Father,” she said, turning back to the Overlord. “Please.”
She saw the hesitation, she really did. Violet also saw the resolve, knowing it was futile in the end.
The Overlord rose to address the tournament one more time. “I give you the Raider Prince, champions,” he said. “This is your third trial, the duel stage. Your opponent is he. The fight is to the death. Yours or his.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“Champions, I give you the Raider Prince. This is your third trial – the duel stage. Your opponent is him. The fight is to the death – yours or his.”
Those had been the Overlord‘s words. Everyone had heard them. Both the champions and the audience suddenly suffering from instantaneous deafness would have been a bit difficult to believe.
Thus, the silence that lingered was a little out of place.
Areon smiled.
It was the best he could do. To actually laugh in the Overlord’s face would have been nigh suicidal. No doubt there were countless guns pointed at him should he step out of line – there was no use in upsetting his future father-in-law too
much.
It was the stillness, that’s what it was. A lack of shouting, a lack of moving and, most of all, a lack of blood flowing. The Overlord must have anticipated all those things. However, it remained a hard cold fact that no one on the arena moved a muscle.
At least the look on Grom’s face was brilliant – absolutely worth the charade on its own.
It was Grom who spoke the words all the champions seemed to have been thinking.
“Is he really the Raider Prince?” he asked the Overlord. “Or is this another trick?”
The Overlord shrugged. “Does it really matter?”
“Not really,” said Grom. “I just prefer to know the identities of the men I’m about to kill.”
Areon shook his sword dry and the simple movement got him the attention of everyone who had eyes. If he hadn’t been a modest man, he could have sworn that the world was slowly revolving around him at that moment.
“I am who he says I am,” he told Grom and the other champions. The silence following that statement seemed even deeper for some reason. “I won’t bother with threats. I have no wish to kill any of you, but I will, if you give me a reason. The Overlord wants you to carry out his grudge during a
calaya
tournament? The man has gall, I’ll give him that. The last time I checked we had rules about these sorts of things. And I…”
He grinned. “No, wait, threats are much more to the point. Anyone who participates in the Overlord’s attempt to murder me outside the tournament’s rules will not like the manner of their death.”
A few seemed uneasy. Areon couldn’t exactly tell why. It was either from their fear of him, or because, funnily enough, he was right and the Overlord was going beyond his rights as the host. A duel to the death was fine – he’d expected as much – but to have more than ten renowned fighters pitched against him was something else.
The Overlord sent him an icy smirk. “I stand by my words.”
That was good enough for most of the champions and enough for Grom, at least.
Probably shouldn’t have pissed him off in the last trial
, Areon thought, amused. The big champion turned to him, the club in his hands looking spikier than ever.
Now, another warrior might have let the other rivals tire Areon out, but Grom was not like that. He was a proud champion, first to the battle and the last one out. He trudged forward, club in his hand, eyes determined. Areon braced himself, but Grom only managed to take a few steps before being trapped in the Overlord’s schemes again.
The water that was up to their knees had hidden the rising walls until it was too late. While some were merely thrown back by the quickly ascending smooth metal barriers, Areon thought he saw a few others tumble when the constructions started moving almost directly underneath them. The walls rose fast and coordinated. In the span of mere seconds, Areon saw the general layout of the maze before the darkness folded around him. Underneath his feet, the water drained away – it seemed it had done its job by revealing him.
The walls weren’t all that high – the audience still needed to see them – but they were not made for climbing either, which had been Areon’s first instinct. If it had been up to him, he would have climbed on top of the makeshift maze, found Grom and finished what they’d started. It seemed the Overlord had other plans. He chuckled. Of course it wouldn’t be easy, nothing ever was with the Overlord.
Oh this is beautiful
, he thought, calmly taking in his surroundings.
And it is deadly, no doubt.
I am flattered, I really am. That man is a glorious bastard.
Areon hadn’t seen everything in the second he was given before the maze was complete, but he had seen enough. After all, he could guess quite well what the Overlord’s agenda was. First of all, he was feeling rather lonely, because the maze had separated him from his allies – no surprises there. Ronay and Reim could handle themselves and so could he. The real problem was that Grom was probably as far from him as their charming host could possibly place him.
It was typical of the Overlord. If it was Grom’s honor that was causing him problems, he’d just remove it from the equation. Now Grom’s only option was to search for him, but not before the Overlord could throw everyone else his way first – lovely.
Taking a step in Grom’s presumed direction proved another of Areon’s miscalculations. What had been an empty path just a moment before suddenly became a dead end. The walls were still moving.
“Well, this is fun,” Reim called to him over the wall.
“You have a weird definition of fun,” Areon replied. He looked around, but of course the Overlord couldn’t stop being a dick for a single moment. Every pathway that opened to him was somehow obscured or twisted, meaning that his enemies could quite easily sneak up on him and, therefore, shouting wasn’t probably the best idea.
Well, the Overlord clearly hadn’t thought his plan through. He’d devised the maze to trap Areon with his killers, but in truth, the Raider Prince felt pretty safe. It was the others who were in danger.
“It’s true,” he heard Reim laugh. “I have a morbid sense of humor. I’m going to go and find someone to kill now. If I run into Grom, know that it was an honor to serve you and that you are completely responsible for the mess we’re in.”
“I doubt you’ll see him,” Areon said, as something approaching along the path to his right caught his eye. “Pretty sure his date is with me. But your sentimentality is appreciated.”
Reim’s answering laugh faded away as Areon made his way to meet his first rival. No, scratch that, two
first rivals. There was another shadow behind the first, posed to strike as soon as Areon’s attention was diverted.
What a nice doomed plan.
After briefly considering sneaking up on them and cutting their throats, Areon cleared his voice.
“I understand this setting is giving you ideas, but I’d rather not play hide-and-seek,” he shouted to them, hearing the audience laugh when the shadows jumped. “What are we, children? Meet me –”
The rising wall knocked him off his feet before he could finish his sentence. The next few seconds were a hailstorm of sensations and instincts.
Areon became the Raider Prince in a matter of a heartbeat.
It was all he could do to avoid dying a very inglorious death right then and there. Sounds and smells filled the air around him, long seconds packed together into a single crystal-clear moment. The audience’s amused laughter at his quip turned into a shocked gasp, Violet was screaming and blades met inches from his throat. The wall, having done its job, was gone as quickly as it had appeared.
Blood was trickling down Areon’s face. He could taste the copper on his tongue and feel the warm liquid seep into his hair. Miraculously, the blood wasn’t his. One of the shadows had been quicker than he’d thought. The man had made full use of the second he’d been given and jumped to pierce Areon with his sword. Instincts honed by years of war had saved Areon’s life. And still the blades had met so close to his throat he could feel the sharpness.
From there it got easier – he was once again in control of the situation. It was no chore to grab hold of the attacker’s sword and wrench it out of the way, making use of the enemy’s awkward angle of approach. Before the man had a chance to react, Areon had cut his throat, as he should have done in the first place.
He wasn’t dead yet. His shocked, wild eyes were staring at Areon. The man was choking, futilely gasping for air, showering him with blood. Areon’s eyes were fixed on the dark green
calaya
strand in the man’s hair, now marred with red.
Luck.
That was the only thought in his mind. As the champion slumped, Areon allowed the fury to take over at last. He shoved the man off him, automatically dodging the killing strike of the other shadow. The second was no match for the first, but Areon found no mercy within him at that moment. He eluded the blow of the sword, noticing that the weapon was too big for the man. He was a head shorter than him, holding the blade with both hands. Not unskilled, just foolish, and just dead. It was such a rookie mistake, to think a bigger weapon would give him an edge. A weapon too heavy for a warrior was nothing short of a weapon in his opponent’s hands. Areon let him raise the sword above his head before cutting both his hands off with a lightning quick strike.