Chapter 29
The crowd roared, and I tugged at the bottom of my tight and stretchy skirt. Yiti hadn’t lied. It was comfortable and didn’t ride up, even though the “skirt” only brushed the tops of my thighs.
“Does this cover my ass?” I asked the yellow that I’d soon kill.
The red was miserable on my other side, but the yellow was cheery enough about joining his mate.
The yellow bent down. “Just. It looks like it’s meant to make people wonder when the skirt will fail. If you know what I mean.”
“I did.” And I understood Yiti’s game, which was why I’d worn the piece.
Demons needed to be presented with baby steps.
I’d been too drastic in the coverage of my other clothing.
This walked a line between my tastes and demons’ tastes.
Sure, this was far closer to what they would like.
But with this, I might succeed in drawing them away from a dark history of loincloths and nipple string.
I adjusted my boobs in the crisscrossed bands. Most of my torso was showing above the low-cut skirt and to my ribs. The stretchy bands crossed over my ribs and boobs, then behind my neck and back around my chest for more support.
And more cleavage.
“Fashion is pain,” I reminded myself.
At least I was wearing my usual boots.
The yellow touched my arm. “Mate-Intended, thank you. I expected that I would not win, but you have given me hope.” His gaze was dark and searching. “I wish you luck in your endeavor.”
In killing the king.
I allowed a small smile. “I don’t need luck. But thank you for it anyway.”
I glanced at the red demon. “She will be okay. I will make sure of it.”
He nodded, and we were all aware of the three other demons lurking in the back of the passage.
“Thank you. In the end, I got what I came here for. And I might not ever have gotten that much without your help. I do not know why you chose to help me, Mate-Intended, but I die grateful for it.” The red sighed.
“It is a strange feeling to walk to death while knowing that it is not time and there is so much to live for.”
“We take immortality for granted,” I replied.
He stared through the gate. “Immortality. Mating. Fatherhood. Everything seems small against the few things that matter.”
I faced forward again. How the fuck was I going to kill them?
I needed my demon side to shut my magus side the hell up. I was capable of anything for Adeuto, I knew.
But shit. This was cold. This felt like murder when no other kills in Tiers had.
The gate opened, and I walked out onto the slippery, sharp, and sandy floors of the Crave Arena for the last time.
I had no strategy today. I just walked through the arena with the red and the yellow, and soon enough, Owu’s father peeled away to circle back.
A while later, screams rose above the vicious tips of jutting rock.
I walked with the yellow, and I could tell his mind was far away with his mate already.
“You were my favorite,” I told him.
“I know. I used it against you,” he answered.
I laughed, and he joined me, and that was how we arrived at the checkpoint, much to the crowd’s complete confusion.
I turned to await the red, who might have ended up as my friend, if I didn’t need to kill him. And the yellow. Seriously, what the fuck? I didn’t want to be friends with Gratia.
Maybe her mate.
Surely I wouldn’t need to murder every potential friend.
Owu’s father staggered from the stones. Blood covered him, and when he reached me, he fell to his knees. “They’re gone. It’s just us.”
Shit.
The yellow fell to his knees beside me too.
And funnily enough, it only then occurred to me that if I won, the very thing that I’d entered Tiers to win had already happened. My twin had already escaped.
I stared at the yellow and red. “Oh, shit. I don’t know what to ask for.”
The red lifted his head. “What?”
“Why did you enter?” the yellow asked.
Well, to kill Carmine. But I couldn’t ask for that outright. Santa could only bring so much to this good girl.
I’d entered to use other supernaturals to wage war on Carmine. Check. If Tempest was whole again now, she was already working toward that. Plus, magus already knew demons were coming for them after Carmine’s failed attempt to conquer the coven.
Kill Carmine. Work in progress. But a large part of that depended on Tempest.
The red’s jaw dropped. “You entered for fun?”
“What, no? I’m not crazy.” I considered that. “Completely crazy. I have unofficial… stuff.”
I was just a mother who would stop at nothing to protect her son. I could ask for freedom—more time away from the fortress. I could only return at night for banquets.
Except.
Except. My heart dropped.
My grandfather was dead. He was my excuse to keep visiting the desert. I groaned, realizing just now that by continuing to portal away each night, I had accidentally informed Carmine that there was someone else out in the desert. I had to stop going there.
Which was exactly what I’d wanted to avoid by not completing the intention ritual.
“Dammit.”
“Dammit, what?” asked the yellow. “You can’t think of anything?”
I shook my head. I could ask for power, like I’d said. Power in terms of property and sway, and I could even ask for a powerful position in the army. But Carmine would never grant me the amount of power that would make it easy to kill him.
So I was better off operating in the dark.
Though a powerful position in the army would allow me contact with supernaturals, potentially, and also more ability to dictate the result of a battle.
Could I ask for my own army?
I doubted that. Too obvious, and Carmine wouldn’t divide his force. Anyway, I couldn’t depend on a random group of people. Not like I might have been able to depend on this yellow or this red.
I frowned at them, and as the crowd’s disapproval of the Most Boring Tiers Match in History started to mount, I thought back over the recent weeks of my life.
My first thoughts were of Gratia surprising me with the odd sliver of help.
There had been Yiti and Tewewh to lend some brighter moments to the fortress. Even that red, who I wouldn’t be averse to spending more time with.
Gratia’s new mate may prove interesting enough. And grounded, at least.
Then there was even Athira, who had surprised me so enormously by allying with me against her son.
There was Owu—who was a great reassurance when I considered that my visits to Adeuto might come to a temporary end. He may not have me, but he would have a friend.
And then, last, there were these two demons.
A red and a yellow.
“The crowd is throwing stuff,” the red remarked.
The yellow was more cunning and not concerned with the crowd. “The king is standing.”
And listening to you.
“What are your names?” I asked them.
“I thought we weren’t exchanging names so it was easier to kill us,” replied the yellow.
I grinned. “We weren’t. But I would like to know them now.”
The red bowed his head, which was partially because he wasn’t doing too flash. Killing the other demons had cost him. “I am Enp.
The yellow looked at me. “You’re stalling.”
“I’m thinking,” I growled.
He smirked. “I’m Tsan.”
I smiled. That suited him. “All right. Hang tight, boys.”
“What does that mean?” Enp asked Tsan when I’d turned my back.
I craned my neck to see all the way to the top. Carmine was standing at the balustrade, looking down. Stalling. I could practically hear the echo of Tsan’s accusation from up there too. “King Carmine, I would speak if you’ll allow it.”
You fucking better.
The crowd shut up, at last. Perhaps they’d get a show after all, just a different one to what they’d supposed. This request would lose me favor with them. Mercy wasn’t very revered in this realm.
But I needed some support that wasn’t my shitty mother-in-law.
“You may speak, Mate-Intended,” he said, and magic made his voice boom through the arena. The last of the grumbling crowd settled in to watch.
Meanwhile, I was wondering what I should do after Tiers when the craving made me mindless.
I pushed smoke into my throat so all would hear me. “King Carmine, I have not killed these two demons because as the winner of Tiers, I would ask that you spare their lives as my prize.”
Tsan was already onto me. Enp had been too deep in memories of his son and mate, but he whipped his head to gape at me.
Carmine’s expression and voice was impossible to decipher from here. “If you do not kill them, then you cannot earn your prize.”
“If I kill them, then my prize will be dead,” I replied, earning laughter from the crowd.
“You would choose mercy as your prize,” he called next.
The crowd jeered, but I had seen that humor could get me what I wanted.
I laid a hand over my chest. “As you have seen, I am but a weak and unskilled demon.”
The crowd laughed. They jerked around their loyalties more than a tug-of-war rope.
“You are far from either of those things,” the demon king replied.
The crowd hushed at the compliment.
I could practically hear Carmine’s mind from here.
Why did she choose these demons? Are they crucial in some unforeseen way?
Was this her plan the entire time? Did they enter together?
She’s saved the yellow more than once. What are the familial connections of these demons?
The parents of one are wardens of the desert. What of the yellow?
The answer?
One I just plain liked. One I felt deeply sorry for.
The crowd shouted their opinions at the demon king. I couldn’t understand a single word. They were just a wall of screams and bellows.
“You could have asked for anything,” whispered the red.
He’d summed this up perfectly back by the gate. Everything seems small against the few things that matter. These people may matter to me, and if they weren’t destined for that, then they would matter to others.
The crowd was whipping into a frenzy, and Carmine allowed it.
Until he did not.
He cracked his power overhead, and a few screams were torn from onlookers before silence fell once more. “I have made my decision.”