Chapter Fourteen #3
Leaving the scythe where he’d dropped it, Cyrus walked at a leisurely pace through the square and towards Ranragh’s main street.
The crowd parted swiftly for him. Nobody wanted to be too close.
All along the street, conversations cut off abruptly as people saw him coming.
They edged into doorways and pressed themselves flat against uneven walls as he passed, as though he might not notice them if they stood very still.
A whisper reached him, vindication flaring hot in his chest.
“—Earthshaker, he’s on a rampage—”
Some people from the square followed him, at a careful distance, morbid curiosity drawing them to witness whatever chaos he
might call upon their town. With the peasants trailing behind, Cyrus glanced up. An innkeeper had thought to hang baskets
of flowers by her upstairs windows, vivid pink fuchsias and a bright burst of lobelias. How sweet. A minute jerk of his head,
a flash of purple that no one saw, and the plants lurched away from the wall, baskets and all. He enjoyed the squeal as a
flurry of soil and roots landed on somebody’s head.
The main street wound down to Ranragh’s harbour. The brackish tang to the air grew more pronounced, the wheeling gulls overhead
more raucous. A door slammed hurriedly to his left, the proprietor of Ranragh’s Fishy Bits keen to keep her premises off limits.
A sea-borne gust whipped at Cyrus’s cheeks as he rounded the final corner, the harbour spreading before him. Grey-green waves
slopped insistently at the harbour wall, and fishermen eyed him warily from the tangled nets strewn by a stretch of barnacle-encrusted
rock sloping down into the sea.
Cyrus stopped, breathing deeply. Salt licked the back of his throat.
Who to target next? Three taverns loomed precariously close to the water’s edge along the eastern side of the harbour, and groups of ale-addled peasants could often be found slumped at rickety tables outside.
There wasn’t much in the way of vegetation around the harbour, but perhaps he could call on the bindweed wormed between cobblestones, get it to tip up a table or two—
“Earthshaker!”
No. No-no-no. There was no fucking way.
But the peasants had heard it too, a flurry of hopeful murmurs grating at his nerves.
“Earthshaker, face me!”
Cyrus turned. There, striding up Ranragh’s main street, with a face like Winter’s thunder and his sword in his hand, was Maximillian.
The people of Ranragh mouthed his name, parted for him as easily as they had parted for Cyrus, and with obvious relief. Maximillian
barely seemed to notice them. He didn’t slow down until he was right in front of Cyrus.
Right in front of him, bare inches between them.
Maximillian’s skin, pressed against his. Their mouths meeting, hot and greedy, teeth digging into his lower lip as his fingers
tightened in that thick bronze hair.
Cyrus blinked. For a terrible second, he forgot to be angry as the memory of arousal pulsed through him.
Then reality kicked in. Maximillian, here, in Ranragh. Cyrus’s territory. Before his people. Challenging him.
He took a breath—steady, thank the gods—and kicked his tongue into order.
“Maximillian.” Ice dripped from Cyrus’s tone. “I see there is no limit to your stupidity.”
Maximillian’s eyes bored into Cyrus. “What, coming here?” His voice was tight. “Well, you came to Heliarth. Thought I’d repay the favour.”
Cyrus fought to keep his expression impassive, as though the mention of Heliarth didn’t make his stomach drop. At the back
of his mind, his thoughts whirled, trying to piece together Maximillian’s motivations. Why did he look angry? Surely he wouldn’t—this
couldn’t be about exposing the truth of Cyrus’s magic? The hollow feeling in Cyrus’s chest was back, only this time it really
was hot with swelling rage.
Without breaking Maximillian’s steely gaze, Cyrus rested a hand on the dagger at his belt. His movements measured and deliberate,
he freed the weapon until it hung loose and ready by his side. Still Maximillian didn’t look away.
“Come on, then,” Cyrus said quietly. “Repay the favour.”
He was only distantly aware of the gathered crowd, the way their heads swivelled from champion to wrongdoer. His attention
was eaten up by Maximillian: the angry set of his jaw, the way his fingers flexed around the hilt of his sword. The tension
between them was so thick it felt stifling.
Maximillian swung for him. Cyrus dodged backwards. To any other eye, it would look like a nasty blow. But Cyrus knew him.
“Come on,” Cyrus mocked. “You can do better than that.”
A flash of fire in those blue eyes. Maximillian lunged again, the crowd scattering.
The swing of his sword was ferocious this time, driven by temper.
Cyrus ducked and came up behind Maximillian, dagger gripped tight and intent on slashing him, but Maximillian spun before he could.
He rammed Cyrus with his shoulder, knocking him off-balance.
Cyrus staggered backwards a few steps, his side pulsing.
He fought not to make any show of it, straightening up and breathing hard.
Maximillian followed. They had edged along the harbour, towards the rough stone steps that led to Ranragh’s scant pebbly beach.
Cyrus was aware of the sea crowding in behind him, a persistent and unwanted audience.
“Running away, wrongdoer?” Maximillian asked in a low voice. “You’re good at that, I suppose.”
What was that supposed to mean?
Before Cyrus could respond, Maximillian lunged again. He sprang away from the attack, catching Maximillian’s wrist with a
slash of his dagger and prompting a hiss of pain, but the champion was relentless. He swung again, and again, driving Cyrus
backwards, down the stone steps and onto the beach.
One or two of the braver peasants tried to follow them. Maximillian turned his head sharply. “Stay back!”
Cyrus seized the opportunity. His side was starting to throb with the reminder of the wound he owed Maximillian. He leapt
forward, dagger outstretched—
—only for Maximillian to whip round and catch his wrist, trapping it between their bodies. He was so close, suddenly, his
fingers a brand against Cyrus’s skin. A heartbeat and he was back in Heliarth, tangled in luxury sheets, his lips at Maximillian’s
throat.
A gull screeched overhead. Ranragh’s familiar harbour all around. Maximillian, right there, so close their chests almost touched. His eyes, hot with anger and a strange brimming frustration. So blue.
Those eyes dropped to Cyrus’s mouth, almost helplessly. Cyrus’s heart jolted.
Then he ducked, wrenching his arm free and delivering a sharp cuff to the side of the champion’s head. Maximillian cursed
and stumbled, nearly slipping on the last stone step.
Cyrus paced away from him, swiping his hair out of his eyes. A string of brownish seaweed clung to his boot. He kicked it
away, sending pebbles rattling, and glared at Maximillian over the new distance between them. The people of Ranragh clustered
at the top of the stone steps, their eyes wide. They were no longer close enough to hear.
Maximillian’s head came up. Cyrus tightened his grip on his dagger, bracing himself for a fresh attack. He expected mockery,
something rehearsed and vicious and angled straight for Cyrus’s greatest vulnerability. Instead Maximillian’s voice was laden
with frustration.
“What the fuck,” he hissed, “is your problem?”
No mention of his magic. Well, Cyrus wasn’t going to be the one to bring it up. A disbelieving laugh escaped as he echoed,
“My problem? I’ll tell you what my problem is—” Cyrus lunged again, dagger nearly nicking his cheek, but the champion dodged back just in time.
They circled each other. One moment the sea stretched wide behind Maximillian, grey and sulky; the next he saw the alarmed faces of his townsfolk blurring into one.
“You playing your own game and thinking you can use me to win it. I heard what you said to that journalist. About how I’m soft. About how you have a plan to prove it.”
Maximillian’s eyebrows lurched, incredulous. “That’s what this is about?! You heard that?! Summer’s blight, Cyrus, you really
thought I meant all tha—ow!”
Cyrus wasn’t having it, his name in Maximillian’s mouth. He launched himself at the champion with little else in his mind
other than the desire to lash out and drag Maximillian down from the lofty pedestal upon which all others placed him. Down
they went in a tangle of limbs and a clatter of weapons. Cyrus landed on top, but Maximillian immediately clasped his arms
tightly around Cyrus’s torso and rolled. Cyrus couldn’t bite back a groan, his side protesting at the rough treatment. The
sharp edge of a pebble dug into his shoulder, the back of his head. Everything was wet and briny, the tide was coming in,
and there was something slimy beneath his right leg. Cyrus forced his body into action, driving his knee into Maximillian’s
stomach, and rolled them again. But the champion only flung himself sideways, dragging both off-balance until Cyrus ended
up back to the floor once more. Maximillian grabbed his wrists and pinned them to the ground.
Oh. That was—that was unexpected, and weirdly nice, except it shouldn’t feel nice. He tried to tug against the hands holding his wrists down and immediately regretted it. All it did was confirm
Maximillian’s strength, which in turn sent another wave of confused pleasure down his spine. Cyrus gulped, trying his best
to ignore that sensation. The stares of the onlookers burrowed into his skin.
Maximillian wasn’t deterred. He was going to take his moment to say his piece, regardless of their goggle-eyed audience—still too far off to hear, thank the gods, but surely wondering what exactly they were witnessing as champion and wrongdoer wrestled to pin each other among the pebbles.
“I never said I had a plan to prove anything,” Maximillian snapped. His hair flopped down over his forehead; his face bore