Chapter 67
Ipulled it off. Not without a lot of blood, mind you. I not only have the original King of Kings, but also The Book of Wala. If the Zos didn’t want us dead already, they will if they realize I replaced their precious treasures with enormous books on war tactics.
Entering the ring with Dae at my side is a different kind of buzz. I slide in between velvet ropes to face my opponent.
His dark skin, hair, and eyes—all shades of brown—starkly contrast against his white leathers.
“You ready?” Dae says. I hear the smile in his voice, feel his muscled form standing behind my back, and I have never felt more ready in the ring.
“Do cart cows pull carts?”
His dark laugh rolls through me, raising goosebumps everywhere.
The stadium is a clammer of cheers, some for the Zo, some for me. If I look closely at the wall of faces, spectators are waving rens and making final bets as they knock goblets together, sloshing ale out by the puddle.
The siren blares overhead.
I grab my opponent’s white leathers like two invisible fists, clutching into the material at his chest, and I throw him across the ring with more power than I mean to.
Dae’s dark power is near bottomless, coiling through me and igniting an icy fire wherever it roams.
That’s enough for me to leave it alone the rest of the duel.
My opponent shoots daggers at me as he’s sliding on his back. I zigzag out of their line of fire with a left-right-left, snatch the last speeding dagger from the air, and hurtle it back at him.
When he blocks with his foot, it strikes his armored boot, and ricochets to the mat.
He rolls into a ball before exploding up, surging back onto his feet. His eyes are sharper than others, dissecting and analyzing me as I swing my black blade for his leg.
He jumps over my blow, swiping his blade for my neck midair. It scratches a shallow cut across my throat.
Dae emits a deep growl inside my mind and darkness begins to swirl inside. “Don’t even think about it. It’s just a scratch.”
He grumbles some half-agreeing sound and I start swinging.
My sword is finally an extension of my hand instead of some giant, obtrusive object.
I snap it side to side, twirl, roundhouse kick the man’s gut, and throw it like a spear through his left thigh as he rebounds from my kick.
His eyes narrow at me as he rips my blade out of his thigh with a jet of gray smoke and projects it back at me like a bullet from a gun.
I spin but it follows, altering course with me, and grazes a deep, bleeding gash across my belly.
Dae goes rigid, his presence more blanket than man, and I feel his deepening anguish.
“I’m fine,” I hiss.
He doesn’t have time to answer because my opponent is on top of me, swinging his white bolt with expert precision, blocking me from reaching my sword that he pulled behind him.
I rip a dagger from a sheath at my thigh while ducking a killing thrust for my chest.
My opponent fakes a swing in one direction and catches me with a slice to my ribs when I dodge the wrong way. He keeps a heavy boot on my sword while chasing me with his blade. I manage a quick stab to the inside of his thigh.
He manages a long gash down my arm.
“Did Liha get this frustrated watching you ignore your power?” he growls.
I smile as I catch the Zo’s free arm and slam my dagger through his elbow crook.
The Zo man grinds his jaw, his deep eyes coming alive with rage. That’s when his gray smoke explodes from him, sending all his daggers deep into my thighs and torso faster than I can react.
I stumble back as blood blossoms to the surface. Five blades. Three in my legs, two in my lower abdomen.
Deep.
Dae’s answering battle-cry comes with an explosion of power through my veins. Gold ripples in.
Screams reign down from the stands.
It takes every ounce of stubborn grit I have to hold back Dae’s cataclysmic power building and building.
And building.
And building.
At its peak—when the Zo nobleman is driving a killing swipe for my neck—I feel the twinge of a Mark rippling out.
I am at my utter capacity. I can’t stop it from manifesting, and I have no fucking idea what it is.
When it explodes from me, time stops.
My opponent is frozen mid-strike, and his white blade—smeared with my crimson blood—is two inches from my neck. Beyond him is a raging crowd stuck with open mouths and pointing fingers. A goblet of ale having been thrown from a top level is fixed mid-tumble, a spray of brown liquid curling out—unmoving.
“What did you do?!” I ask Dae.
He’s clenching his teeth. I hear it when he says, “If you ever try dying on me like that again, I will materialize—I don’t give a fuck who sees—and I will start tearing souls. Do you hear me?”
“You will not—”
But the gold is still trickling in from the sky-high dome while Dae’s power is slowly trickling out from me, holding time still.
I try to breathe the gold away, but it’s moving on its own volition until it piles at my side to form a woman-like figure.
“Nizzara,” she says, her voice like a song, her hair white, her eyes black. “My daughter.”
I recognize her with sudden clarity. Wala.
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. She walks to me and cups my cheek. Dae’s power is slowly draining from him.
“I’ve been trying to reach you.” She smiles, her full lips curling, her beautiful black eyes twinkling. “You stubborn child.”
Her black eyes glisten, and I feel every part of her. Infinite knowledge, life, and realms, such beauty.
Her eyes move to Dae, who’s standing as a ghost behind me. “My time for a final death has come. I wished to speak to you before I fade.” She smiles at me, and it’s full of love.
I know her. She’s been here the whole time.
“Don’t cry.” She wipes my cheek with a warm hand. “I must give you a gift before I’m gone. You’ll need it, my beautiful girl.”
She touches my stomach, where daggers are protruding, and the pain is sucked away as the daggers fall out. Every scratch, bruise, and sore muscle washes away in a trail of warmth.
“There,” she says, her gold light now diminished. “How I have longed to touch you, my child.”
My mouth finally decides to move. “You can’t leave.”
Her black, knowing eyes deepen. “It is not my choice.” She smiles. “But I guess seeing how I knew from the beginning this was my end, it was.”
“Why?”
“For you.”
Dae’s power slips, steadily draining.
“What do you mean?”
“I may be powerful, but even I cannot bear a child like you without the price of life being paid. I knew I wouldn’t survive beyond tonight, now that you’ve grown into your power.”
Her brows pinch and her gold light flickers. “There is a war, much bigger than the three kingdoms. Me and my people cannot fight it, for we can give life, but not take it. You will be capable of both. That is the darkness you fear.” Her eyes harden. “It is a heavy burden, to be made of life and carry death in your veins. For that, I am sorry. It was the only pathway.”
“The only pathway for what?” My voice cracks because Dae is slumping behind me, nearly drained, and my mother is fading away on a phantom wind.
“To save the realms.” Her eyes behold me as if I am the center of her world. “I will always be with you. Never forget that.”
In a blink, she’s gone.
“Nizzara,” Dae whispers, bent over behind me, draining out. “Let go.”
Panic hits when I hear the shallowness in his voice.
I cut the flow of our power and time resumes.
My body moves like it never has. I duck out from under the sword. It swipes through where my neck just was. The nobleman swings again, his sword swooshes down like an ax chopping down for my arm. I lean right, then left, then right, missing his blade.
Dae is pale in my sense, and it sends my muscles into overdrive. On my opponent’s upswing, I punch his face, shattering his nose. I rip his sword from his hand and turn full circle, smashing the pommel of his sword against his temple. he crumples, boneless and unconscious to the mat.
The victory bell rings, but all I can focus on is Dae’s ragged breathing. “Dae!”
“I’m fine, Nizzara.”
As I’m preparing to leave the dressing room, I hear Tarella’s voice outside the door, arguing with whichever one of Brunar’s guards is stationed there.
I go to it and throw it open. She’s shooting her murderous gaze at the youngest guard on Brunar’s patrol, and I almost feel bad for him.
She shoves her nose up at him and slides through the doorway. She takes a quick look around the empty room. Halix is getting my next duel schedule, and Brunar is on a piss break.
There’s an awkward silence between us before she says, “Where is everyone?”
I can’t keep the steel from my voice when I say, “Gone.”
“Father?”
“Gone. Like you.”
She flinches but sidesteps the topic by saying. “Good fight.”
“What do you want, Tarella?”
Her face hardens, and her brown eyes deepen. “I just wanted to wish you luck on your final duel.” She pauses. “And to tell you that I wanted to bring you with me.”
Something tugs in my chest and when a thud comes from out in the hall, her head snaps toward the door.
After the sound passes, she turns back to me, her dark brows pinched over brown eyes. “Just keep your daggers on you at all times, ‘kay?”
Before I can respond, she’s slipping out into the hallway.
Not five minutes later, Halix saunters in with thick parchment. “Your next duel is a week from now. Now, let’s go.”
“The King’s Final Duel,” Dae says, his voice not sounding much stronger.
“You need to feed,” I whisper through our bond and it’s now I fully acknowledge where Dae gets his power from. My damned heart won’t let me hate him for it, either. I want him here.
“Later.” He wraps his ghostly arm around my waist and walks me out with my entourage.
“So,” he says. “Are we going to discuss the fact that as a goddess, you’re way out of my league?”
My lips tug. “Don’t tell me who’s in my league, Lowly Deathwalker.”
He laughs and the sound melts my muscles. “Lucky for me you have a thing for lowly deathwalkers.”
I give him a side-eye. “I will wipe that smirk off your face one day.”
His laugh deepens. “You can’t even see it.”
“I know it’s there.”
He leans his head down to my ear as we walk, brushing a cool darkness along my neck. “I would still pay good ren to see you try.”