Chapter 15
He pushed past me and flopped onto the bed, propping himself up on one arm.
“Tell me. Who?”
The man had absolutely no shame.
I couldn’t stop myself. “Dalkhan!” I blurted.
“WHAT?!” He bolted upright, eyes abnormally wide.
I dove for him, slapping his chest repeatedly while trying to cover his mouth with my free hand. “Theo! Shut up! You are the loudest person alive!”
He grabbed my wrists but dropped his voice to a whisper that somehow seemed even more dramatic.
We dissolved into heated bickering, arms flailing like children, the sheet threating to fall with each wild gesture.
Tavrik chose that precise moment to walk in. Again.
Our heads snapped to him in unison, mouths still open mid-argument.
Theo didn’t even breathe before blurting it out, hoping to gauge the same reaction. “She slept with the king!”
Tavrik only looked at me with gentle understanding.
“I’m not judging you, El,” Theo said.
His face sobered, hands landing gently on my arms.
I knew that look.
“I just don’t want you to get hurt.”
And neither did I. Because no matter how much I tried to ignore it, one truth remained.
I was meant to kill Dalkhan.
And now… I’d made everything infinitely worse.
“I know.” I said flatly. “I know.”
As Mira dressed me, she rambled on and on about how we needed to go to the fighting pits, her hands moving at a pace no mortal should possess. Her excitement was palpable, but every time I tried to pry answers from her, she’d just flutter her fingers in dismissal and crinkle her nose.
I dropped to the floor beside my bed, working at the leather ties of my sandals as I crossed them over my calves. Theo and Tavrik hovered by the door—Theo bouncing on his toes like an overeager child, while Tavrik leaned against the frame, infuriatingly calm.
“You know,” Tavrik drawled, examining his nails with exaggerated boredom, “at this rate, the fights will be over before we even leave this room.”
“Don’t encourage her,” Theo snapped. “She’s already moving like she’s underwater.”
Theo had finally stopped his relentless questions about my night with Dalkhan—thankfully—but concern still bubbled beneath his restless energy. The way his eyes kept darting to me spoke volumes about the worry eating at him.
I honestly couldn’t blame him.
Zaheera hadn’t invaded my mind since yesterday, and I couldn’t tell whether the silence was a blessing or a curse.
The absence of her disapproving voice left me oddly hollow, like missing a constant pressure I’d grown accustomed to.
She clearly did not approve of me getting close to Dalkhan—had warned me not to countless times.
Of course, the rational part of me had completely ignored her.
“Hurry up,” Theo whined, shifting from foot to foot, hands opening and closing like he was trying to strangle the air.
I made an elaborate show of dragging the leather ties through my fingers at snail’s pace. Twisting them over and under, examining each loop as if my life depended on getting it exactly right.
Theo’s eye twitched.
“Oh, for the love of—" His hands flew to his hair. “I swear to the Heavens, El, if you don’t move your ass right now, I’m going to—”
“Going to what?” I asked sweetly, deliberately fumbling with the ties so they came undone. “Oops.”
Tavrik snorted. “You know she’s doing this on purpose, right?”
“I KNOW THAT!” Theo exploded.
I snickered, grinning.
“Okay. Okay.” I secured the tie with a sharp tug and launched to my feet, sweeping my arm in a flourish. “Let’s go.”
“Finally!” Theo spun on his heel and strode out the door, muttering curses under his breath about ‘impossible women and their timing’.
Tavrik followed with a shake of his head. Mira and I rolled our eyes as we linked arms and trailed behind them.
The roar from the pits was like that of a living beast, shaking the very foundation we stood on.
Hundreds of bodies crushed against the balcony, elbows jabbing into ribs and shoulders grinding against shoulders.
Someone nearly tumbled right over the edge, caught only at the last second by grasping hands.
I glanced sideways at Mira, confusion written across my features, but she only tightened her grip on my arm and pulled me closer. Her lips curved into a knowing smile.
My stomach twisted in anticipation.
“You’ll see.”
She began cutting through the crowd.
I held my breath as we wedged between sweating bodies, suffocating until we finally claimed a spot against the rough railing. The stone was warm, heated by the sun and the collective fever of the crowd.
When I looked down into the pit, my jaw went slack—every coherent thought fleeing my mind.
I whipped around to face Mira, whose lips lifted in satisfaction.
There, standing in the centre of the pit like some ancient warrior, was Belshin.
The setting sun painted him bronze and shadow, every angle of his body carved sharp against the dying light.
Gone were his usual flowing robes, and he may as well have been a war statue brought to life—torso hewn from marble, every line of muscle cut clean and precise.
Faint veins ridged down his forearms, mapping rivers of strength.
Silver hair, damp with heat, lay plastered to his neck in wet ropes, with a single leather tie failing to tame the rest.
Belshin had said he enjoyed the pit. For the life of me, I hadn’t been able to picture it, but witnessing him standing there, barefoot in the dust with the sunset haloing his shoulders, I could finally see it. He looked ready to tear the world in half purely to see how the pieces fell.
Who would be foolish enough to face him?
The roar of the crowd died, as if someone had severed its throat. Hundreds of bodies went ridged, heads swivelling toward the entry arch like flowers following the sun.
Dalkhan emerged from the shadows beyond the arch as though the pit itself had conjured him from darkness. He stopped beside Belshin, the sun’s dying light igniting the bronze of his skin until he smouldered.
Dalkhan’s gaze rose toward the balcony, sweeping over the crowd.
My pulse stuttered when he found me among the sea of faces. When our eyes met, the corner of his mouth curved into a smile that made my knees weak and my core clench with want.
He raised one hand—palm outward—and the arena fell silent.
I leaned into Mira, whispering in her ear. “Is Dalkhan fighting Belshin?”
She made to answer, but her words died as Dalkhan’s voice rolled across the pit like thunder.
“Tonight,” he began, his stance widening and hands clasped behind his back, “skill meets shadow. Wind meets illusion.”
He rotated to face Belshin. “Show them how the sky itself listens when you call.”
Then his eyes slid to the opposite gate, a charge surged in the air like lightning about to strike. “Show them how a lie can cut deeper than any blade.”
I nearly broke my neck twisting to see who he was speaking to.
From the shadows, Jasila emerged in ink-black leathers that hugged her form like armour. At the mere sight of her Tavrik, leaned dangerously over the railing, tracking every step she made.
The light fractured, splitting and bending around her body until three, then five identical Jasilas paced beside her. They moved in perfect, unnerving unison. Illusions so flawless the sun cast five separate shadows on the floor.
Belshin’s shoulders tensed, his stance shifting subtly as he assessed her form with calculating eyes.
Dalkhan lifted both hands. Fire and shadow braided upward from his palms, a crown of violent light that framed him in silhouette. He barked a single, ancient word, and the balcony shuddered in response.
The fight began.
Fuck.
There was no circling. No taunt. Just raw, explosive violence.
Belshin’s palms swept outward in a brutal arc, his entire body coiling like a spring before releasing.
The pit erupted in a maelstrom of wind and debris.
Air slammed into the ground with the force of a war hammer, launching grit skyward in a roaring halo that scraped against the stone walls like claws on bone.
The crowd jerked backward from the railing as the gust hit them, hair whipping across faces and clothes snapping like flags in a storm. They recovered quickly, surging forward again with bloodthirsty grins and shrieks of approval.
Witnessing his powers for the first time, watching how the air answered to him like a living weapon, was as terrifying as it was thrilling.
Jasila’s five bodies darted through the maelstrom, each a blur of black leather and lethal grace.
They flickered, multiplied, collapsed back into themselves like shadows dancing.
One illusion threw herself directly into the whirling storm, her mouth open in a silent scream as a blade of compressed air carved through her chest. She burst into shards of prismatic light that scattered across the pit like dying stars before dissolving into nothing.
Belshin’s lips pulled in something that wasn’t quite a smile, his head tilting as he tracked her remaining forms. His pupils narrowed into icy slits.
“Clever girl,” he muttered, and even from this distance the respect in his expression was clear. “But not clever enough.”
His feet spread wider, chest expanding as he inhaled, deep and controlled. Air rushed toward him from every corner of the pit, dragging loose dirt across the ground in spiralling trails. The very atmosphere bent to his will, his ribs expanding beneath pale skin.
With a single, devastating exhale, he sent it all outward in an expanding ring of razors. The wind screamed as it carved through the air, sharp enough to slice flesh. Fast enough to blur.
Three illusions dissolved in flashes of brilliant light, their forms unravelling like smoke.
But the real one—Heavens, the real one—dropped to the ground, one knee gouging a deep trench in the dirt as she skidded.
Sand sprayed around her in a golden arc, and when she looked up through the chaos, her eyes were wild with bloodlust, and her smile absolutely feral.