Chapter Sixty-Two
The city of Aruna was first forged as a place of exile, a destination reserved for the desert’s criminals, where justice was served in blood.
Those sent there were cast into the arena, forced to fight for freedom.
Should they survive, their sins were washed away, their names restored as though the desert itself had chosen to forgive them.
And yet, not all who entered its gates were condemned.
Some came willingly. They sought the arena not out of desperation, but out of some burning desire to prove their strength.
To gamble one’s life for glory… to stand beneath a scorching sun and fight for validation…
What a foolish, senseless way to die.
Tabitha Wysteria
Alina checked each of her weapons carefully after dressing in her phoenixian fighting garb. She had wanted to wear Dunayan clothing for the fight, but Mareena had pointed out that such a choice would likely work against her rather than in her favour. For once, Alina had listened.
Mareena soon appeared down the corridor.
It was a long stone hallway that circled the arena, where fighters and workers alike waited before entering the sands, or prepared the beasts destined for the brutal spectacle beyond.
Alina could scarcely believe that her battle against Saren was about to begin. She had expected nerves, some trembling anticipation perhaps, but instead she felt only a fierce impatience. She wanted to step into that arena and take Saren’s head from her shoulders.
Mareena reached for the staff resting against the stone wall and examined it with careful attention.
‘Make sure you only use it if you truly need to,’ she said.
‘I won’t need it.’
Mareena gave her a long, measured look. ‘Do not be overconfident, Alina.’ She returned the staff to its place against the wall and stepped closer, inspecting every piece of Alina’s armour and clothing to ensure it sat perfectly.
‘I might die today,’ Alina said suddenly.
The words slipped from her before she had time to consider them. Yet the truth of them lingered heavily in the air. She intended to kill Saren, but it was entirely possible the fight might end in her own death as well.
That could not happen.
She still had to find Hagan.
She still had to kill him.
Only then, only when everything else was done, would she allow death to claim her.
‘You will not die today,’ Mareena said firmly, her red eyes meeting Alina’s.
‘You don’t know that.’
Mareena paused, her hands tightening gently on Alina’s arms, not with fear, but with quiet reassurance.
‘I do know,’ she said. ‘You are Alina Acheron. The Fire Princess. You will not fall today.’
Alina nodded, though somewhere deep within her the doubt still lingered. Her mother had once foreseen her becoming the next phoenixian queen, and Alina clung to that prophecy with stubborn resolve. If it was true, it meant she survived whatever trials lay ahead.
Kai appeared in the corridor with Dawn beside him. He gave Alina a firm pat on the back before pressing a brief kiss to her cheek.
‘Remember everything we’ve taught you,’ he said. ‘And don’t get cocky out there.’
Alina nodded.
There was so much she wished to say, yet the words refused to rise past the tightness in her throat. Instead she reached for the staff resting against the wall and took it in hand. She checked the position of her desert dagger one final time, then turned to look at them.
She studied each of them carefully.
First, Kai.
The man who had once helped her step beyond the narrow cage she had built for herself. God, how long ago had that been? It felt like another lifetime entirely. Back then she had been little more than a proud and sheltered princess.
Now…
Now she no longer knew what she was.
And perhaps it no longer mattered.
She did not need to be anything more than the blade that would cut down her enemies.
Her attention shifted to Dawn.
The witch who had betrayed her. The woman who had shattered her into a thousand jagged pieces. Yet the sharpness of that anger had begun to dull with time, worn down by distance and everything else that had happened since.
Alina wondered whether one day she might learn to tolerate her.
If she survived this day.
Finally, her gaze rested on Mareena. She tried to show through her eyes what her words could not. That she would survive. That she’d return. And maybe one day Mareena might finally reveal to her all those secrets she seemed to be keeping.
Maybe one day Alina might feel her heart beat once more. Maybe one day they might even explore what that could mean for them both, together. Perhaps no one else would understand it, but Alina found that she did not particularly care.
She was grateful for Mareena.
She knew Kai did not trust the phoenixian princess. And truthfully, there was a small part of Alina that did not entirely trust her either. Mareena had her own reasons for helping them, of course she did. They all carried hidden motives. But because of her, Alina now stood here.
Ready to kill Saren.
So she’d wait for the right time to uncover such truths.
The sound of drums began to thunder through the corridors.
Alina turned towards the arena doors. She refused to look back at the others, because she knew if she did, she might falter, might begin questioning everything she was about to do. Her grip tightened around the staff until her knuckles blanched white.
She drew one final breath.
Then squared her shoulders.
The doors opened.
Alina stepped out into the arena.
She had trained in this very place for several days before the fight, and yet nothing had prepared her for the change in atmosphere. The moment she stepped into the arena, a deafening roar swallowed the air around her. Cheers and screams crashed together like a storm.
She glanced upward.
Her brown eyes widened as she saw thousands of hungry and furious faces leaning over the railings above, spitting insults and craving blood.
Across the arena, the opposite gates creaked open.
Saren stepped into the light.
She wore the clothing of a Dunayan—loose beige fabrics designed to blend seamlessly with the shifting dunes of their homeland. Her head remained uncovered, her short curls falling freely around her face.
Alina stared at the long scar that cut across Saren’s cheek.
She was already imagining how it might look once matched by the blade of her dagger.
With a heavy clang, the doors on either side of the arena slammed shut.
The drums continued to pound through the arena, their rhythm quickening, stirring the crowd into a frenzy. The sound seemed to throb through the very air, urging the spectators to shout louder, to hunger more fiercely for the blood that was yet to be spilt.
Saren let out a short snort, lifting her desert dagger and pointing the blade directly at Alina.
‘Ready to die today?’ she called.
Alina said nothing. She shifted her grip on the staff, settling it into a defensive stance as she began to circle the arena. Saren moved with her, mirroring every careful step.
Alina would not be baited by such childish provocations.
The drums suddenly thundered louder, faster, and Alina’s eyes flicked briefly towards the royal stand where the king sat watching the fight. In this arena there were no long speeches, no ceremonious words from the throne.
The people had come for blood.
‘You ought to beg for your life,’ Saren continued mockingly. She gestured towards the royal stand, and Alina noticed that the king’s son, Zaydan, had also come to witness the fight, along with the Saqar.
Alina kept circling.
Every step mattered now. Every movement had to be measured.
She watched Saren carefully, studying the shift of her feet, the tilt of her shoulders. Whether Saren truly was a god in mortal form or simply a formidable Dunayan warrior, she would be a terrifying opponent. But Alina was no longer the helpless princess Saren had once encountered.
No.
She had learnt to fight like the Dunayans.
Like the phoenixians.
And like the wyverians.
‘How are you feeling after falling from such a height?’ Saren asked as she continued circling slowly, her steps measured and deliberate.
The two of them had fallen into a careful dance now, and Alina knew that sooner or later it would break.
One of them would have to strike first. ‘I always wondered how you managed to survive.’
Alina frowned slightly, uncertain why Saren had chosen to bring that moment back into the light. It had happened long ago, so long that she had almost forced herself to forget it. They had been climbing a mountain to the city of Madari when Saren had cut her ropes.
Alina had fallen from a height no mortal should have survived.
And yet she had.
She had never truly questioned it. Perhaps some quiet part of her had always been too afraid of the answer.
‘I thought you’d be dead and out of my way,’ Saren went on with a casual shrug.
‘But you didn’t die. How is that possible?
No mortal could survive such a fall. Yet you did.
’ Her dagger traced a slow arc through the air as she spoke.
‘And then I noticed those two who follow you about like moths drawn to a flame.’ She gestured towards a place to Alina’s right, near the royal stand where the king and his son watched the fight.
Alina hesitated. Part of her wondered if this was nothing more than a trap, that the moment she looked away, Saren would lunge. But something in the woman’s tone suggested otherwise.
Saren wanted her to look.
Alina glanced upward.
There, seated among the watching crowd, were Isla and Arena.
‘I always suspected there was something… unusual about those two,’ Saren continued, her voice smooth with amusement.
‘Something not quite of this world.’ The gleam in her pale eyes made it clear she was enjoying herself far too much.
‘Have you ever heard of the two messengers of the Sun God? Razia and Gabriela?’
Alina let out a short, disbelieving snort. ‘And what? You think they have something to do with them?’