Chapter 12 #2
He bows—not for vanity, but control. Command. He’s working them like a maestro works a symphony. The soldiers split on cue, dividing formation and anticipating more.
He knew it wouldn’t end with one.
“One down,” I whisper.
Vapor curls from his bloodied blade as the cheers build to a roar.
Two more daemons charge into the arena. This time, silence grips the crowd.
They’re bigger. Smarter. They’re bigger than the first—low-slung and four-legged, all coil and claw, horns swept back and a ridge of quills along the spine, eyes slit and calculating.
Shrieking like banshees, their cries knife-thin and piercing, circling the soldiers with twitching muscle and gleaming fangs.
Their fur shimmers—black laced with violet and blue like oil slicks under a full moon.
They move like shadows, like beasts tasting fear.
The daemons shriek louder and circle the men, their footfalls unnervingly soft for creatures so massive.
They pace like panthers, but there’s too much rage in their movements—too much hunger.
Saliva ropes between their jaws, thick and steaming.
Their eyes glow molten red as they snarl and snap, baiting a misstep.
The audience doesn’t flinch. They’ve already watched Darian fell one daemon. That bloodlust has only whetted their appetite.
Darian doesn’t blink. His stance is loose but ready, shoulders low, every movement controlled. There’s fury in his eyes, but deeper than that—calculation. He’s watching the beasts, reading their rhythm.
“Fan out,” his voice cuts through the chaos like it deserves to be there. “Five on either side.”
A daemon lunges.
Darian sidesteps the soldier beside him. A blur. A streak of muscle and teeth. A shield slams up to meet it, but it’s Darian’s blade that rips through the daemon’s chest, sinking deep. It shrieks—an unholy, piercing sound—and the soldiers move in unison, carving into it like a practiced machine.
Its body convulses. Blood, thick and black, sprays in wide arcs as one soldier drives his spear through its throat. Another goes low, severing tendons with clean strikes. The daemon drops, twitching. A final blow cleaves its head from its neck with a wet crack.
But the third daemon isn’t idle. It slinks along the outer edge of the fight, eyes fixed on the one group of soldiers. It’s cautious now. Clever. And it’s learning.
Darian sees it. His hand slices left in signal. “Unit Two, peel wide—take its flank. Center, hold. Shields high. Spears low.” The second unit slides out, skirting the arc to cut behind it.
They’re readying to strike—when a fourth daemon explodes into the arena.
The crowd screams, ecstatic.
My stomach drops.
It’s grotesque. Bloated with muscle, its legs are bent backward, as though broken and reset wrong, but it moves with horrifying speed. Horns curl from its skull, slick with gore. One eye is missing. In its place, a cavernous socket weeps black ichor.
It tears into the second unit before they can react.
Steel scrapes bone. A man screams as claws punch through his chest, lifting him clean off the ground before hurling him like a ragdoll. He slams against the arena wall with a crunch.
Nine men remain. Two daemons.
This isn’t a fight. It’s a slaughter.
Darian roars—as violent and visceral as it is wordless—and his men charge to reinforce, coming at the daemons from behind.
They crash together in a storm of steel and teeth.
The air explodes with noise. Screams. Howls. Bones breaking. One daemon lashes out, carving its claws across a man’s face. His helmet splits. Blood sprays. He crumples, gurgling.
Darian ducks under a swing of jagged claws, rolling into a thrust that punches his sword deep into a daemon’s side. It howls. Its tail snaps like a whip, catching a soldier and flinging him into another.
A soldier in a battered breastplate cleaves through the daemon’s front leg with a two-handed strike, spraying blood in a dark geyser. The creature collapses with a deafening thud.
They converge. Darian presses the open wound, driving forward with sheer fury. The daemon twists, snapping its jaws, and Darian hits the sand hard, teeth gritted as he rolls to avoid being shredded.
He’s not fast enough.
The creature’s claws rake across his side—the plate deflects, then fails, and the points get under and open him up. He grunts, blood christening his chest. A soldier lunges to cover him.
Too slow.
A claw rips across the soldier’s back, shredding leather and flesh in one devastating swipe. He falls screaming, blood pooling beneath him as he twitches in the dirt.
The daemon rounds again. The other is charging.
They’re going to die.
They’re going to die.
And still Darian rises, sword in hand, face pale and blood-soaked, lips pulled into a snarl. Not backing down. Not breaking.
Gods help us.
Blood bursts across the arena floor. Darian drags the wounded man beneath him, shielding him with his own body as he lunges forward. Around them, the others attack with savage determination, flanking the daemon like wolves.
It bellows and whips around, but Darian’s already inside its guard. His sword punches past its gaping jaws and into the roof of its skull. The daemon screams—a raw, bone-splitting sound—but it doesn’t fall.
It thrashes. Flails. Claws rake the air, nearly catching one of the men in the throat.
The men from Larksbind duck, their movements sharpened by exhaustion and desperation.
Blades flash. Limbs are severed. One soldier gets in close enough to hack at the neck, again and again, as hot blood spurts in violent jets.
The head doesn’t come off clean. It takes several brutal blows, each one sickening, each one splashing the sand with black blood. Finally the thing collapses, shuddering, twitching. Dead.
But there’s no time to rest.
They sprint toward the final daemon.
It’s still alive—and still deadly.
Its flanks are shredded, one eye hanging from its socket, but it crouches in a pool of its own blood, snarling. Saliva froths around its broken teeth. It lunges and the men from Larksbind close in, forming a ring around it like a trap snapping shut.
The beast fights back. Its claws sweep low and catch one man’s leg, ripping it open to the bone.
He collapses, screaming. Darian moves in to cover him.
Another soldier thrusts a spear into the daemon’s ribs—deep—but the creature doesn’t falter.
It sinks its teeth into the shaft and snaps the weapon in half.
Still, they press it. Surround it. Bleed it.
The daemon’s roars go hoarse as it weakens. Cuts crisscross its entire body. Blood drips in thick lines onto the floor. It tries to leap away—tries to flee—but it’s too late.
Darian slams his sword through its chest.
It stumbles. A second later, a spear pins it to the ground like an insect beneath glass. The creature screams, an agonizing, gurgling howl that makes my skin crawl.
It writhes. Fails. And then—
The soldiers charge.
They tear it apart.
One last decapitation. One final spray of blood.
The arena floor is a butcher’s yard, soaked with gore and littered with twitching daemon limbs.
Of the ten men, three are dead and one might never use his leg again.
Darian stands, panting, blood running down his side.
His sword drips. Behind him, one of the soldiers hauls up the daemon’s severed head in triumph—but he can barely stand.
Another man loops his arm around his waist and half-carries him toward the podium, where my father waits to deliver his approval.
He steps forward, beaming, raising his arms to the crowd like a benevolent god. The audience screams his name.
“Starsfall salutes the valor of Larksbind,” my father says, voice warm as wine. “It is good to see they send soldiers who can stand.” He lifts a hand to the sky. “We thank the gods for their discernment; they have kept alive those worth keeping. May tomorrow prove today was skill, not fortune.”
I press my hands together, a silent offering to Darian. He sees me. And smirks.
“Daughter,” my father calls, his voice cutting through the crowd. “Have you anything to say?”
I step beside him, eyes on Darian, and echo his words. Praise, thanks, reverence. Darian bows and then slowly reaches beneath his breastplate and pulls out the bloodstained rose petal he kept hidden there.
He lifts it to me. A tribute. A symbol.
The arena falls still.
Everyone is watching.
“For Gods’ sake,” I shout, “get those men to a healer.”
Mallen’s voice cuts through the silence. “We don’t help during the Reaping.” He doesn’t even look at the wounded soldier. “Not even when they’re dying.”
Bitterness drips from every word.
I step forward. “Get. A. Healer.”
My father turns.
His gaze meets mine. He’s standing tall, looming—trying to intimidate me with his presence like he always does.
But I don’t flinch.
If Darian can defeat four daemons, I can stand my ground.
“Why am I repeating myself?” I ask. Softly. Deliberately.
And that’s when it shifts.
His eyes flash with something primal. Not anger.
Not even fury. A hatred so violent it almost knocks the breath from my lungs.
It tears through him in an instant—and then it vanishes.
Replaced by something even worse: a cold, calculated stillness.
An evil that doesn’t scream, that doesn’t lash out.
It waits. It plans. It kills without blinking.
My father’s eyes narrow. Barely. Almost imperceptibly.
Mallen moves instantly.
He steps between us, fast and silent, and grabs my wrist—firm, not painful, but unyielding. A barrier. A wall. A message.
Don’t provoke him. Not here. Not now.
His eyes lock on mine, and I see what he wants me to see: this is protection. This is safety. I am his to shield.
But it’s not just that.
It’s a claim.
“Of course, Azhara,” he says smoothly, venom sweetening his voice. “How could I refuse anything you ask of me?”
He flicks his fingers. Healer. Immediately.
And then he turns, his face twisting into a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. Mallen half-leads, half-drags me from the royal balcony, his fingers tight on my wrist now as his gaze flicks back to my father like a man who’s just won a prize.
His grip doesn’t ease until we’re out of view.
Only then does his body relax—just barely. Like some essential part of him has unclenched now that I’m away from my father.
But I sense the possessiveness that coils beneath Mallen’s skin.
Silent. Burning.
He doesn’t say a word as we walk. Doesn’t let go.
And I don’t stumble or resist.
I don’t thank him either.
Because he protected me.
But I didn’t ask him to.
And we both know this wasn’t just about safety.
It never is.