Chapter 21
BATTLE CRY
KAL STALKED TOWARD THE ARENA occupying the center of the depot. Not many people lingered outside the inner wall—it wasn’t often an outsider took their chances on a physical trial. Every member of the watch had packed inside the arena, hungry to witness the prisoner’s fate.
Saul waited at the gated entrance and raised a brow at Kal’s approach.
“Something on your mind, Saul?”
“Just making sure we aren’t going to have any trouble.”
Kal snorted and shouldered past.
“Rask,” said Saul’s surprised voice behind him.
Kal spun and faced his friend’s murderous glare. Something about the glint in Rask’s expression stirred his instincts. “I thought you left.”
“I did.” Rask fixed his frosty stare on the pit floor. “And now I’m back to make sure the bitch gets what’s coming to her.”
Kal’s muscles seized with the effort required to keep from snatching Rask’s throat in his claws, as though his fingers hungered for the memory of it. What the fuck was wrong with him? “And what is that, exactly?”
“To start? A fair fucking trial.”
Kal squared his shoulders.
Rask’s blue eyes glittered with hateful fire. “And then you’re coming with me to fix your fuck-up. We’re getting my sister out of Asteros.”
Kal leaned in and lowered his voice. “I know you’re angry. You’ve every right to be. But mind your fucking tone when you speak to me.”
Rask’s lips peeled back over crooked teeth. “Railah is still in that shithole because of you. This is your fault.”
Kal did not back down. “And I own that. I’m fucking sorry, Rask. You know I am.”
“Your sorry doesn’t mean shit, Kal. I want my sister back.”
“I know,” Kal insisted. “But I’m not waltzing back into the capital without a solid plan. It’s suicide. We barely made it out the first time. The entire city is on high alert.”
Rask snarled. If Kal had been in second form, his hackles would have stood on end. “You had your chance to make a plan. This time—”
“It was a good plan, Rask,” Santhe said, unexpectedly stepping up from behind them and positioning herself near Kal’s shoulder. “It wasn’t Kal’s fault. There was no way he could have known that woman wasn’t your sister.”
Rask eyed Santhe with a sneer.
Kal blocked her from view, forcing Rask’s attention back on him. “I will help you,” he said. “But we need—”
“Fuck your help, Kal,” Rask spat. “I’ll get Railah back on my own.”
He shoved past Kal without a backward glance and disappeared into the gathering crowd.
Kal heaved an exhale and ran a hand over his head.
“Are you alright?”
Kal deadpanned at Santhe. “No.”
She nodded knowingly, brown eyes solemn. “Me either. But, Kal, you can’t blame yourself. Cinah didn’t know our message hadn’t reached Railah until it was too late. There was no way for us to get word to you in time.”
The truth of her words did little to alleviate the weight of responsibility he carried.
Around them, the arena continued to fill.
Shurii in first and second forms crowded the inner walkway and occupied seats.
A high wall guarded the lowest level of the recessed pit.
The first level of tiered seats extended up and overlooked the pit’s earthen floor.
Further up, the second level rose behind a walkway bordered by a heavy wrought-iron railing.
Kal watched the first level fill. More shurii than those stationed at the depot had come to watch the prisoner’s trial. News traveled fast, even in the depths of the forest.
A hush blanketed the arena. Kal searched for the source of the silence, and a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature stole into his bones.
Kal saw Beaumont Stonehaugh enter the pit through one of two gated access tunnels. The big male turned, revealing the prisoner. Familiar honey-green eyes tentatively assessed her surroundings.
Some foreign, desperate thing clawed at the inside of Kal’s ribcage.
“Gods,” Santhe murmured. “She’s so young…”
Hushed mutterings fluttered inside the arena from a hundred curious voices. Kal couldn’t tear his gaze from her. Santhe was right. Kitty looked like a glass doll in a rockslide—utterly breakable. A low growl rumbled in Kal’s throat before he consciously cut off the sound.
Santhe peered up at him in question.
He ignored her and swallowed his ire. It choked him.
Kitty trailed Stonehaugh into the pit with unsure steps, gazing up at all the shurii circling her overhead. She wore the same attire she’d slept in. She was not wearing the garment he’d given her. The one he’d specifically instructed her to change into.
Another growl attempted to push past his chest. When she shifted—because she would shift, just as he’d warned—the transformation would shred her clothing, leaving her second form displayed before countless hungry eyes as she fought for her freedom. Kal ground his teeth.
Fucking stubborn, willful, disobedient…
Stonehaugh stopped with Kitty in the center of the pit. A moment later, Saul emerged from the same tunnel and joined them.
“Who is she, Kal?” Santhe asked.
“I don’t know,” he ground out. And wasn’t that the current source of all his damn problems? “Whoever she is, the Crown of Asteros wants her back badly enough to kill for her.”
“Come on,” Santhe said, a worried ‘M’ appearing between her brows. “Let’s find a better view.”
They found a bench on the second level, just behind the walkway inside the iron railing, that offered a clear view of the arena floor.
Below them, Saul addressed the crowd. “Today is not a day for celebration,” he shouted, and the crowd quieted again.
“Not yet, anyway. We are gathered to witness the fortitude of this prisoner.” He gestured an arm toward Kitty.
Kal didn’t miss the fine tremble that worked its way into her limbs, nor how she gritted her teeth against its onslaught.
“This prisoner deceived one of our own. She entered our woods invited, yet attempted to escape once her deception was revealed.” Dissent rumbled inside the walls. “She was apprehended within Stillwater’s boundary and could not provide a code. According to our laws, she must face an inquiry!”
The shurii next to Kal roared his approval.
“Inquiry!” someone shouted.
Saul allowed the crowd to settle before he continued. “The prisoner was given a choice, as is the Conclave’s custom. Submit to a verbal inquiry and prove her innocence…or face a physical trial.”
Kal leaned forward, forearms braced on his knees.
Saul pivoted toward Kitty. “Please tell those gathered what you have chosen.”
The arena fell silent. Kal strained to hear.
Kitty cleared her throat. “I…I choose a physical trial.”
Her quiet, rasping voice was a fallen angel’s song.
“It is confirmed,” Saul said. “The prisoner has chosen a physical trial!”
The crowd erupted. Men in first and second forms leaned over the bars, shouldering one another out of the way to better glimpse the captive.
Money exchanged hands, bets on how long Kitty would last being shouted over the din.
Women Kitty’s age pointed and judged, voicing their own unkind assumptions.
Kal couldn’t remember the last time he wanted to kill so many people simultaneously.
Saul raised both hands, urging the mob to settle. “Our law stands. If she survives the trial, she goes free! You have all gathered to bear witness! Ten minutes!”
Saul nodded to a woman seated on the first level near the innermost wall. She parted her voluminous robes and held up a sand-filled hourglass. Kitty’s time would begin when her opponent entered the ring.
Saul faced Kitty and spoke something too quiet for them to hear.
He dipped his chin to her briefly before exiting the pit.
Stonehaugh was the last to face her. The huge man removed her shackles, and Kitty rubbed her wrists.
Then Stonehaugh pulled a weapon from his waist and proffered it.
Kitty accepted the axe Kal had refashioned for her with soft, small hands.
The guard lowered his head in a shallow bow and left.
Kitty surveyed the ring. The tunnel gate yawned open with a creak of hinges, and she shuffled back.
Three armored shurii males hurried in, dragging a felled tree, its leafy branches reaching in all directions in a tangled web.
They deposited the tree on the left side of the arena and departed.
A moment later, another group of males hauled three large boulders in on a rolling pallet.
They heaved the boulders into the dirt and wheeled the pallet out of the pit.
The tunnel gate clanged shut with an echo of finality.
The timekeeper stood, raising the hourglass.
The far tunnel gate swung inward, and Kitty’s wide eyes searched its black mouth.
Kal could practically hear the hammering of her heart.
Or was that his own? Silence settled so heavily on the crowd that Kal’s breath sounded like an intruder’s.
The timekeeper’s hourglass turned, and granules of sand trickled too slowly into the bottom vial.
A heavy gray paw emerged from the shadows of the tunnel gate and padded into the pit.
A broad muzzle followed, four five-inch double canines protruding from either side of the powerful jaw.
Kitty’s lips parted in horror as she watched the sleek, muscled black and gray body fully appear, stepping into the harsh glare of daylight like a nightmare into the waking world.
The gate clanged shut, and the grimalkin whirled, swiping and spitting.
Kal stood and stepped up to the railing.
“Hey! Down in front,” someone yelled behind him. Kal ignored him.
Kitty used the beast’s distraction to retreat behind one of the boulders. She pressed her back into the rock, hatchet clutched to her heaving chest with white knuckles.
Someone grabbed Kal’s shoulder. “I said down in—”
Kal fisted the man’s shirt and forced him back into his seat. “I heard what you fucking said,” he snarled. “Distract me again and you’ll join the prisoner in the pit.”