Chapter Two
The Rumour
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Avaldale, Vrethian.
Kyra.
The ones with magic were the worst.
Never impossible to beat, but certainly more challenging than those without. With no magic of her own, it made holding the title of Avadale’s most formidable warrior just a tiny bit harder.
Her opponent, a smirking, stinking bulk of a man leered at her from across the arena. He smiled wider as Kyra Daeiros wiped dripping blood from a nasty split lip he’d dealt her with a swift slice of magic.
No matter. It would heal within minutes, and by then, he would be nothing more than a corpse.
He was tiring already; Kyra’s keen nose could smell the fatigue in his sweat. His magic was relenting, though his physical strength would undoubtedly persist.
Scorn coated Kyra’s tongue. Humans did not deserve the magic that thrummed in their veins. They were too weak, too violent, too stupid to wield it.
She shook away the bubbling hatred.
If she could wield magic… the smile on the cunt’s face would be wiped completely.
Why did they all do that? Staring her down with baseless superiority, as if they each believed they would be the one to finally champion the Arc’s infamous lone wolf.
Warrior-Queen of the pits, some called her. Or had Kyra called herself that? It had been so long she could scarcely remember. She felt like a queen down here. In the Arc, where Avaldale’s citizens revered every inch of her, cheering her name with awe.
It was above ground, where the musk of death didn’t linger in every darkened corner, where those cheers turned to jeers, their exclamations of worship to spiteful words of enmity.
Because up there, she was not Dae, Warrior-Queen of the Arc.
She was nothing more than a fae bitch who would never belong.
The humans made absolutely sure she would never forget it.
Kyra felt the sizzle of magic before she saw it.
Like a knife, it ripped through the air, destined for her throat. Kyra snapped her spine back and the magic sailed over her, slapping instead on the solid stone wall behind.
Her opponent gave a short, barking laugh. ‘Look! The pretty little fae bitch likes to dance!’ Some in the onlooking crowd laughed with him; the majority booed.
One human in the crowd amongst a sea of forgettable faces was smiling at her, but not in that gambling-crazed way the others were. Rosary Talbot smiled, with a slight shake of her head, because she knew exactly what Kyra was about to do. She’d seen her do it a thousand times.
Rosary lifted her goblet in her direction and threw the rest of its contents down her throat. Even across the arena, her eyes twinkled with mischief.
Kyra had made a meal of this fight thus far: Lady Lilion had told her to.
It was perhaps too early to finish it, but his goading had made her thirsty for blood.
Unsheathing the old crooked dagger at her hip that had once belonged to her father, Kyra patiently waited.
The ball of her back foot twisted in the sand and dirt.
Her legs bent in anticipation ever so slightly as she watched his ugly puce face draw closer. Spit flew from his roaring mouth.
She grinned, prodding a sharp canine with her tongue.
Her legs worked faster than any man’s as she moved, sprinting the short distance to meet him in the centre of the arena as he raised his knife, magic spent. A bullshit victory already gleamed on his sweaty face as he brought it down.
But she was in the air before he could even comprehend what was happening, flying over his head with all the grace of a dancer, dagger slicing across his neck with the precision of an assassin.
Blood spurted from his open throat. Kyra landed, and with her back to the dying man, she stowed her dagger back in its place at her hip as the arena erupted with raucous noise.
‘Dae! Dae! Dae! Dae!’
Ah. The sounds of victory.
She was not fool enough to believe they actually loved her. No. It was her conquest they loved, for every single man that died at her hand made their pockets heavier with gold.
Kyra lifted her hands and breathed it in nonetheless, closing her eyes and giving them the show they craved. The show that Lady Lilion, the Arc’s proprietor and puppeteer, wanted them to have.
A monster purred with satisfaction within Kyra as she caught sight of the blood still gurgling from the man’s throat. Every time she made a kill, that monster would rear its head. She wondered, if after seven years, the incessant killing had permanently marred her soul.
Perhaps she deserved it.
She took a deliberate, somewhat mocking bow to the still screaming crowd, then backed away into the chambers below whilst they prepared the arena for the next fight.
Beneath the pits was a labyrinth of interlinked chambers and halls, dressing rooms and bathhouses, all decorated in that distinct swirling style of the Void Ages.
Her fae ancestors could not stand the sight of a blank wall, ceiling or pillar it seemed, for every surface was carved with patterns.
It was quite beautiful, but in the eight years she’d worked there, Kyra never stopped to appreciate it.
Awe-gazing had been her brother’s thing. Not hers.
There was solace in this place. It had, along with Lady Lilion, been her deliverance from a life she’d fled. That didn’t mean she liked it. She resented her kin almost as much as she resented humans. They had abandoned her family.
Truth be told, she resented most people. Ironically, her family included.
But not Rosary Talbot. Never Rosary. The woman was her saving grace more than Lady Lilion ever had been. Lilion had given her miserable existence purpose. But Rosary had given her a life.
‘Thought I’d find you here.’
Kyra peered under the cold flannel she’d thrown over her eyes to see Rosary in the doorway of her chamber, leaning against the frame with an eyebrow cocked. Kyra put the flannel back down and nestled further into the blankets of the hard bed she was sprawled over.
‘If you get caught down here, I’m testifying against you,’ she said drily. Rosary’s ability to sneak places she definitely should not be was second to none.
Rosary sniggered, then padded across the room, pushed Kyra’s legs to the side none too gently and sat on the end of the bed. Kyra groaned and ripped the flannel from her face. ‘Rosary, get the fuck-’
‘Oh shut up,’ Rosary dismissed her, then spying a brass decanter of wine on the dressing table, poured two goblets and held one out for Kyra.
‘Lilion wouldn’t want me drinking. I have another fight tomorrow.’
‘And since when do you give a fuck what Lilion thinks? It’ll help with the bruising.’
‘You know that’s not true.’
‘Just take the damn wine.’
Kyra smirked and did as she was told.
Rosary plucked something from the folds of her dress and held it up proudly for Kyra to see. ‘The spoils of the day.’
A gold ornate signet ring gleamed in the candlelight. ‘You’d better not leave that here. I’ll be strung up in the Citadel before you’re even considered a culprit.’
Rosary waved her off. ‘They wouldn’t string up their beloved lone wolf.’
‘They would if they thought I was a thief. The Union wouldn’t bat an eyelid before blaming me for it. Take your stolen goods elsewhere.’
‘Are you judging my life choices?’
‘Never, oh noble one.’
‘I take jewellery, you take lives. We’re both thieves.’
‘Difference is, I don’t sell my spoils on the black market.’
Rosary pulled a face, as though imagining a stall of bloodied corpses for sale. She sighed. ‘Well, we can’t all fight for coin. Some of us have no choice but to steal to live.’
‘You poor little human.’
Cocking her head to one side and no doubt surveying the fresh bruises on Kyra’s face, Rosary said, ‘You look awful.’
‘Thank you.’
‘It was a good fight though.’
‘Too long,’ Kyra complained. ‘I would have finished it far sooner if Lilion didn’t keep telling me to drag it out. I don’t see what difference it makes; she makes her coin all the same.’
Nostalgically, Rosary said, ‘I remember a skinny little girl who couldn’t bear to even fight, let alone kill.’
Kyra remembered her too, remembered the crippling fear of those first few fights, all too well. ‘That girl has been dead for a long time.’
‘I know. But I still remember her.’
Rosary was not the sort of friend Kyra’s grandmother would have approved of.
She was human, for one. But she was also reckless and innately cunning with a slight hand and a complete disregard for anyone of nobility or authority.
All things that Kyra had overlooked without a second thought, for who was she to judge?
To Rosary, Kyra’s fae heritage had never been an issue.
Not the arch of her ears, the prominent fae features of her brown face, the piercing green eyes that saw too much.
Rosary witnessed it all, and yet never condemned her for it.
And in turn, Kyra witnessed in Rosary what humanity could be. What it truly ought to be.
That spark of friendship at sixteen years old had rendered her terse relationship with her family null and void. With Rosary by her side, with Rosary cheering her from the stalls of the pits at every single fight, she needed no one else.
And she knew that Rosary needed her just as much. It was them against the world.
Regardless, the woman was as irritating as a sibling. ‘Are you going to let me rest?’ Kyra demanded.
‘You’re fae, you don’t need rest,’ Rosary said, softly prodding Kyra’s face with her forefinger. ‘See, already healed. Move over.’
Groaning again, Kyra pushed herself up to make room, then said, ‘Out with it, then.’
Rosary glanced at her. ‘How did you-’
‘You never come down here. It must be important.’ Rosary’s notoriety for picking up rumours and news, eavesdropping private conversations wherever she could certainly kept things interesting.
‘It is.’
‘Do I need more wine?’
‘Always.’
Kyra waved a lazy hand. ‘I can’t be bothered to move.’