Chapter 10
Well, I guess I now know what happened to the other Rettlings. Or runts, as she so kindly put it. And if I had any doubts about how this Retterheld would go, I don’t anymore.
Unlike Jonas and me, Zara and her cronies have opted to wear their battle sigils to greet the other Rettlings: three symbols painted in blue on the left side of their faces, marking their hometown and their two fealty Gods.
The blue chevron below her eye tells me she’s from Rowell, but it’s the other two marks that my gaze lingers on: the starburst above her brow line that marks her fealty to Yordenrin, the Goddess of Chaos, and the downwards arrow beneath the chevron denotes her second favoured God.
But who the hell shows fealty to Mortidem, the God of Death?
Especially in a tournament in honour of Etta, the Goddess of Life.
I guess the answer to that is someone who thinks killing off people before the trials have even started is a good idea.
Still, however much of a bitch this Zara is, I don’t want the confrontation ending in bloodshed unless it has to, and if it does, then it sure as hell won’t be mine.
‘Rose, you need to get back,’ Jonas instructs me curtly as I move to stand next to him.
The corridor is fairly cluttered with what I assume are items left by the guards forced to vacate this place for the Rettlings, but at its widest, it could fit about four people abreast. Zara is flanked by two Rowell women, both dressed in blood-red and looking as angry as their attire.
Both wearing braids equally as amazing as their clear leader.
Damn it. This is not the time for hair envy.
‘Rose, did you hear me?’ Jonas hisses.
‘I heard,’ I reply, though I don’t move back. Not even a sliver of me is tempted to do as he says. This woman isn’t messing around, and the last thing I can afford is for this bitch, or anyone else, to think I have to cower behind someone to survive. That’s a sure way to commend me to Mortidem.
‘Do you really think Etta is going to let you win this if you’re taking out others before it’s even begun?
’ I scan my opponent casually, surreptitiously looking for weapons.
There’s nothing that I can see, but that’s not necessarily a comfort.
Magic is the biggest weapon here, and the best hunters don’t need a full quiver when they go into the forest. Only those who fear missing a shot do.
‘I’ll be honest,’ I continue, tone solicitous, like I give a fuck about her soul.
‘I don’t think it’ll garner you any favours. ’
‘I disagree,’ Zara replies flatly, without a hint of self-doubt. ‘If the Goddess disapproved of my methods, she would have come to the aid of the other runts. But what do you know …’ She smirks unpleasantly. ‘She didn’t.’
Zara has confidence and arrogance oozing from her pores and no matter how this ends between us, I’m pretty sure she’s not going to ask me to bunk down as her roommate after it.
‘You can’t honestly believe the Goddess of Life would choose someone who kills indiscriminately for a gifting?
’ I press on, though I already know from the set of her mouth that I’m not going to persuade her otherwise.
Violence is coming for me, and I have no weapons.
Well, not no weapons. I finger the bracelet on my wrist. I’m torn because I don’t want to use the magic lightly, and yet I’m sure that if this confrontation continues, Zara and her buddies will try to kill me.
Why the fuck didn’t I just wear the damned blade?
‘I think the Goddess will gift the person who wins the Retterheld regardless of what they do to achieve victory,’ Zara snarls at me. ‘And if I wasn’t worthy, I wouldn’t be here. She heard my pleas. She chose me.’
Yup, Kay was right. Every Rettling believes in their absolute right to be here.
‘You’re the one who’s stripped, right?’ she goads. ‘Mummy was the Queenkiller, and daddy drank himself to death? And there was a baby, too, right? Did he even get his first steps before the king put him down?’
Rage roars in my veins, and I pull the bead from my bracelet. Only the fact that I don’t want to waste it tempers my fury. ‘I’ll give you one last chance to walk away. We’ll settle this in the tournament. The way we’re supposed to.’
She laughs. ‘Slum rat, you’re not going to make it to the trials.
You’re not even going to make it to the ball tonight.
’ She lifts a hand and a dull throb spreads across my knees and the top of my feet before a searing pain shoots across my palm.
I glance down to see that the stitches from the night before have been ripped open.
She’s a deleterious; she can reverse the healing my body has already done, causing old wounds to spring open.
I can cope with the cut on my palm, but it depends on how strong her powers are and how far back into my past she can go to make old wounds new.
Days, weeks, months? Earlier this year, a potion I was making boiled over and scalded my thigh.
Badly. I’d run out of salve at the time, and the blisters were so raw and angry I could barely cope with the touch of fabric against the skin for weeks.
As if summoned by my thoughts, a searing pain flares at the top of my left leg.
A gasp threatens to leave my lungs, but I lock my jaw against it.
If that’s as far back as she can go, it means she’s not going to be able to get much more out of me.
And while the burn and cut may hurt like a bitch, she’s going to have to do some actual damage herself if she wants to seriously hurt me.
‘Let me get this right.’ I steady my voice with a confidence I sure as hell don’t feel. ‘You can’t actually cause any injuries of your own, can you? You just work on the hope that other people have already done the job for you. Some predator you are,’ I sneer.
Her eyes flash. ‘I’m going to eat you alive, runt!’
‘Cannibalism, too?’ I sound amused, relaxed. I’m not quite sure how I’m pulling it off or why the fuck I’m goading her. If she has a dagger sheathed behind her, I’ll be in seriously dangerous territory.
There’s a growing crowd of people gathered behind her now – a captivated audience – so it’s now or never.
I don’t give myself any time to second-guess my decision. While holding Zara’s gaze so she can’t see what I’m about to do, I squeeze the bead to activate it.
‘You really think you know everything about me and my family?’ I say, allowing a smirk to rise on my lips. ‘You know nothing about me. Nothing about life in the slums. Nothing about the powers I’ve learned living there.’
‘Powers in the slums?’ she scoffs. ‘Bullshit.’
‘Rose, what are you doing?’ Jonas mutters, still at my side.
‘Proving that I’m not a runt.’
Zara takes another step closer to me, and her goons move to follow.
Can the flame bead take out that many people?
I don’t know. I don’t have a clue what it’s capable of, but I know I need to make sure it strikes something that can catch light.
Right now, Zara’s standing next to a stack of books.
They’re leather-bound with gilded paper, and the top one has fallen open, meaning it’s the perfect kindling.
The only problem is… they’re books. After years of missing my library and wishing I had enough money to be able to trade tonics for books instead of food, I hesitate to burn something so precious.
But if she just steps a little further forward, she’ll be in line with a wicker basket filled with kindling to start the fires in the rooms. It doesn’t get better than that. I just need to provoke her into moving.
‘Three against one,’ I say, raising an eyebrow. ‘You too afraid to take me on your own?’
‘Says the woman with the seven-foot-tall bodyguard,’ she snorts.
I crinkle my nose as I cast a glance back at Jonas. ‘I’d guess about six-three. It’s okay,’ I taunt, ‘not everyone can count. So, come on, are you actually going to do anything?’ I mock. ‘Or was I right in the first place? You can’t actually do any damage yourself?’
‘I’ll show you just how much damage I can cause,’ she snarls and steps forward. Bingo.
I act immediately and throw the activated bead into the basket. The flames are instant and mammoth, the fire blue and with a heat so fierce that the flames don’t just catch, they consume.
‘Argh!’
Zara screams and the acrid smell of burning is thick in the air. It’s not just her tunic that has caught. It’s her skin and that perfect, long, auburn braid of hers.
‘Help! Water! Where the hell is water?’ one of her companions shouts. Whatever powers her goons have, they don’t seem to be able to help.
I doubt there are any water wielders here.
That magic is as rare as they come. There certainly won’t be anyone able to douse it with ice.
I don’t need to have seen the marks on the others’ faces to know that none of them will have that gift, not when control of that magic is bound so tightly to the Issen that Korvane’s ancestors executed anyone who dared to show an affinity with ice.
I don’t want to look at Zara, to see the pain I’m causing. Despite the fact that I had no alternative, I feel faintly sick.
‘Duck!’ a woman’s voice orders as the smell of charred hair fills my nostrils. An instant later, an icy gust of air blows through the hallway, so cold and harsh it extinguishes the flames completely.
The floorboards are scorched, the ceiling is black with smoke stains, and the heat has even stripped the paint from the walls. Yet despite all the destruction around me, it’s Zara that my gaze fixes on.
Blisters bulge from her skin all the way from the top of her crown to her waist. How the hell she’s still standing, I don’t know.
Then again, I’m not sure how I’m still on my feet either.
The realisation of what I’ve done weakens my knees.
As if he knows, Jonas steps beside me and holds my elbow.
I can’t show weakness. Not now. Or it’s all for naught.
I lock my knees and stand a little straighter.
‘You should have let her burn,’ someone mutters.
I’m sure that’s what other people are thinking too, but looking at her in this state, I’m glad someone blew the flames out. If the trials involve killing, then I’ll do what I have to to survive, but I don’t want to take a life like this – trying to prove I’m tough enough.
‘We need to get you to the healers,’ one of Zara’s goons entreats as they try to take her arm, but she shrugs them away.
‘I can walk,’ she hisses, stifling a gasp as she shuffles forward.
Well, any hope I had of a collaborative tournament is well and truly dead. I don’t think Prince Kyor is going to be the only one gunning for me now.