Page 69 of Merciless Is My Crown

Then I didn’t give her a chance and wrapped the Arena in a layer of my magic, the obelisks shuddering as if the two magics were not at all compatible. I opened up a corridor between Vireena and me, one way out of the Arena, if she chose to take it.

Several others saw that narrow path as their escape and broke from the crowd. Dane snarled when they came into range, teeth gleaming in the moonlight. They slid to a stop and slunk back with the others. Tucked within the now-silent crowd, Adele craned her neck, her blue eyes wide.

I approached the High Priestess, stopping before I reached the obelisks. Beside me, Dane paced back and forth, his message clear.

Nobody is getting through except Vireena.

“By your own word, this is a contest of wills and strength and only the strongest will sit on the throne. Well, come out, then. Prove you are the strongest. We can fight out here as well as we can fight in there. Unless you’re a coward.”

“I am no coward.” She pointed at her coven. “They know I am no coward.” But the murmur of agreement from the others was weak, at best.

“I think you are spineless and the only way you could ever—ever—win a fight was by cheating. I wasn’t even fucking armed. You were brave enough to slaughter a weaponless opponent. Where I come from, we call that weak.” I dragged my knife down the obelisk and swore the ground shuddered beneath my feet.

“So unless you’re a pathetic, sniveling coward, come out here and fight me, Vireena.” I shrugged. “Or not. I can keep you all trapped in that circle forever. And let me remind you, the throne is out here, not in there.”

Gods, it was satisfying to grin at her, even if I was smiling through my own blood.

26

ANARIA

“Iwill make you a trade,” Vireena countered. “Walk away right now and I’ll grant you safe passage out of the Barrens. I won’t even kill your wolf and the wyvern.”

“That,” I said, letting my magic swirl around the Arena like a storm cloud come to life, “was the wrong thing to say to me. I might have walked away, given the only blood that’s been shed so far is my own.”

Indeed, it was smeared all over the polished gray surface.

“But you threatened the lives of my friends, and that I cannot allow to go unpunished. Now come out here or I will have Dane drag your arse out. I know he wants to.”

The black wolf smiled, licking his lips.

She emerged from the Arena and I closed the magic off behind her. She’d get no help from her coven. We were both on unfamiliar footing, and as magic gathered at her fingertips, we each had our powers.

And one weapon.

“This is as even as it will ever get,” I muttered grimly, grasping the knife tighter. “Your move.”

Vireena was no longer the arrogant, assured priestess with a guaranteed victory. She’d lost all the advantages she’d taken for granted for so long. For one wild moment, I wondered if I could actually outfight her.

She hurtled through the air and tackled me, stabbing down with her knife.

I used my magic to block her, stabbing upward, only for the blade to be knocked away at the last moment by a blast of black choking power that left me gagging.

We rolled apart and began circling, something lethal settling inside me like a warm, steady weight.

I could do this. I could both make this a fair fight and win.

She came at me again, and I parried with the knife, the way Zorander had shown me, then spun away. Vireena wiped fresh blood off her side.

She attacked, I parried, her every attack growing slower, sloppier.

I used less energy shoving her away and spinning to the side, and when she came at me again, I dodged straight toward her knife hand. She was already stabbing that direction, but in the process left the side of her neck wide open.

The curved knife slid between the tendons of her throat like cutting butter, black blood spraying on the side of my face as I kept moving past her, not stopping until I was well out of knife range to spin around and face her.

Vireena clasped her hand to the side of her neck, but the blood…oh gods, the blood.

I sucked in my low gasp of horror, the High Priestess’s eyes meeting mine, both of us realizing the same thing. I’d dealt her a fatal wound.

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