Page 10 of The Eye of the Fifth
‘I think you will,’ Lilion said with a contrived sort of sadness. ‘You see, if there is no blood spilt in this arena tonight, I can assure you thatblood will be spilt elsewhere. What was your friend’s name, again? Rosary, was it?’
Kyra dared not look at her friend.
‘The man behind her has strict orders to follow her home tonight. To kill her eventually, but who knows what other things he has in mind. She has no family. Nor any friends but you. No one would miss her. No one would even know she was gone.’
Tears stung Kyra’s eyes, and she couldn’t help but steal a glance. Rosary was standing, neck craned as if she might be able to hear what was being said. True to Lilion’s word, a hooded man was sitting directly behind her. Kyra couldn’t breathe.
‘I can call him off in a heartbeat,’ she continued calmly, though her voice dripped with threat. ‘But only if my patrons get the blood they have gambled for.’
Feeling the stare of every single person on her, Kyra slowly walked on shaking legs to where her dagger lay discarded in the dirt, picked it up, and held it tight in her hand as she faced her brother.
She knew what she had to do.
Lilion wanted blood. She would get blood.
Kyra approached her long lost brother. ‘Oslan,’ she breathed softly.
Dread crumpled Oslan’s features, as though he could read the resignation in her eyes. ‘No.I won’t do it, Kyra, I won’t… please, kill me now, do it now before she makes me-’
The frantic words caught in his mouth, as though he was choking on them. His eyes rolled back in his skull, showing nothing but white, and when the pupils came back into view, all essence of Oslan Daeiros was gone.
Before she could even contemplate what had happened, her brother’s fist was flying toward her face at such a rapid speed, she had no time to block it.
She crashed to the ground, vision blurring through streaming eyes, pain searing her face like someone had carved through her cheekbone with a scalpel.
Kyra spat out a mouthful of blood, heaving herself to her feet. It didn’t matter that she had already succumbed to death… she would still go down like the Warrior-Queen she was. She threw her dagger to one side.
‘I forgive you,’ she told Oslan as he stomped toward her with murderous intent. Before death took her, he had to know… ‘For leaving us… I forgive you.’
But her words did not register on Oslan’s face. No response came. Instead, his foot swung toward her waist.
She couldn’t help the cry that escaped her then, mingled with the audiblecrackof several ribs. No human had ever been able to hit her that hard. She subconsciously wondered what her body would look like once Oslan was done with her. He hadn’t even picked up his sword, as though he knew his brute strength would be more than enough to finish her.
There were next to no cheers from the crowd this time; a quiet and stunned response from her usual supporters. Like they actually gave a fuck what happened to her.
Panting on all fours, she heard one fearful voice break the silence. ‘KYRA!’
She wished she could have told Rosary that it was her choice, that she wanted this. The only real choice she’d ever made in the last eight years, the only one that mattered.
Oslan’s steel foot met with her stomach, sending her rolling onto her back. She sucked in air through rasping, broken breaths.
Through a rapidly swelling eye, she saw Oslan leer over her. ‘It’s okay,’ she repeated again, a singular tear leaking down her cheek. ‘It’s okay.’
This was it. One more blow and Roheia would take her across the veil.I am yours.She told the Mother, Goddess of Earth.I am ready.
‘Enough,’someone snarled, the familiar voice amplifying around the arena. And though Kyra waited for the blow, waited to feel Roheia’s phantom hand to take her soul to the next life, it never came.
What did come was a wave of exhaustion as her body worked tirelessly to fix the broken parts. And it was Oslan’s face, a stranger’s face, blank and unseeing that sketched itself into her brain before darkness ensnared her to unconsciousness.
Chapter Four
The Fledgling and The Spy
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Dracyg Dominion, Zarynth.
Gedeon.
