Page 3 of The Eye of the Fifth
Naal Westerra spread her wings wide, letting the wind ruffle her feathers before shooting off the edge of the mountain, descending fast in search of the small harbour where a ship would carry her southward toward the earthlands.
Chapter Two
The Rumour
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Age of Mothers, 938.
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 atinybit 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.
Ifshecould 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. Shefeltlike 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 hisknife, 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!’
