Page 42 of The Sun God's Prize
I have to let go of this anxiety before it gets in the way of my victory.
Hloraine fights like a she-demon, no doubt in fury over Morinthi’s injury, and when she slices through a huge man wielding a heavy staff from neck to crotch, she barely pauses to accept the crowd’s adoration for her success before she retreats to us, ducking out to check on her partner.
All along, the Sun God seems uninterested in what’s happening in the arena, barely paying attention.I can’t stop staring, fury rising in me when he samples tidbits of food and drinks from a cup that’s never empty, talking with people who come and go, important folk in expensive robes, one of them I recognize as Yiratille Rae.While good men and women die beneath him, bleed and scream and breathe their last for his birthing day.
And he can’t even fucking pay attention.
I see Carrigan win his bout and salute him, though I note that Onu is clutching his side when he finds his own victory, the small warrior who stuck him with a dagger enough to make him concede.At least, I hope so, because I don’t want to watch the big man die.
I don’t want to watch any of them die.
Brem catches my hand, squeezing it, and I look down at her, knowing she’s going to chastise me for my anger.But she’s not looking at me, she’s staring out into the sand, and when I shift my gaze to where she stares, I’m too late.
Kasha is already going down.I catch a glimpse of her silver teeth flashing in the sunlight as her head spins away from her body, clean separation from a perfect slice through her throat sending her head spinning, vortex of blood flying out from the stump.The slow, almost graceful arc ends in a thud, her body hitting the ground a second later—
—she’s laughing when the first bolt pierces her throat, cutting off the sound, blood pouring from the wound, one of her dark eyes punctured by the second, more blood running down her face as she falls slowly to the marble floor—
I jerk out of memory, Brem’s hand tight on my wrist, and I realize I’m lunging for the sand.But there’s nothing I can do for Kasha, for my mother, either.The fight is over, the carts come to take her away, a boy collecting her head and tossing it in with the rest.
“Remi.”I look down, but I’m shaking now, chest tight, stomach a knot.Brem squeezes my hand so hard my bones grind together.“Remi.”
I nod, swallowing the bile that rises, look away.“I’m all right,” I say.I’m not, though.Because my gaze goes to the man on the throne and finds him laughing.
Laughing, while Kasha died.
I know then and there, if I ever get the chance, I’m going to fucking eviscerate the Sun God, and let’s just see if the piece of shit reincarnates or not.
They call my name again, and I’m moving, see the terror in the eyes of the three fighters I stalk toward.I don’t even wait for the announcer, unbridled rage taking me over, and when I look up, there’s blood on my hands, I’m licking it from my lips, and they’re chanting.
Over and over, the crowd is chanting.
Re-ma-lla.Re-ma-lla.
Brem is terrified when I rejoin her and slaps me hard across the face when I snarl at her concern.
“Fucking get it together,” she snaps back.
I barely feel it, but she’s right, and I jerk away, but I’m nodding, taking a drink, pacing a little.Even that repetitive and restless motion I conquor at last, coming to stand on the edge of the sand by the low wall, alternating my attention between the fight going on in intervals and staring hate and death at the Sun God.
When Brem goes out again, she’s poetic, but she faces two men who look identical, and I know she’s in trouble when the first one of the twins—they must be—takes out their other opponent with a bare motion I struggle to track.And then the two of them are circling her, treating her like prey.I know it before they strike.
She’s been set up to think she can kill one of them.But the other one will kill her first.
I have to get to her, but it’s too far, much too far, and she’ll be dead between one heartbeat and the next.Just like that, I’ll lose Brem.
She does what I don’t expect, even as I inhale to scream her name.She drops to the sand, prone, rather than taking out the obvious, the invitation to cut open the target she has available to her a lure to open her to death.And when she does, the sword meant for her—
Slices through the twin she was lured in to attack.Slain by his own brother.Even as my friend—my clever, amazing, fuckingepicfriend—flips over and drives her sword up and into the guts of the one who intended to kill her, his blood pouring over her where she lies.
He collapses on top of her, and for a moment, she’s pinned.The crowd holds its collective breath, only roaring to life again when she pushes him off and springs to her feet, doing a trio of backflips away from the bodies, spraying blood as she goes.
When she lands, she holds her arms up and outward in victory, and they go absolutely wild.
They love her, and so do I.
Brem returns to us after retrieving her weapons.I hug her, squeezing her far too hard, the blood of her opponents making her slippery.
“Enough, Remi,” she says, laughing.“I told you I’d make it to see you win.”
