Page 247 of A Warrior's Fate

“As do I.”

Malakai looked to Isla. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be with the warriors?”

So, he really was uninformed. About many things.

“I’ve been on Alpha Kai’s guard because of the…circumstances,” she said, resisting the urge to glare at Cassius. He was playing her father a fool.

Malakai glanced back at his Alpha and best friend, his brows furrowed. Cassius’s features remained impassive, and he looked beyond him to Kai. He inclined his head. “I’m sure you have much to get to. May Fate be in your favor, Alpha.”

Walking away. Cassius didn’t want to breach the conversation. Didn’t want Malakai to know.

“It seems she has been so far,” Kai said, and Isla knew Cassius had caught the hint that many others had missed.

As the two sides split away, Isla found herself rooted, watching her father’s form recede.

Did she want him to know what she was feeling? The way her heart couldn’t settle. How she couldn’t hear the word tomorrow without feeling nauseous. It wouldn’t have made a difference. He couldn’t stop the challenge. Cassius knew everything and had no qualms. He’d been treating her father more like his foot soldier, it seemed, than his second-in-command.

“Dad.”

Isla called his name before she could stop herself, and Malakai turned around. She balled her hands into fists. Behind him, Cassius and the guard who’d gotten a few feet ahead had frozen where they stood, and Isla felt a rise in power from him, a warning that was answered by another that rose at her back.

She and her father were in the middle.

Isla swallowed, concern usurping any desire to lash out. “Never mind.”

“Is it weird that we’re having a fight to the death in a place like this?” Rhydian’s question, those particular chosen words, had earned a few sidelong glares from those around him. He was perched on one of the many chairs meant for the athletes or performers who frequented the space to prepare or unwind before and after their events.

“This arena was originally used for battles like this. Not alpha challenges but duels,” Jonah offered his twin, not lifting his eyes from the two books in his lap. Neither of them was the journal. One was text in the native language, and the other he kept to translate what he couldn’t understand.

“Why are you doing that here?” Ameera muttered to him with a subtle glance up at Adrien and Sebastian.

Jonah wouldn’t look up at her either. “Because I’ve almost figured this out.”

The woman’s name and Aneurin’s ramblings. For a moment, Isla thought she’d be able to handle helping him. That doing so would distract her from what was to occur in a mere hour or even less.

The challenge would begin when the moon was at its peak, and even if she couldn’t see it, she could feel its aura now, more than ever. Could sense the deities hovering. The Goddess and Fate watched while Eternity, Aeterna—the third sister—waited eagerly for the new soul she’d guide through to the afterlife.

There must’ve been something done to the room to make the noise of the crowd seem louder. Something to make participants eager to get out there and bask in their glory. But with each passing second, the amplified sound only made her feel sicker.

There was the warmth of a hand on her back as if he could sense it. Adrien. She hadn’t told him she didn’t see Raana, and he didn’t ask. Sebastian sat on her other side. They left her little room on the couch, or maybe it just felt that way, the walls closing in as reality did.

“Where is he now?” Davina asked, voice quivering.

Isla couldn’t bring herself to look at her. It was foolish, but the way she’d been clinging onto Rhydian for stability and support made everything worse.

Ameera answered, “Being prayed over, probably.”

Because they wouldn’t be able to reach him for his last breath to mutter the invocation for safe passage into the next life.

Isla could feel something stirring in her from whatever he was going through with the Elders. The challenging of an alpha was as much a spiritual endeavor as it was physical and political. It was why it took place beneath the full moon, like the Alpha and Luna Rites.

By now, Kai would’ve stripped and been painted with the proper runes. Would’ve been given the ceremonial robes that he’d remove before shifting, and as whatever Elder or priestess prayed and hummed over him, he’d be taking in the pungent odor of jasmine incense. It was always jasmine when they reached out to the Goddess. While she received her lumerosi and when Adrien and Cora had broken their bond. Though they weren’t the classical magic users, something within the rituals and traditions of wolves drew from the ethereal.

Isla squeezed her eyes shut. Goddess, this needed to be over.

“Has anyone seen him? Brax?” Ameera said the name with such disgust. “They kept him covered while they brought him in from the rogue lands.”

Sebastian stirred at Isla’s side. “I did.”

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