Chapter 15 Dahvid Tin’vori

Dahvid wasn't losing exactly.

He just wasn't winning, either.

A hundred hands hung down, banging against the upper walls of the pit. That disgusting mixture of spitted meat and sweat and blood hung in the air. The crowd was growing restless. He could hear that unsatisfied muttering underneath the normal cheers. There'd been excitement at the start, when Dahvid first summoned his sword. And again, when his opponent landed a massive blow. The rest of the fight had been boring and technical and bloodless.

The crowd always preferred to watch someone die.

Dahvid's opponent stood in the very center of the arena. He was a proper paladin. Great footwork. Defensive techniques. Military-trained. He'd clung to the same strategy for the last five minutes. His shield was enhanced by a divinity spell. Even when Dahvid was quick enough to strike past the actual metal—his blade would deflect off the golden light that encircled the shield. It reduced his target zones to almost nothing.

Even the golden spear his opponent wielded was a defensive measure. Every strike he'd made so far was designed to keep Dahvid from getting too close. Throughout the entire fight, he'd unleashed only one truly offensive maneuver. A powerful blow of light-magic that had knocked Dahvid completely off his feet and slammed him into the circular barrier enclosing the pit.

It had been an extension of the divinity spell. Dahvid knew enough about them to know that each person manifested the spell in their own unique way. His opponent had been absorbing each of his blows. After harnessing all that energy, he'd unleashed it back at Dahvid in a single, violent burst.

The fight was veering back toward boredom. Dahvid began a sequence. Centered downstrike. Rotate to backhanded swipe. Lunge low. Spin out of range. Backpedal. Each new swing was met by the enhanced shield. His opponent circled calmly. He was clearly waiting for a chance to unleash that absorbed magic a second time. Dahvid couldn't let it continue on this way. Eventually he would tire out and his opponent would go on the offensive.

The restless crowd was his fault. Darling had been advertising his status as an image-bearer ever since Dahvid signed the contract. They'd come here to see him use his tattoos, and Darling had been clever enough to pick an opponent that required him to burn one of them. Everyone knew he was an image-bearer. That was no secret. It was impossible to look at him and not notice the etchings that covered his body. No, the true secret was what was housed inside each tattoo. The kinds of magic that Dahvid could summon. No one but his sisters knew that.

But if using one now was the price of victory, he would pay it.

Dahvid backpedaled to a safe distance and tossed his sword to the side. It stuck in the dirt, point down, well out of reach. His opponent still did not break from his stance.

"Fine. I'll come to you."

He reached through the exposed slit by his stomach. His fingers brushed the perfect circle Cath had drawn on his skin. Magic rippled outward. The ground beneath their feet shook as Dahvid stepped forward into the spear range of his opponent. A perfect circle was forming around him. He saw a hundred different cracks etch in the dusty nothing at their feet. Rippling out in indecipherable patterns. The paladin eyed the spell uncertainly. Dahvid kept closing in on where he stood.

His sword was still plunged in the dirt. Well outside the extending circle. Dahvid stomped his right foot and the spell sealed. The circle was complete. He and the paladin stood perfectly inside it—just a few paces apart.

That's when the actual magic activated. Dahvid felt the spell hit him like a backhand. The paladin took the worst of it, though. The golden light of his divinity shield was snuffed out. His gilded spear flickered to a lifeless gray. Dahvid had cast a null zone. Inside this circle, magic could not exist. It was just the two of them now. Just flesh and bone and metal.

The paladin reacted as expected. A sudden lunge. Dahvid ducked beneath the strike and brought his left fist crashing into an exposed armpit. His opponent cried out, trying to backpedal, but Dahvid seized the top of his shield before he could get outside the circle.

The two of them wrestled over it, adjusting their positions, when Dahvid shoved the metal straight down into the ground. The paladin was so focused on keeping his grip that he didn't brace for Dahvid's headbutt. His opponent's nose broke with a resounding crack. The crowd roared at the sight of blood finally painting the sand. The paladin's arms pinwheeled as Dahvid tossed the shield uselessly aside. The end of this sequence was clear now. Like the unfurling petals of a flower. He could see it all unfolding, as if he stood outside time.

Another desperate stab of the spear. Dahvid sidestepped and broke the paladin's nose a second time. Blood was everywhere. The features of his opponent's face slipped away. Dahvid saw Thugar Brood standing across from him. The taunting leer and the thick beard and the forest-green eyes. That was who he was about to destroy.

He landed blow after blow after blow. Until Thugar Brood was on his knees in the sand. Dahvid's chest heaved. He reached down and dragged the pathetic wretch to the edge of the circle. He tossed him to the ground. Dahvid's sword was waiting there—outside the null zone.

He reached for the handle. It weighed almost nothing. Blood pulsed in his ears. The roar of the crowd thumped in his chest like an anthem. All he could see was Thugar Brood, begging him for a mercy that he'd never shown to Ware. Dahvid licked his lips, set his feet…

Reality flickered.

It was not Thugar. It was the paladin with the shattered nose and the wrong-colored hair. A stranger. Dahvid stood there as the crowd chanted for the killing blow. He was about to oblige them when the paladin collapsed sideways. Unconscious.

A few of Darling's medics darted out of one of the entrances. Sometimes a death was necessary to sate the crowd. Most of the time, though, Darling liked his challengers to stay in the rotation. Dahvid allowed his sword to flicker out of existence. He'd given away the knowledge of one of his spells. He knew Darling's people would take note. Likely they had a carefully maintained file on every gladiator, all their strengths and weaknesses and tendencies.

Good,he thought. Let them believe they know anything about me.

Dahvid rubbed the dirt and dust of the arena between his hands and left.

As they entered their apartment, Dahvid's eyes flicked over to the left corner. No sarcastic comment issued forth. No raised eyebrow awaited him. Nevelyn was not there. They'd removed her bed to make space for Cath's artwork and Dahvid's morning stretches. Nevelyn had also taken all her cloth materials with her. Every experimental weaving. The absence he felt was more than just a physical one, though.

Ever since their escape from Kathor, Dahvid had always had one of his sisters to guide him. It had been hard enough to lose Ava. She was easy to miss. Bright and cheerful and wild like him. They'd always had a lot in common. Losing Nevelyn was more like losing the functionality of an organ. Something vital ripped out of him. In the past few weeks, he'd found himself turning to ask her opinion—only to realize that she wasn't there. He forced himself to believe they would see each other again.

Before leaving, Nevelyn had also taken all their research on the Broods. She'd left only the information that was relevant to Dahvid's assignment. A list of Darling's favorite gladiators. Notes from fights that Nevelyn had scouted on his behalf. This part of their research would help him in his own impossible task: winning a gauntlet.

Darling's gauntlet was famous in Ravinia. Anyone who came to the warlord and requested to run a gauntlet could not be denied. He welcomed all challengers. The rules were simple. The challenger faced five opponents of Darling's choosing, one at a time. If they made it past the first opponent, they had exactly five minutes to recover before the next fighter entered the arena. If they won all five fights—they could make a single request of Darling. Only three people out of hundreds had ever survived one. The first victor was Agatha Marchment.

A world-renowned blade master who'd made a name for herself in the War of Neighbors. She swept through her gauntlet without taking a single hit. The next day, Darling announced her as the head general overseeing all the gladiator pits. Marchment's one wish had apparently been a percentage of Darling's earnings. The two had worked together for nearly a decade now.

The second was Able Ockley. Dahvid still wished he'd been there to witness that one. The best magical duelist in Kathor. He'd been sent on behalf of the viceroy. Apparently, he hadn't used a blade at all. No shields. No weapons. Only his wand. Long-range spellwork was crucial in larger battles and open warfare, but Dahvid still couldn't imagine how a wizard had navigated close-quarters dueling like that with nothing but a wand. After winning, Ockley had negotiated a very favorable trading partnership for Kathor with the growing freeport.

Finally, there was a brutal giant of a man who went by the nickname Creasy. He won his gauntlet the year before—and Dahvid had been in the crowd to witness it. Creasy had pounded his way through the early rounds, then caught some unbelievable luck in his fourth match when one of Darling's best wizards tripped on his own cloak midspell. The magic backfired and Creasy ended him with a casual stomp of his right boot. What made Creasy's gauntlet unique was that he beat the final opponent—and died mere minutes after. Bled out before the medics could save him. It was a surprise to many when Darling honored the victory. Creasy's sister had been granted a single wish, though no one had ever learned what her request was.

Three victors in all that time. The rest of the challengers were dead. Dahvid intended to be the fourth champion. He would win a gauntlet. He would make his one request.

"Distracted?"

It was Cath's voice coming from the corner of the room. She was seated, working on her sketches. He had drifted again. Drawn through time like a grain of sand in an hourglass. He looked down and realized he was washing his hands in their water basin. Who knew how long he'd been standing there?

"Just thinking."

"You revealed your null spell," Cath noted, eyes back on her art. "Interesting choice."

He grunted in return. "I was just following a hunch."

"You don't think Darling will use a proper wizard? That spell would be very useful against a pure spellcaster."

Dahvid dried his hands on the waist of his shirt. "I don't think he will now. He knows I can eliminate their magic with a single spell. Besides, most of his elite gladiators are brilliant in hand-to-hand. Casting the null circle would limit me, not them. It was the right move."

Cath nodded. "I trust you, Dahvid."

She was focused on her drawing, so she didn't see his entire body shudder involuntarily. I trust you, Dahvid. Those had been Ware's last words to him. His brother had looked back over one shoulder with a mischievous grin. Ware had always been such a helplessly restless creature. That night he told Dahvid he needed to get some air. He was walking down to the Lower Quarter for a drink—even though their father had ordered him to stay off the streets. At least until the controversy with Thugar Brood died down. Ware was trusting Dahvid not to snitch to the guards.

He could still imagine his brother's long hair, tossing bright over one shoulder as he turned the corner and slipped out of sight. No one—not even his sisters—knew that Dahvid had secretly followed him through the busy streets of Kathor.

Thugar Brood had come from nowhere. That's what it felt like. One second Ware was alone and happy and nodding to every person he passed. And the next second there was a wall of a human being standing before him. Thugar's foot soldiers fanned out in a half-moon before Dahvid realized what was happening. Ware stood there, completely alone, because Dahvid had kept his secret. None of the house guards had any idea they'd left the estate.

I trust you, Dahvid.

All the stories got it wrong. All the rumors they heard over the years. Ware was no coward. He did not run. He did not cry out or beg for mercy. Instead, he took up his fighting stance. Dahvid knew that Thugar would have beaten his brother in a fair fight, but it had never been that. One of the foot soldiers came in from Ware's blind side. Another and then another. They rained blows on him until he was sprawled and unconscious in the dust.

Most of the witnesses had fled. Thugar came forward to bind Ware, patiently working the rope around his legs and his feet. Like an animal. Dahvid remained hidden the entire time, too afraid to move. There were too many of them. He was too small. He did not have enough magic. A hundred reasons kept him in the shadows.

I trust you.

"Come," Thugar Brood had said. "I've found the perfect place to plant you in the ground."

A carriage pulled around, kicking up dust. That was when Dahvid finally started forward. Instinct outpaced fear. They were taking his brother. To a place where no one else would witness what they were going to do to him.

Ware was thrown in the covered back of the wagon. There were eyes in every window of every shop, but all of them were cowards like him. Dahvid was halfway to the carriage when it happened. The final guard climbed inside. The driver shouted. The horses all shoved into motion. He started running, but deep down, he didn't really want to catch them. He was so afraid of being thrown in the back of that carriage with Ware. Afraid he would not survive.

He watched them drive around the corner and he knew the only way to save his brother's life was to go back to their father. He would know what to do. Dahvid sprinted the entire way. He had arrived at the Tin'Vori estate, breathless and unprepared for what he saw at the gates. A group of hooded figures were beginning their raid. Fire was everywhere.…

"Come back to me, love."

He felt Cath's gentle arms wrap around him from behind. She pressed herself to his back and kept whispering in his ear. Dahvid realized he was standing over the washbasin still. He had been idly rubbing at the bloodstains on his right wrist. Trying and failing to get out the last dark blots. He saw that the sun had quietly set while he'd been lost in memory. Cath held him there until he released a haggard breath. It was like someone who'd been underwater for several minutes and now finally found the surface again. His chest heaved against her grip. Still she held him.

I trust you.

Dahvid allowed Cath to lead him over to the bed. She kissed his cheek. And then his forehead. Kissed until he kissed her back. Until the past was driven out by the taste and smell of the here and now. Until the only fire was between the two of them. Dahvid's lips slid down her neck. She whispered in his ear, "Stay with me. Right here."

He sank back into the pillows, hands grasping at Cath's hair. Nails digging into her shoulders. They pressed against each other, and it felt a lot like he imagined dying would feel. An intensity that destroyed all else—a shattering of time itself.

Here, there was no revenge plot. No shadow waiting for him at the end of the road. Here, there was no blood streaking the sands. No crowd roaring for his death. Here, there was no boy racing through the labyrinth beneath his family's estate with a cloth over his mouth to keep out the smoke. Here was so much better than there, even if he knew he could not stay forever.