Chapter 22

Chapter 22

Kaniz and Kəstian were deep in warm-ups with the rest of Kesia’s fight crew when Sana’a ghosted into the Sābər Arena early the following day.

‘Where the hell have you been?’ the ringmaster growled, striding toward her, dawn’s light playing on his affronted krest. ‘It’s fokkin’ fight day.’

‘I was away on a personal errand,’ she said. ‘Something important came up. Didn’t Kaniz tell you?’

Kəstian shot the kəthi master a look to corroborate Sana’a’s words, but the Katánian woman disregarded him.

‘Who’s your gnarly companion?’ Kaniz asked instead, jerking her chin at Killen, cloaked, hooded and looming behind Sana’a. Leaning in with a twist of her lips, she muttered, ‘Lover or a fighter? ’

Sana’a ignored the dig. ‘He’s a friend. He’s come to watch, he’s a fan.’

‘Not standard protocol,’ the kəthi master murmured.

Sana’a nodded. ‘I know, but he won’t cause trouble. He’s only here for moral support during the fight, given how important it is.’

Kaniz and Kəstian exchanged a look.

Sana’a sensed their discomfort until a burst of energy came from the man glowering beside her.

‘He can stay,’ Kəstian conceded, his mouth gaping with surprise at himself, ‘if that’s what it takes to get you ready for tonight.’

‘It’ll help,’ Sana’a muttered, shooting Killen a sharp, searching glance.

He shrugged, but she glimpsed a hint of a smile on his lips like he’d coerced the ringmaster to do his will.

Fokk him and his freakish flashlight.

He raised a brow as if he’d heard her.

Even more confused, Kəstian swivelled his head between Killen and Sana’a for a beat.

Unable to penetrate their inscrutable expressions, he sucked his teeth long and slow as he strode away.

‘Warm up,’ Kaniz sighed. ‘This is going to be a shit stack of a fight. Even Kəstian has his feathers in a flutter about it.’

Killen gave Sana’a a chin nod and moved towards the bleachers. Where a few crew members, trainers, and team medics sat a little far from them.

He extracted a small bundle from his cloak.

Sana’a, recognising his ancient poetry tome, smiled, recalling the stargazing moment the night before.

‘Stop daydreaming, Shotelai!’

The shikari was jerked to the present by Kəstian’s words.

Pre-match prep commenced, and Kaniz was relentless as if punishing her.

Sana’a soon found out why.

‘I have a ringmaster who’s toe-y,’ Kaniz whispered into her ear as she pulled her close after a tight parry. ‘A sponsor whose bet to the hilt on you and almost an entire city is waging their livelihoods on this. If you lose, their heartless greed will turn on our crew like never before. This fight, above all others, is the one that will define our legacy.’

‘Your legacy, you mean.’

Kaniz’s eyes were cold. ‘That too. I plan on it being my last one.’

Sana’a froze mid-strike of her blade. ‘You’re not serious?’

‘Dead. I want to cash up and exit the arena for good.’

Sana’a’s eyes rose. ‘You’re quitting?’

Kaniz whirled even closer. ‘Shhh. No one else knows. Naam, I’m returning to my people, my eyrie in the Ko’Las Lakes, leaving behind this city’s greed and avarice.’

Sana’a was beset with emotion. ‘I see. Where will that leave me?’

‘You’re the famous Shotelai; you’ll survive. You’re also younger than I am, with many years ahead. Maybe you could even become the kəthi master of Kesia’s mob.’

The Shotelai woman shrugged, hiding her disappointment at yet another tenuous link broken, another short intimacy abandoned. Such was the theme of her life.

Kaniz’s voice cut through her misery. ‘We don’t have long to prep you for the fight, so keep working.’

As the sun crept over the sky, the drills intensified. Everyone nearby held their breath, waiting for what the day would bring.

Sana’a found herself growing more uneasy.

Her opponent, K’grona, was a formidable force in the ring, but she’d faced many like him.

So why couldn’t she shake the dread feathering down her spine?

Something about it all didn’t sit right.

Her SHärd blades perceived the same. They vibrated against her back with an energy that bordered on rage.

You will need us.

I will let you know if the occasion calls for it,she let them know.

Sana’a sensed Killen’s eyes on her from across the coliseum as she lost herself in a series of practice drills and parries. He radiated with a steady calm that she clung to even as she sucked in air to settle her nerves.

Evening fell.

Even though she was now preparing for her bout in the changing rooms, she sensed Killen still lurking in the shadows.

With a grudging smile, she admitted she was grateful for his support.

The arena was overflowing with fans and punters alike, all eager to see the much-anticipated match, bodies packed to the brim in a sea of movement and noise.

The gilded koel appeared on cue, and the songbird’s high, lilting rendition of a favourite Katánian folk song was received with roars.

Which echoed from the ground-level spectators to the high-born’s expectant faces.

The various eyries’ colourful krests, wild banners, and trailing flags added to the celebratory atmosphere.

As Sana’a stepped into the ring, the weight of anticipation pressed down on her like a heavy cloak.

Kəstian’s theatrics and vocalisation also hinted at desperation as his wings unfurled over the arena to introduce Sana’a and K’grona.

As the two fighters circled each other in the air, the audience held their collective breath, most not even daring to blink. The tension and adrenaline were palpable, like an electric current running through the atmosphere.

‘Someone rattle some sābərs so that we can turn shit up,’ Sana’a murmured, impatience lacing her barely-there whisper.

Kəstian must have picked up on her muttering because after shooting her a warning glance, he let out a roar.

Kagṣān’s eyes blazed, and the contest was on.

In seconds, K’grona launched his might on Sana’a.

Each blow landed by either combatant sent a wave of cheers or gasps rippling through the crowd.

The fight was as brutal and intense as everyone had predicted.

K’grona was a force to be reckoned with, and the Shotelai woman had to give it her all to keep up.

At one point, his eyes reddened and turned all black.

He had dark kätu that flowed in his veins, just like Kaniz had warned.

She sensed its brutality in K’grona’s every move, feeling his ruthlessness in his hits, kicks and blocks.

Oblivious to the kav’s jacked-up form, the stadium roared, their voices echoing off the walls.

K’grona, with his imposing figure and cruel glint in his eyes, was relentless. She jolted with the realisation that she was no match for his strength, real-life skills, and aggression.

Her sweaty, soaked skin glistened in the flaming light of Kagṣān’s eyes. Still, she dodged his forceful blows and returned with swift and precise strikes.

Their blades continued to clash, each swipe leaving its mark. It was a bitter battle, with neither opponent yielding.

Their match was a battle of wills as much as a physical showdown. Lunges, parries, and blocks filled the air, each fighter trying to gain the upper hand.

Sana’a turned to her unconventional wildness and amped it up.

She began to find openings in her opponent’s guard, unleashing a flurry of punches and kicks that left K’grona reeling.

When her blade struck him in the side and ripped through his rachís, the arena lost its collective mind.

He reeled back, bleeding, wounded, flailing through the air.

Snapping forward, his hand reached for something.

At that moment, Sana’a could have sworn he caught an object in his hand tossed from a Känˌdôr on the edge of the fighting ring.

He snapped upright, unleashing a sābər in his hand, unlike any she’d seen before.

It dripped with tendrils of black íkan.

‘You’re mine now,’ he whispered.

Sana’a’s eyes widened.

The match had taken a dangerous turn.

She switched tactics, dodging and weaving around K’grona’s attacks with lightning-fast reflexes. She was put to the test as he swung the diseased blade at her with deadly precision.

But Sana’a’s shotel was no match for the miasmic power and it was sliced in two, falling far to the surface below.

‘Is that all you’ve got?’ K’grona gibed with a soft, menacing whisper.

Eyes turning into ice, Sana’a made a call.

She called out to her SHärd blades, hidden from most eyes until now.

They formed like a diaphanous spectre between the fighters, halting K’grona’s mid-swing.

He stared as they shimmered into sight, their translucent savagery appearing for all to see.

She gave him a smirk as she summoned them into her grasp.

‘What the fokk? Are these within the rules?’ he growled at her.

She tilted her chin to his ebony black necrotic sword. ‘You’re the one who introduced a new weapon. The lesson of the day: never assume your sword is the only one that’s superior in battle.’

Without warning, she lunged at K’grona with unworldly speed, flicking her daggers in his face and driving him back with a cry.

The stadium roared as they exchanged blows, each more brutal than the last. Sana’a’s heart raced, her every muscle straining as she poured strength into her attacks.

The ambience was thick with the acrid stench of sweat and kätu as they battled.

K’grona’s koya danced through the air, its tendrils of black íkan hissing and crackling as it tore through the sky.

At one point, he managed to swipe and get one claw into her shoulders.

He pulled her closer with a maniacal laugh, so close that the tip of the dripping weapon he aimed at her scorched her neck, burning into her skin even from millimetres away.

‘I’ll kill you,’ he roared. ‘Destroy you!’

She kneed him in the thorax and pushed off in a burst of speed and power she never knew she had.

Snarling, Sana’a lunged at her opponent and let loose her left blade.

‘Finish this,’ she snarled at it.

It obeyed, flashing through the air, through his chrome feathers and sinking into the kav’s chest.

He gave a faint, pained laugh as blood gushed out from the wounds.

‘Nada!’

Despite his defiance, his black eyes held a glimmer of regard for Sana’a’s tenacity before his face twisted into a mask of rage and defeat.

The arena fell silent, save for the echoing sound of Sana’a’s rapid breaths and K’grona’s laboured gasps.

In a last-ditch effort, the kav tumbled backward mid-air, his hand reaching for the handle of his kätu-imbued koya, flinging it at her.

She ducked as it whistled past her ears. In response, her blade sunk deeper into his chest, twisting through bone and sinew.

This wrenched a guttural cry from the dying warrior. The dark kätu in him twisted and turned as the SHärd’s ethereal power tore through his veins.

His eyes widened in shock and pain before they dimmed and finally went blank.

His wings drooped.

Gasps sounded throughout the arena as his body tumbled, rolling midair and nosediving to the ground. He landed with a loud, echoing thud that kicked up sand and rocks.

Silence fell.

Sana’a’s heart pounded, her eyes reeled, and her mind swam with adrenaline.

Her hands trembled as she recalled her SHärd daggers. Wiping the blood off on the leg of her suit, she sheathed them, her eyes still fixed on K’grona’s corpse.

Blood thundered in her ears, but it was the utter quiet in the arena around her that shook her to the core.

Every single being present was staring at her, stunned.

Whispers and gasps started sounding and resonating through the coliseum, a concoction of disbelief and awe filling the air.

They crescendoed into wild vocalisations of wrath.

Kəstian streaked into the arena, urging calm as outrage spilled over into shouting matches and screams across the grand complex. ‘Calm,’ he bellowed, ‘calm!’

But his voice was lost to the roar of collective rage.

His eyes stabbed at Sana’a, but she met his accusing gaze with a raised chin of defiance. She saw something else in the depths of his glare. A grudging respect.

‘What have you done?’

Sana’a turned at the outraged whisper as Kaniz bounded onto the platform.

‘You killed a kavalier,’ the kəthi master went on, reaching to clutch Sana’a’s blade arm and leaning into her ear so she could shout above the rising clamour. ‘You broke the rules.’

Sana’a froze. ‘It was either him or me. You saw that, didn’t you?’

‘Still, you could have conceded.’

‘So my neck could be sliced off by his necrotic weapon? You heard him and what he used on me. This was no bout. It was a planned killing. You saw it!’

‘Regardless, you’ve tarnished the name of our kəthi; my reputation, too, hangs in the balance.’

Sana’a stared at Kaniz, her heart aching at the disappointment in her friend’s eyes.

‘I’m sorry,’ the Shotelai woman whispered, her voice ragged with emotion. ‘But It was either he or I. I was only trying to protect myself.’

Kaniz’s expression softened for a moment. ‘I know,’ she sighed. ‘You have to come with me. We must leave the arena before this place goes up in barbs, koyas, and flames.’

Sana’a nodded, her mind whirring with the consequences of her actions.

As they exited the ring, the crowd erupted in shock and outrage.

For one second, as she stared ahead with a wooden focus, she saw a shape flit toward her at the corner of her eye.

An old king, a shadow of royal wraith-ness, a ghostly reminder of what once was and now would never be again.

She almost fell to her knees in that moment, wanting to give in to the the loss and despair weighing down her soul.

More angry cries rose from the sponsor’s box, cutting through her fog.

She glanced up to see an enraged woman leaning over the edge of the monarchical stand.

Kalila.

‘You need to pay for killing my fighter.’

Her utterance was a khārpi’s screech, echoing loud above the tumult.

A wave of anger crashed against Sana’a’s soul.

She wrenched from Kaniz’s grasp and marched across the sun-beaten arena. Toward the deceased, Kíríga’s sister, gripping her blades, body taut with outrage. ‘And you fokkin’ owe a ton for setting him on me and for being the mastermind of genocide.’

Her shout echoed in the open sky auditorium, and the gathering of Katánē’s Kä’avi gasped at her words.

By this time, she’d tracked to just under Kalila’s stand, shaking off Kaniz’s efforts to pull her back.

‘Who the fokk do you think you are?’ Kalila snarled.

With a cry of fury, the royal Kíntí transmuted, her black rachís unfurling behind her. At the same time, she reached for a hand, and the dark íkan sword K’grona had wielded flew up from the arena floor and into her fingers.

She rushed towards Sana’a, who’d pushed away her kəthi master, activated her metsai boots, and rose.

Kalila raised the necrotic koya as if to fling it at Sana’a.

The royal’s enraged attack was foiled when another set of wings crossed her trajectory, forcing her to pull up midair and drop her weapon.

‘Stop this bullshit, Kalila.’

Kesia hovered in Kalila’s way in half royal hawk mode, her krest quivering with loaded emotion. ‘We all saw what K’grona did. We saw him wield the same dark-lanced blade in your hand. He was going to use it, and all the Shotelai did was defend herself. Your fighter is to blame for his death, which we all know would not have happened unless you authorised it.’

Kaniz pulled Sana’a’s arm and whispered fast into her ear. ‘Let Kesia distract them all while you get the fokk out of here.’

But it was too late.

Another roar rose in the arena as a phalanx of Känˌdôrs streaked in from overhead. Their vigorous strokes created gusts of air that blew up the arena’s sand.

They were heading straight for Sana’a.

A chill ran down her spine as they closed in.

She spotted a break above a narrow alleyway up ahead, her best chance of escape. She darted towards it, hoping to dodge the Känˌdôr thugs.

Two fell before her path, their koyas drawn and pointed at her.

The Shotelai woman sighed and reached her hands out, flicking them even as her SHärd blades formed in her grasp.

She tracked her eyes around her, at the guards surrounding her, at Kaniz, Kəstian, Kesia and finally Kalila.

‘Do you really want to do this?’ Sana’a murmured, her voice laced with weariness and pain.

Kalila’s chest heaved. ‘What I want is to see you tarred and burnt to a crisp for your insolence and murder.’

‘Says the murderess of the century. Fokk, I’m over this.’

Sana’a flung her blades right at the woman, who opened her mouth to protest.

It was then that a mighty wind rushed through the arena.

One so forceful that Sana’a’s blades were swept away from their true course.

‘Nada!’ she yelled out, ‘Don’t stop me. Not now.’

She just managed to command her daggers back into her grasp when her body was enveloped.

In wings so immense, she was wrapped head to toe in their dark folds.

She felt the giant eagle blast upwards into the open sky.

Its ascent was followed by shouts of indignation and the lethal whistle of koyas flung in their direction.

The weapons exploded against the chromed rachís she was enclosed in as they tracked with dizzying speed across the atmosphere.

Her blades slammed back into her outstretched hands.

She snarled, incandescent with fury.

Her chance was gone, snatched from her.

She was consumed with rage, burning like a wildfire, gripping every part of her being until it radiated outwards like a blazing sun.

Heat and wrath pulsated through her veins; all she wanted to do was scream and lash out.

Instead, she was held close and tight. Calmed against her will by the steady, sure heartbeat on the chest she lay against.

Until only the whipping of wind, they streaked through sounded above it.