House of Dragons (Royal Houses 1)

Valia shook daintily and then withdrew her hand. “I’m a steward of the Society.”

“A steward?” she asked.

“Yes, we’re not servants, but we’re not members.”

Kerrigan’s eyes widened marginally. This was what Helly had talked about, what she had offered Kerrigan. Was this why this girl was sitting here? A way for them to try to convince her to become this despite the bargain?

She cleared her head. She couldn’t get caught up in this. The vision was more important.

Her eyes roamed for Fordham once more, and she found him in the arena, fighting hand-to-hand against another man wearing the bronze metal of Herasi. She really was going to have to learn all the competitors’ names. She watched as Fordham whipped around and then made a cutting motion with air.

She nearly whooped with joy. He’d chosen air. He’d listened to her, even when he didn’t agree. And he was good at it. Not as good as her, but he just had to be better than his opponent. She wanted to warn him about the knife, but it wasn’t like she could do that when he was already out in the arena. And what if the knife was for tomorrow’s match or the next?

“What did I miss?” she asked Valia, who was dutifully taking notes.

“The first round was five minutes, timed. It’s everyone for themselves, hand-to-hand combat, no magic, the first competitor out is out of the tournament.”

Kerrigan gasped slightly. “Just like that?”

Valia didn’t seem concerned by the fact. “They had thirteen, twelve with the original tribes plus the House of Shadows. This is how they decided who to cut out.”

It made sense. Cruel, vicious sense.

“Who left?”

“The competitor from Erewa,” she said evenly. Her brown eyes cut to Kerrigan. “It was a massacre.”

Kerrigan shivered. At the last tournament, Erewa had sent a plant to infiltrate the tournament and attempt to kill the competitors. Apparently, no one had forgotten or forgiven them for that.

“For this round, the remaining twelve were sorted into four teams of three. Each team has to choose one element and otherwise, as you can tell, hand-to-hand combat only.”

“How do they win?”

“The contest is timed at an hour. If all three competitors are down before the hour is out, it’s a win and three points for the team that wins, zero for who lost. One point for a tie if both teams still has a player in contention at the end of an hour.”

Kerrigan nodded along as Valia continued explaining all the finer minutia of the individual scoring system. She would have to learn it quickly if she was going to help her keep score the next two days. But even as she listened and memorized the scoring system, her heart was in her throat while she watched the actual competitors.

A swift block of air here, a roar of earth there, a timed punch, a sweep of the legs. She wanted to be out there. She hadn’t really let herself consider the possibility since she had left Gelryn’s room and testing behind a week ago. But she had actually passed testing to be in the tournament. She wasn’t old enough or part of a tribe or even full-blooded Fae but she could have been out there, fighting alongside the other competitors. A dream, a fantasy. Nothing more.

If she had pushed her luck to try to get into the tournament, which seemed highly implausible, they probably would have done to her what they’d done to the Erewa competitor. No one wanted to see a half-Fae in the tournament, disrupting the centuries of competition. Kerrigan was reckless, but she wasn’t stupid.

“And that’s one point for Noda. She’s actually quite good,” Valia said under her breath.

“Noda is…”

“Concha in the teal headscarf.”

Kerrigan’s eyes were drawn to the Concha girl, wearing the soft teal silk of her island homeland. She was doing pretty well against her opponents. She looked like she’d had an air Fae teacher. She moved with the flow of the air, avoiding her opponent’s fire and then blasting him in the face, knocking him out of the fight.

Fordham was still dealing with the guy from Herasi. They weren’t evenly matched. Kerrigan could see that Fordham was superior in fighting, but Herasi had brute strength of his flames against air. Had she been wrong to suggest he take air? She had thought that she was doing the right thing. But now, she was second-guessing herself. Maybe the vision hadn’t been telling her to interfere at all.

But then she saw what Fordham couldn’t as the guy from Herasi kept his focus forward—the girl from Aude in a crimson tunic was approaching from behind. She had an arc of blue flame before her like a sword of living flames.

Kerrigan’s vision flashed before her eyes. The arc of blue light. The impending destruction. She jumped to her feet before she could think better of it and scream, “Fordham, behind you!”