A turn, a duck beneath a thrust, and then he was away from the two and at Kaia’s side. The woman panted from exertion. Errant strands of hair stuck to her forehead and neck, wet with sweat. She held her sword up with both hands. The blade was clean. She’d not once scored a hit.

  “He’s only playing with me,” she said. “Focus on your own duel.”

  Before he could respond, she dashed at Aidan. Her swings were easily shrugged aside, and Cyrus caught the paragon allowing several hits through just so they would bounce off his breastplate.

  “Do you fight at last?” He laughed. “About time, though I hoped for something better than this.”

  Marcus stepped between Cyrus and the pair, his spear up and at ready.

  “Leave them be, Vagrant,” he said with mutilated tongue. “You’re mine to deal with.”

  Cyrus paced side to side, watching the other battle while tensing for a potential attack. Aidan batted away two more of Kaia’s thrusts, and he grinned at the crowd in a pointed display of arrogance. The people laughed and clapped, and they laughed harder when Kaia scored a thin scrape across his cheek.

  “Oh, you erred now, hag,” the paragon muttered. He dashed into her with such speed as to make a mockery of her previous evasions. His shoulder struck her in the chest, followed by an elbow to the abdomen. She flew to the ground and landed on her back. Whether from the paragon’s blows, or the awkward landing, her stomach hitched and she struggled to draw a breath.

  Aidan did not raise his ax. Instead he lifted his boot and aimed its heel for her face.

  “You deserve a bug’s death, not a soldier’s.”

  Marcus was ready for Cyrus’s attempt to help. His spear swung in a wide arc, attempting to cut off the pathway between them. Cyrus vaulted over it, his body curling forward, and then he landed with his own heel kicking. It hit the knee of Aidan’s standing leg, twisting it sideways and robbing him of balance. The foot meant to smash in Kaia’s skull instead dropped backward to catch Aidan’s fall.

  Cyrus dared not speak, dared not even think. Instinct fully took over as he leaped to a stand. His attention bounced between the two paragons, and he attacked them with a savagery he hoped would make Stasia proud. His blades danced, forcing the paragons to keep fully defensive. He carved grooves across their platemail. He batted dents into the handles of their weapons. This assault took everything of him, and it could not endure, not when outnumbered and out-positioned. Worse, he caught Aidan drifting toward Kaia with a sick gleam in his eye.

  Damn it, you cowards, he thought. New tactic. He danced back to where Kaia lay and then spun in place, a whirlwind of steel. He parried spear thrusts and shoved aside ax hits with matching strength. The paragons closed in, punching and kicking between the swings of their weapons so he was given no quarter. He cut at them, tried to punish them for such foolishness by taking off their fingers or toes, but they were too fast, too overwhelming. He could not track them both at all times, not if he also wanted to protect Kaia. Cyrus twisted sideways, his left hand shoving a spear thrust upward, his right blocking an ax hit that should have cleaved him in half. His elbow and shoulder groaned against the weight. Even gifted with divine strength, his body was starting to break, for his opponents were equally blessed.

  At least Kaia had recovered. She rolled out from beside Cyrus, lurched to her feet, and sprinted for distance.

  “Scurry, hag!” Aidan called. His ax hit Cyrus’s crossed swords, the ringing metal so loud it was almost deafening. “Hide like a coward while the Vagrant fights for you!”

  A fist clipped Cyrus’s face, his punishment for trying to watch Kaia mid-fight. He rolled with it, hit the ground with his shoulder, and then twisted his legs above him so that he vaulted backward, his momentum carrying him right back to his feet. He landed beside Kaia, who reached out to touch his shoulder with her free hand.

  “I am only a burden,” she said. Her voice was still weak from losing her air.

  “I won’t let them kill you,” Cyrus said, and he meant it. “All I do, and all that I am, is meant to protect the people of Thanet. You’re one of them, Kaia, like it or not.”

  The older woman stared at him, her every emotion guarded, her thoughts unreadable to him.

  “You would have been a good king,” she said. She pointed. “Those fools there, could you take them if alone?”

  Cyrus glared at the two paragons busy mugging for the crowd. Rage swept through his veins like wildfire.

  “Yes,” he said. “I believe I could.”

  Kaia cast a final glance to the distant Lord Mosau. Her features hardened.

  “Good. Make them pay, Vagrant, especially Jase.”

  And then she lifted her sword and cut her own throat. Cyrus caught her body as it crumpled, cradling her in his arms as she gagged and retched blood into her lungs. Her sword hit the ground with a thud, no longer needed. A second later the crowd roared with shock and delight. Cyrus held her as he would a child, and he watched the life fade from her gray eyes.

  “Make them pay?” he whispered as he lay her body to the dirt. “With pleasure.”

  Cyrus looked to the paragons, then to the high-domed ceiling ringed with torches. He pulled out one of Thorda’s smoke stones from his pocket and smashed it to the ground. Smoke billowed around him, coupled with a bitter, burning taste in his throat. His other fist clenched.

  From shadows to shadows, he passed, until he descended from the darkened ceiling, his swords drawn, their blades pointed downward like the reaching claws of a bird of prey. His cloak rippled through the air behind him.

  “Above you!” he heard the Heir-Incarnate warn, but it was far too late.

  Cyrus crashed into Aidan like a meteor. His swords punched right through the platemail to bury deep into flesh. His momentum pulled the paragon downward, slamming them both to the ground. The embedded weapons dragged his body across the dirt. A howl of rage thundered out of Cyrus’s throat. When he stood, he ripped his weapons free in an explosion of blood that rent the slain paragon’s armor. As the crowd watched, he cut a bloody crown across the body’s forehead and then pointed the crimson-coated blade at Marcus. Somehow, he knew the grinning skull of his mask stretched wider.

  “You monster!” Marcus howled.

  Cyrus kicked backward, his body turning fully horizontal so the spear thrust gutted only empty air. Another thrust met his landing, but he parried it harmlessly above his head. Instead of dragging the weapon back, Marcus tried to sweep Cyrus’s legs out from under him with the butt of his spear. Cyrus hopped over it, then realized the ploy. The moment it was underneath him, Marcus jerked it straight upward. He thought Cyrus had nowhere to dodge, and in a way, he was right.

  So Cyrus didn’t dodge. He tucked his knees to his chest so that the spear struck his heels. Its force catapulted Cyrus up into the air. His arms twisted, every muscle in his body flexing to guide his movements. He passed over Marcus, upside down. Time seemed to slow for the briefest moment as their gazes connected. Cyrus’s arms lashed out, upper body twirling, his swords a blur.

  Cyrus landed amid a flourish of cloak and shining steel. He glanced over his shoulder, his hood falling from his face so the crowd might see his skull’s full grin.

  Marcus’s head fell from his shoulders, cleanly severed. His body went rigid, then collapsed in a heap of armor and flesh.

  The crowd cheered no longer.

  “I fear you are running out of paragons,” Cyrus called to Galvanis in the ensuing silence. A rush of conversation followed. This was hardly the display the Heir-Incarnate wanted; Cyrus took satisfaction in that. The question was, how might he respond?

  “It is the dying animal that is most dangerous,” Galvanis said after a moment’s pause. “And make no mistake, Thanet and her most ardent defenders will die this night.”

  Cyrus tilted his head slightly so his hood would cover half of his face. Torchlight flickered off his silver crown and bone mask. These people, these loyalists to distant Gadir, would see his defiance, and they would remember it. His confidence. His slaughter of the paragons. Even against such a trap, he would shift matters to his benefit until he found a way to save his friends.

  “And who will kill me?” he asked. “Is it you?”

  That confidence unnerved even the Heir-Incarnate.

  “I know what you are, Vagrant,” he said. His voice was softer, and for the first time he spoke only to Cyrus. “I was there in Miquo. I saw the bloodshed left in the wake of the Skull-Amid-the-Trees. Faith and fanaticism grant you boons unworthy of your stature. The righteousness compelling you weighs false before the truth of Thanet. I know of your family, and of whom they overthrew.”

  Galvanis turned and raised his hand to the side. Toward Sinshei, suddenly stiff in her seat. To Keles in her dark armor. The booming projection of his voice returned.

  “Keles Lyon Orani,” he said. “Ready your sword and shield. I would have you slay this pretender to your stolen throne. Hidden from both city and stars, let us witness the death of the missing Prince Cyrus Lythan.”

  CHAPTER 44

  VAGRANT

  The gate beneath the Heir-Incarnate rose, opened by a turning of gears and wheels controlled by a soldier in a little side booth high up near the back of the arena. Cyrus stood tall and patient, glad that his mask hid his rising fear. Murmurs and shouts rolled through the crowd. The repetition of his name. His old name.

  Prince Cyrus?

  The rumors had been seeded for years now, a whisper by the Coin, an “unbelievable” tale repeated by Clarissa over drinks. This moment, it was long in coming, yet everything about it felt wrong. It felt like theft. The moment was meant to be his. His victorious reveal, his defiant rebellion against death itself, had been stolen from him.

  He glared at the distant Lord Mosau. Keles might have revealed his identity, but he doubted that after their previous conversations. No, Jase had most certainly been the one to tell Galvanis. How long had the Heir-Incarnate known? Had it been all this time? Or only upon the lord’s recent arrival to Vallessau?

  It changes nothing, he told himself. The Vagrant’s legend was well spread throughout Thanet. The truth of royal blood in his veins, and of his vengeance against the conquerors who took his throne, would only enhance it further. He told himself that as Keles stepped into the arena with her sword and shield drawn and ready.

  “Behold the obedient woman,” Galvanis shouted to the crowd. “Perhaps you know her as the Light of Vallessau, but that is not her true name.”

  Cyrus stood tall and pretended to be unbothered. He couldn’t give credence to the Heir-Incarnate’s posturing. Instead he focused on Keles. He watched the way she stiffly walked toward him. He saw the lowered position of her weapons. This plan, this spectacle, was not one she had foreseen.

  “Behold the bloodline whom the Lythan family enslaved! She should have been born to a throne, but the cowards who fled the nation of Mirli betrayed her and her kin. And now the lost prince rages. Now he demands retribution for what never should have been his.”

  Galvanis pointed a finger at Cyrus. His voice trembled with fury.

  “Hypocrite! Murderer! You have carved your bloody crown across too many of our faithful, but that crown is no more real than the one your father bore. Behold your better, who serves faithfully. The rightful heir will bend the knee, while you are a nuisance, a wretch, unwanted, unneeded. Be gone from us, Cyrus. The deserved queen serves Everlorn, in faithfulness and in obedience. You are merely a spoiled prince bathed in blood and raging against the inevitable.”

  He clapped his hands. The sound boomed like thunder.

  “Slay the past, Keles Orani. Become the future.”

  Cyrus looked to the woman he had considered a dear friend. Did her anger match the Heir-Incarnate’s? Did she mirror his claims of betrayal? Her sword and shield rose, and so he raised his own weapons.

  “These crimes of the past, I would make them right if I could,” he told her.

  “Even as king, it is beyond your abilities,” she said. “I did not choose this battle, Cyrus, but I will end it. Sinshei will deliver us. Not you.”

  Keles lunged with her sword, but it was slow, half-hearted. Cyrus deflected it aside with his off-hand and countered with a hit he knew she would block with her shield. This battle, this skirmish, it wasn’t real yet. They exchanged hits, their weapons colliding in a rhythm that would sound like battle to those in attendance but in truth threatened neither of them. Not yet.

  “You can’t be so foolish as to trust her,” Cyrus said. He parried, the dance between them growing in tempo, and then countered with a sideways slash.

  “You know what I was promised,” Keles said, blocking with her shield.

  “It will not end with my death.” He pressed harder against her shield, forcing her to expend more strength to hold him back. “There will always be another nuisance to slay. How many lives will die at your blade, all for the temptation the Anointed offers? How many faithful to Lycaena and Endarius will bleed out at your feet? She would offer you reign over an island of bones!”

  That got her blood boiling. She lashed at him, alternating blows with her sword and shield. He kept light on his feet, circling her. What attacks he parried sent vibrations up his arms. She was strong, so very strong, but her paragon strength was born of ten slain. His sacrifices numbered forty at the moment of his ascendence, and so many more as the imperial occupation continued.

  At last he dug in his heels and crossed swords with her. Back and forth, testing reactions, the Endarius blade striking her longsword. He kept his off-hand back, waiting at the ready.

  “An island of bones is what you would deliver us!” Keles shouted. “Is that what you would set your throne upon?”

  He thrust for her exposed throat, and she parried at the last moment. A shiver ran down his spine. Had he known she would deflect it in time?

  Had he even cared?

  “At least it would be our throne!” he shouted back. “Our own, taken by our own hands, not gifted back by the conquerors who stole it in the first place.”

  His feet were too slow. Her shield caught his chest, and he rolled with the blow to prevent it from breaking his ribs.

  “Who are you to talk of stolen thrones, Cyrus?”

  Back up to his feet. He bounced on his toes, his hilts itching in his hands. He glared from behind his mask.

  “You have to know you’re wrong,” he told her. “Please. Do not do this.”

  Keles settled into a battle stance, her shield up, her sword at the ready. Not a single emotion dared betray itself upon her face.

  “I’m sorry, Cyrus. I see no other way.”

  Cyrus shivered. The dark voice seethed in his mind, and that rage flooded his veins with acid.

  She sees it not, for I am the other way.

  That rage blanked his mind. It added speed to his movements and strength to blows that even paragons must be wary of. He blasted her shield with his swords, hammering away at it no differently than when Rayan had come to test him in Thorda’s countryside mansion.

  “Hold you no faith in me?” he shouted at her. Two quick thrusts positioned her sword wrong, and he followed it up with a heel to her gut. She staggered, her breath lost. “No way, you tell me? No way, you insist, to the only hope the island has left?”

  The brazenness of his assault sparked her own anger, and she charged into him with her shield leading. He met it with his shoulder, used the sword in the opposite arm to block her overhead chop, and then shoved her away. Steel clashed with steel as he spun, batting away another quick thrust meant to gut him while he retreated. He came out of the spin with both swords together, a mighty blow against her shield that rocked her backward on her heels.

  “Look at me!” he shouted. “Do you not see Thanet’s freedom made real?”

  Keles turned and spat blood from a split lip.

  “I look at you and see death, Vagrant! Am I the one who is truly blind?”

  Blind, she called him, while serving the Anointed One. Death, she named him, while fighting in the name of the empire that had hung thousands at the Dead Flags. He would hear no more. He dashed at her, sudden and vicious. A panicked chop met his charge. He reversed his grip of his off-hand, blocked the chop, and then exploded into motion. His other sword thrust in and then turned, the curved edge locking aside the shield so she could not withdraw it. His leg shot up to kick her elbow. She screamed at the pain, and reflexes loosened her grip on her weapon. A shove, and the sword bounced off his block. A twist of his feet, a slash, and he knocked the sword free from her hand entirely.

  Panic had her fling her entire weight behind her shield, pushing away his longer blade. He suddenly stopped resisting and instead allowed her momentum to become his. He danced before her, twisting, all black and gray and dark cloak and shining silver. His leg swept behind her knees. His sword hit the lowest edge of the shield, breaking it out of her grasp. When she landed he kicked, rolling her onto her stomach.

  No mercy. No hesitation. He closed the distance between them and towered over her. The rage that fueled him refused to relent. The roaring crowd was oil upon a fire. He saw red. He saw doubt. Fear. Surrender to imperial rule. She was everything that would destroy his island. His island!

  “Is that it?” he asked her.

  Keles did not defend herself. Instead she pulled up to her knees, her head lowered, her fingers digging grooves into the dirt. To see her so resigned to death, to not fight even to her last breath, stabbed his burning heart with ice. The murmurs of the crowd died down to nothing. All was shadowed and alone, just him, Keles, and the dark voice that whispered in the back of his mind.

  She seeks your crown.

  The Endarius blade rose. Behind the locked gate, Rayan cried out a wordless denial. Cyrus felt free of his own body. His movements were of another. Galvanis watched, enraptured. The crowd shrieked for blood. And yet still Keles knelt with head bowed. Waiting. His sword rose. Ready. Eager. The image shifted, changed.