“What the fuck!” Cheyenne pushed magicals aside as she raced toward L’zar. “How can you just stand there? Do something!”
L’zar slowly removed his gaze from the flames, shot her a brief glance, and lifted a hand for her to wait.
“Fuck you.” Cheyenne spun toward the edge of the pit, meaning to leap down into it.
Her father’s cold, slender fingers clamped around her wrist and jerked her back.
“Let go of me!”
“Just wait.” L’zar’s golden eyes were filled with a calm but fierce warning. “Watch, Cheyenne. This is important for you to see.”
“To watch him die?” She jerked her wrist from his grasp and turned to face the blazing pit again. L’zar’s hand settled on her shoulder instead, maybe as a warning, maybe to hold her in place. Cheyenne didn’t try to shrug it off this time because she saw movement in the flames.
The green and black fire spewed higher into the air, illuminating the faces around the pit with an eerie green glow. A warm wave of heat and magical energy passed through the crowd and funneled deep underground, spreading around everyone and beyond the city limits. The spectators chanted and stomped their feet in rhythm again, tossing their heads back to howl at the sky as they watched the green blaze intently.
The deathflame shrank, flickering slowly until it died and winked out. In its place stood Corian, palms turned outward and slightly raised beside his thighs, his eyes closed. A hush fell over the crowd when they saw him standing unscathed in the center of the pit.
Then the nightstalker’s eyes flew open and settled on Maleshi. “Blood and glory.”
She threw her head back and laughed before jumping up the wall out onto the flat ground, surrounded by cheering O’gúleesh. Then she spun and reached back down to help Corian up and out. Hands clapped his shoulders and back as the nightstalkers clasped forearms and grinned at each other.
“Think you got it out of your system?” he asked.
“Maybe. Maybe not.” Maleshi squeezed his hand even tighter and cocked her head. “The pits are open now, vae shra’ni. We’ll just have to let things play out.”
Laughing, Corian released her and headed around the open pit toward L’zar and Cheyenne. The halfling stared at him in disbelief, a chill racing down her spine even as her eyes told her he was fine.
She slit his throat. She killed him. And the fire?
L’zar and Corian clasped forearms and shared a brief, sturdy hug, slapping each other on the back. The drow chuckled. “Looks like you needed that.”
“Maybe I did.” Corian turned toward Cheyenne and raised his eyebrows. “You’re looking a little pale even for a drow, kid.”
Cheyenne looked him up and down. “You’re okay.”
“Better than okay. I know you felt it. The deathflame.”
“I don’t know what the hell I felt.” She lurched toward him and grabbed his arms, staring at the spot on his neck Maleshi had sliced open minutes before. A hard lump formed in her throat, and she forced it away as she stared at the nightstalker. “I thought you were dead.”
“I could have been. If I’d yielded.” Corian tapped the underside of her arms and cocked his head. “I’m pretty sure this is the closest you get to giving hugs, but you’re digging into my arms.”
“Shit. Sorry.” She released him immediately and ignored L’zar’s laughter. All around them, the liberated magicals got back to their celebration. The drums kicked up again, and the sound of metal slicing through metal ripped through the air as the metal covers over the other five fighting pits in Vedrosha were ripped off and destroyed. Cheyenne ignored it all. “Will someone please tell me what the hell happened? I can’t wrap my head around this.”
Smiling, Corian stood beside her and looked down into the fighting pit. “That was the deathflame, kid. One version of it, at least. You might say it’s a kind of lifeforce running through this world. Keeping us sane. Whole.”
She snorted. “You didn’t look whole when you were bleeding out in the sand.”
“That’s part of the tribute.” Corian tugged his rolled-up shirtsleeves back down over his arms. “The fighting pits have been fueling the lifeforce magic of Ambar’ogúl since the beginning. We fight. We spill each other’s blood in the pits. Those of us willing to walk through the deathflame heal the land, which heals us in turn.”
“Wait.” Cheyenne scanned the sandy bottom of the pit, from which Corian’s dark blood was gone without a trace. “Fighting. That’s what keeps this entire world running?”
“Something like that, yeah. In the pits, at least. We all get an extra boost when a fighter refuses to yield and chooses the deathflame instead.”
“And you have to almost die for that to happen?”
“It varies.” Corian chuckled. “Maleshi doesn’t end any battle without giving the people a good show.”
“Jesus.” Cheyenne rubbed her mouth and stared at the perfectly white sand.
Laughing and cheering with the other citizens around them, Maleshi joined Cheyenne and Corian and thumped a hand down on the nightstalker man’s shoulder. “What a way to kick off these two weeks, huh?”
“It’s relatively satisfying, sure.”
Maleshi grinned at Cheyenne. “What do you think?”
“I think you’re all insane.”
“Ha! Probably. But we stay true to who we are, and that might make us saner than anyone else. That bitch should never have sealed these up.”
Cheyenne frowned and glanced at the magicals dancing past them, whooping and roaring in excitement as they headed toward the other open pits to watch more fights. “That added to the mess the Crown made of this place, didn’t it?”
“Oh, you told her?” Maleshi shot Corian a sidelong glance, and he dipped his head in humble acknowledgment. “I bet he didn’t mention who came out of that fight with another victory under his belt, huh?”
“Corian won the fight?” Cheyenne’s eyes widened as she glanced at them.
“I would have if he’d yielded. He never does.” Maleshi tossed her dark hair out of her face and folded her arms. “Takes a lot of balls to get
