Trail of Lightning

Chapter 31

I enter the arena.

Shouting slaps my senses. Blood rushes through my veins, pounding in my ears, turning everything into a dull roar. I scan the crowd, packed to capacity and screaming in a frothing frenzy, but I can’t see much with the bright glare of the lights in my face. Mósí is a shadow in a glass box, same with the place where Clive should be. Kai is lost to the gloom somewhere, waiting back in the cell I just came from, ready with his medicine bag and what prayers he knows, should I need them.

And then something bright catches my eye. Ma’ii. Still in his cerulean and tangerine. He twirls a short soot-blackened stick though his clawed fingers, grinning. It takes me a moment to realize what it is.

He touches the drill to the tip of his top hat, a salute. Or a sendoff.

And I know. I know who is waiting for me on the other side of the ring a split second before they announce his name.

“Naayéé’ Neizghání!”

He steps out of the tunnel opposite mine and the crowd falls to a hushed awe. He is as magnificent as I remember him. Handsome, yes, but feral and utterly otherworldly. Waist-length ebony hair swings freely down his back. Eyes dark as the hour before dawn. His face chiseled by a master. Sharp cheekbones, an aquiline nose, and heavy brows. He’s without his flint armor today, his bare chest banded with thick muscle and a stylized lightning tattoo over his heart. His broad legs are clad in soft leather, and he wears traditional hunting moccasins. He’s every inch the hero of legend, stepped out of the stories and into the pit to fight me.

Silence falls as he strides out into the arena, graceful and deadly. I know him, have trained with him for years, am sworn to try to kill him tonight, and even I stand open-mouthed and stunned in his presence. He lifts his hand and he’s holding a lightning dagger, a smaller version of his iconic sword, in his fist. He smiles. Bedlam erupts, the crowd chanting his name.

He looks at me, those terrible eyes boring into me, and his smile breaks into a grin, warming as the sunrise.

“Yá’át’ééh, Chíníbaá.” His voice carries over the din of the crowd, rolling over me like thunder. “I did not expect to see you this day.”

I struggle for a moment to think. Manage to croak out a single word.

“Why?”

My voice is taut as a drum. I am shivering, sweat running down my back, my hands so slick that it’s hard to hold my knife. Mósí is saying something about the fight, announcing odds or rules or something equally irrelevant. The only thing I can think of is the man in front of me. A million questions roll through my mind. I want to run to him and wrap my arms around him, hold on and never let go. I want to sink my knife into his heart and make him suffer like I’ve suffered. But most of all I want to know why. Why did he leave me? Why didn’t he come back? Why now? Why here? Just . . . why?

He laughs, a deep earthy rumble. “Where else shall I be? I have come to claim what belongs to me and mine, by blood if I must. The question should be, why are you here? Death comes to all the five-fingereds in time,” he continues. “Are you sure that this is your time?”

I try to speak, but my voice has abandoned me. My heart jackhammers in my chest.

He lifts both his hands, silencing the crowd. Light blazes off the tip of his dagger. “Let no one say Neizghání is not without mercy!” he shouts. He turns to me. “Walk away now, Chíníbaá.”

“No!” A shriek from the glass box. Mósí. “You are promised to the ring, as is she. You cannot forfeit the fight without angering the Diyin Dine’é.”

Neizghání lifts his chin and shouts back at the Cat. “What is the anger of the gods to me? Will my mother turn away from me? Will my father strike me down? I am not afraid.” He looks at me, but he’s playing to the crowd. “And you, Chíníbaá,” he says with a knowing smile, “are you afraid?”

I swallow. Lick at lips that are dry, and remember why I’m here. “Ma’ii’s played us both. He has the fire drill.”

He looks surprised. “Of course he has the Black God’s drill. He stole it from my mother’s House in the West. He has promised to return it to me once we are done here.”

“But . . .” I stutter, my mind trying desperately to process this new information. Neizghání knows? Does that mean I’m right and he’s part of this? Or does it mean that the drill has nothing to do with the monsters at all? But then how . . .

The crowd is too loud. Screaming for our blood. I can’t think.

Neizghání looks down at me, something like pity on his face. “Cede the fight, Chíníbaá. Go home.”

“No.” I know I’m being irrational. That I don’t need to fight Neizghání at all. What little logic I can muster is telling me that Ma’ii is behind this, that the promise of the fire drill was just a ploy to lure me here to face Neizghání. I’ve been set up and the only way out of the trickster’s game is to walk away. But I can’t. Pride and fear and too much anger make it impossible.

The Bear clan guard was right. Ma’ii’s got my number down.

I stand up straight. My eyes rove over the stands. I remember what the Bear clan guard said about playing to the crowd. I dig deep, past the fear and shock, rally long enough for this: I cock my hip out, raise my Böker, and with a kind of easy confidence that Kai would be proud of, I start cleaning my nails. Slow, unconcerned. With seven inches of sharp steel.

“Perhaps you are the one who should surrender,” I say. “Let it not be said that I, Chíníbaá, am not without mercy!”

It’s the most ridiculous kind of bravado, but it works. The crowd roars. And now they’re chanting my name. Chíníbaá! Chíníbaá! Not as loudly, but it’s better than it was.

His frown deepens. “What are you playing at?” His voice is low now, pitched only for my ears.

“You left me,” I hiss. “I thought you weren’t coming back.” A thought occurs to me. “Were you coming back? Ever?”

He doesn’t even have the decency to look apologetic. Just stares me down. Son of a bitch. And I realize I’m not scared anymore. I’m pissed off.

“We fight!” I scream, throwing up my arms. The crowd echoes me, picking up the chant of my name, pushing it to a frenzied pitch.

He shakes his head, disgusted. “So stubborn,” he mutters. He’s not happy.

“You should know,” I fire back. Childish, but I don’t care.

“Just remember that you chose this.” He brings his hands together in a booming clap. “No mercy, then. We fight!”

And the bell rings.

I strike.

He blocks my attack, pushing me back, light on his feet. But I am light on mine, too.

We circle, testing. Strike, parry, again. It is so familiar, this violent dance. We’ve done it a thousand times in practice.

His reach is twice mine. He slashes, lazy, ripping across my bare arm. The ice of his blade burns across my skin, and then searing heat, and blood trickles down my bicep. He’s drawn first blood. Easy. Just like that.

I don’t wait. I draw on my clan powers. Liquid fire flashes through my veins, like drinking flames, and time seems to slow as I speed up. My muscles flex and bulge, expanding. Power buoys me, sends me soaring. And now we are closer to matched. But the clock is ticking on my clan powers, and he’s moving again.

He rushes me, trying to take me to the ground. I wait until the last moment, then move, bringing my foot in to sweep his legs and let his momentum carry him down. He hits the dirt with a grunt, surprised. I lung for his kidneys, knife pointed, but he rolls and I hit air.

He’s on his feet, eyes wide with disbelief. “Are you actually trying to kill me?”

“That’s the idea.” I know he hasn’t seen me this fast since that first time, and I’m not a desperate little girl anymore. He’s made sure of that.

One minute he’s there, and the next he’s on me. This time he anticipates my speed. He wraps huge arms around me, pushing to take me to the ground. I fight him, digging in and pushing back. He roars, muscles bunching. Then he lifts me off my feet and slams me down. My breath flees, and I gasp for air.

The crowd explodes in screams and he laughs, raising his arms theatrically at their cries. He turns that smile on me. He’s not even breathing hard. “I miss this,” he says. “I miss you. Come back to me.”

I lie there trying to breathe, trying to understand his motives, his next move. “You left me.”

His face is virtuous, but his voice mocks me. “I needed some time.”

“For a year?”

“Was it that long? You seem none the worse for it.” His eyes travel over my chest, so much of it bared by the shirt. “In fact, I think it did you well.” He grins big, flips his hair back over his shoulder. “Maybe you should thank me.”

“Fuck you,” I spit. Roll and swing my knife, plunging it into his leg.

All humor drains from his face and he grits his teeth, holding back a howl of pain. He grabs me by the forearm and plucks me off the ground. For a moment I dangle at the end of his reach like a fish on a line, and then he tosses me away.

My arms pinwheel as I fall, but I manage to catch myself on my elbows instead of flat on my back this time. My head snaps back painfully, but I still hold my weapon.

His dagger hilt comes down brutally, and I feel something shatter in my wrist.

I scream and my fingers release with a spasm of agony. With a kick he sends my Böker skittering across the pit, out of reach. I drag my useless hand in close to my chest and try to roll away. He pins me, straddling my stomach, keeping me on my back.

I lift my hips and throw my legs up around his chest, trapping his arms. He tries to break free, but I hold. I rock my hips, forcing him down, as the same force raises me up. For a moment we sit entwined, face-to-face.

I have the advantage, but my hand is useless. I do the only thing I can think of. I slam my forehead into his nose. Blood spurts and he roars and break his arms free. As if I weigh nothing, he throws me across the arena.

I crash into the dirt, shoulder crushed at impact, head bouncing off the ground. I lie there, stunned. He’s playing with me. Of course he is. Even with all my clan powers, I am no match. This is a game to him. But now I’ve made him mad and I can sense the game is over.

I have to move.

But I can’t. Something bad has broken in my body, and I can’t get it to respond.

My heart hammers loudly, the only thing I can hear. The crowd has faded to the hazy rumble of a far-off windstorm. I blink, but it’s slow, so slow. My clan powers are depleted, used up under the stress of the fight, and I can’t even move. Shocked, helpless, and hurt, I just watch as he stalks toward me.

I fight to even stay conscious. Darkness closes in at the edges of my vision.

I think I see Kai, struggling against the Bear clan guards. Yelling something that I can’t hear. But something’s wrong. He’s so far away. And he’s glowing, an impossible silvery figure surrounded by a dark nimbus of shadow. That can’t be right.

Neizghání’s hand grabs my good shoulder and flips me on my back. I scream as pain shoots up my spine. He stands over me, his chin and chest covered in blood. I shattered his nose.

He drops to his knees, straddling me again. This time, I don’t have the strength to challenge him. He’s heavy, and he grinds his weight into my pelvis. Panic grips me, and I struggle weakly to get away. He squeezes his thighs, holding me still.

I begin to shake. The aftermath of the massive doses of adrenaline the clan powers require. Or shock. Fear washes over me in a blinding wave.

He leans over me, his long silken hair a caress against my skin. His big hand reaches down to grasp my neck and pull my face to his. I wait for him to crush my windpipe, but instead he runs a gentle thumb down the side of my throat. I look up into his eyes, fathomless pools of night.

“I could break your neck with the turn of my wrist,” he says matter-of-factly. “Is that what you want?” His face darkens. His hand squeezes my throat.

I can’t speak, couldn’t answer him if I wanted to. I choke on my own blood and tears.

His eyes soften as he watches me struggle. “Ah, Chíníbaá, you are so fierce, so beautiful,” he breathes, wonder in his voice. “But you don’t know when to quit. You never have.”

And then his bloody lips are on mine, forcing my mouth open with his tongue as he kisses me. He is rough, brutal and possessive. I taste iron and salt. Holding my throat in his one hand, mouth still on mine, he reaches down with the other hand, wraps his fingers around the hilt of his weapon, and thrusts his lightning blade up and under my ribs.

Digging for my heart.