God, I will enjoy this.
The magic was in full swing. The crowd waited, electric with anticipation. A smile blazed across
Mart's face. His blade was still sheathed.
Curran shifted his clawed feet in the sand next to me.
Above us on the balcony, Sophia, the producer, held up an enormous yellow stone. Luminescent,
lemon yellow, shaped like a tear, it shone and played in her hands like a living current of gold,
capturing the light and tossing it back in a dazzling display of fire.
Sophia raised it above her head-her arms quaked with strain-and shouted. «Let the Games
begin!»
The rakshasas' mage weaved her arms through the air.
I swung my two swords, Slayer in my right hand and the tactical blade in my left.
Mart reached for his sheath, clamped it, and slid the blade free, tossing the sheath onto the sand.
A wide blade stared at me, red like the finest ruby.
Everything slowed to a crawl, and in the ensuing stillness, my heartbeat boomed through me,
impossibly loud. The Scarlet Star. One of Roland's hellish personal weapons, a sword he had forged
over five years out of his own blood. It had the power to fire thirteen bursts of magic. Like
enchanted saw blades, they would lock onto their targets, slice through anything in their path, and
cleave their objective in half. They couldn't be dodged. They couldn't be blocked. The blade itself
couldn't be broken by an ordinary weapon. Even Curran couldn't snap it.
We would die instantly. Curran might survive long enough to be torn apart by the rakshasas.
I couldn't let him die.
I whipped about, slow as if underwater, and saw him looking back at me with gray eyes from a
monster's face.
What do I do? How can I keep him alive?
It will be okay, Curran mouthed, but I couldn't hear him, all sound blocked by my panic.
I turned back. Mart gripped the sword with both hands. The red blade glistened, as if wet with
blood. I had to destroy it, because if he completed a strike, all of us would die.
Blood. It was forged out of Roland's blood, the same blood that now coursed through my veins.
There might be a way to destroy the blade after all. If I could take possession of the sword.
The gong boomed. The world leapt back to its normal speed.
I charged.
Mart began to raise the sword for an overhead strike.
I had never run so fast in my life. The sand blurred. The blade point loomed before me, rising. I
grasped the crimson blade and shoved it into my stomach.
It hurt. My blood drenched the red substance of the sword. Mart stared at me, stunned. I grasped
Mart's hand and pushed the sword deeper into me. The point broke through my back. Deeper. All
the way to the hilt.
The blade sat inside me, a wedge of hot agony. My blood coated the metal, forging a link with
Roland's. Around me the shapeshifters crashed into the rakshasas. I whispered a power word.
«Hessaad.» Mine.
Magic surged inward from the surface of my skin, from the tips of my fingers and toes, and
locked onto the sword. The blade sparked, sending jolts of pain through me. It felt as though a
clump of barbed wire were being drawn through my gut. I clawed on to reality, trying not to pass
out. The Arena reeled, spinning in a calico whirlpool, and through the smudge of faces, I saw Hugh
d'Ambray on his feet, staring at me as if he had seen a demon.
My biological father's blood reacted with mine and recognized it. The sword was mine. It would
obey. Now.
«Ud,» I whispered. Die. The power word that never worked. To will something to die, one must
first have complete possession of it.
Magic tore from me. The sword buckled in my body, like a living creature, vibrating, striving to
break free. Agony flooded me in a brilliant burst. I screamed.
The sword shattered. Pieces of the blade floated to the ground in a fine red powder. Inside my
body the part of the sword that had been in me disintegrated into dust and mixed with my blood,
spreading through my body. Roland's blood, scalding me as if my insides had been dropped into
boiling oil. So much power . . .
The fire melted my legs. I fell down onto the sand. The inferno inside me was cooking me alive,
wringing tears from my eyes. I tried to move, but my muscles refused to obey. Every cell of my
body was on fire.
The whole thing had taken five, six seconds from start to finish, enough time to impale myself on
the blade and utter two words. Hugh had been right-I would die today. But the unbreakable sword
was shattered and Curran would live. And so would the rest of them. Not bad for five seconds of
work.
A horrible roar shook the Arena. I jerked my head. Curran had seen me fall and charged over to
me. The elephant thundered to intercept him, and Curran disemboweled him with one strike,
leaping past him. No need to hurry, Your Majesty. It's too late for me anyway.