“Now, at long last I find you. I will kill you for what you did!”
He feints high and shifts, swinging in low when I move to block. I dance backwards, but the blade catches my abs, slicing in. Luckily it’s only skin deep.
“I didn’t,” I say.
“Fight them, you said,” he says, accenting each syllable with a strike of his sword. “We’re warriors, you said.”
“We were!” I exclaim.
“We were kids! The warriors were already dead,” he says. “Our fathers died but no, you said we could take them.”
“And what would you have done?” I ask, counterattacking.
He retreats under my assault. I press harder and manage to nick his chest. A trickle of blood, but blood is blood in the arena. It waters the sands.
“What I urged the Council,” he says, turning the attack back on me. “Hide. Run. Regroup where we weren’t outnumbered.”
The pain in my chest isn’t from the battle. Memories surge as he speaks, and I know he was right. I should have listened to him then, and maybe none of the rest would have happened. Or it would have and it would have only delayed the inevitable.
“Seven Widows,” I curse. “You think fate isn’t woven for us?”
“Fate?” he growls the word then swings for my legs.
I leap over his blade but jump into his fist. His punch hits me in the jaw and I see stars. I flip up and over, landing hard on my back, my breath knocked out of me. I scramble backwards as blood fills my mouth.
“Fate!” I exclaim, then roll over and over to get distance between us.
I come to a stop and climb to my feet. He’s huffing. His stamina is weak. He’s used all his energy in his over the top attacks at the start. He’s new to the arena.
“Bitral,” I say, circling wide around him. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” He wipes sweat from his forehead. “I’ll make you taste your sorrows.”
He charges, bellowing a wordless cry. I wait and watch. As he closes, he leans towards me, committing his weight to the run. At the last instant I drop and sweep my foot across his front leg. It sends him flying past me, and he lands face first in the sand.
I can’t let him get up. I leap onto his back. I drop my sword and wrap my arm around his neck, pulling back. He struggles hard but I get the lock, clamping my other arm.
“You Widows’ cursed bastard,” he hisses, his face turning dark as I choke him.
The crowd jeers. They don’t like grappling matches. They want blood.
“Listen to me,” I say.
“No,” he says. “You killed them. You killed them all.”
“I can’t change the past,” I say. “We can only live in the now. I live with my mistakes every day.”
“And you’ll die with them today,” he says.
He grabs my arm and pulls with a strength born of desperation. I struggle to hold my grip. The oil they cover our bodies with isn’t helping. I lose it and he bucks, throwing me off him.
I hit the sands and roll, grabbing my sword where I dropped it. We rise together, glaring at each other, once more armed and on our feet.
“I don’t want to kill you,” I say.
“I do want to kill you,” he says and attacks.
I let him lead the attacks, seeing him wear further with each exertion. He won’t last long, but it’s true, I don’t want to kill him. If we don’t make a show of it, the crowd will demand blood.
I dodge a swing, but he reverses unexpectedly and his blade cuts deep into my side. Blood spurts, and parts of my body that belong inside bulge out. Pain brings focus and anger.
If this Widows’ cursed bastard won’t listen to reason, then he can listen to my blade. I roar and charge. I press my attack hard, and he’s not ready. I knock his sword aside when he blocks an overhead blow and follow it up with my fist.
His head snaps to the side, teeth and blood flying from the blow. He stumbles backwards, swinging the sword wildly to try and keep me at bay. I slow down and press a hand to the cut on my side, forcing the protruding parts to tuck back inside.
Bitral touches his jaw, moving it back and forth while glaring in my direction. I wait, letting him recover. They want a show, I’ll give them one. I only hope I don’t have to kill my cousin. No matter how angry he is, the