King's Cage

I hear Cal’s voice in my head, even as he tenses, settling into an all-too-familiar stance. Burner. Ten yards. My hands fall to my sides, fingers swirling as purple-white sparks jump in and out of my skin. Across the circle, he flicks his wrists—and searing heat blazes across my palms.

I yelp, jumping back to see my sparks are red flame. He took them from me. With a burst of energy, I thrust them back into lightning. They ripple, wanting to become fire, but I hold my concentration, keeping the sparks from bursting out of control.

“First blow to Calore!” Kilorn yells at the edge of the circle. A mix of groans and cheers runs through the still-growing crowd. He claps and thumps his feet. It reminds me of the arena, the Stilts, when he yelled for Silver champions. “Let’s go, Mare, pick it up!”

A good lesson, I realize. Cal didn’t have to open our spar by revealing something I wasn’t prepared for. He could have held it back. Waited to use that unseen advantage. Instead, he played that piece first. He’s going easy on me.

First mistake.

Ten yards away, Cal beckons, indicating for me to continue. A taunt as much as anything. He’s best on the defense. He wants me to come to him. Fine.

At the edge of the circle, Ella mutters a warning to the crowd. “I’d step back if I were you.”

My fist clenches, and lightning strikes. It rips down with blinding force, hitting the circle dead center, like an arrow to a bull’s-eye. But it doesn’t dig into the ground, cracking the earth as it should. Instead, I use a combination of storm and web. The purple-white bolt flares across the sparring circle, racing over the dirt at knee height. Cal throws up an arm to protect his eyes from the bright flash, using the other hand to ripple the sparks around him, morphing them to blazing blue flame. I sprint and burst from the lightning he can’t bear to look at. With a roar, I slide into his legs, knocking him down. He hits the sparks and flops, seizing from the shock as I pop back to my feet.

Red-hot heat brushes my face, but I push it back with a shield of electricity. Then I’m on the ground too, legs swept out from under me. My face hits the ground hard and I taste dirt. A hand grabs my shoulder, a hand that burns, and I swing out with an elbow, catching his jaw. That burns too. His entire body is aflame. Red and orange, yellow and blue. Waves of heat distortion pulse from him, making the entire world sway and undulate.

Scrambling, I scoop my arm against the dirt and haul, chucking as much as I can into his face. He flinches, and it smothers some of his fire, giving me enough time to get to my feet. With another swing of my arms, I pull a whip of lightning into form, sparking and hissing in the air. He dodges each blow, rolling and ducking, light as a dancer on his feet. Fireballs spit from my electricity, the pieces I can’t entirely control. Cal pulls them into churning whips of his own, surrounding the circle in an inferno. Purple and red clash, spark and burn, until the packed dirt beneath us churns like a stormy sea, and the sky goes black, raining thunderbolts.

He dances close enough for a blow. I feel the force of his fist ripple as I drop beneath it, and I smell burned hair. I get in a strike of my own, landing a brutal elbow to a kidney. He grunts in pain but responds in kind, ripping flaming fingers down my back. My flesh ripples with fresh blisters, and I bite my lip to keep from screaming. Cal would stop the fight if he knew how much this hurt. And it hurts. Pain shrieks up my spine and my knees buckle. Scrambling, I throw out my arms to stop a fall, and the lightning pushes me to my feet. I push through the searing pain because I have to know what it feels like. Maven will probably do worse when the time comes.

I use web again, a defensive maneuver to keep his hands off me. A strong bolt races up his leg, into his muscles, nerves, and bones. The skeleton of a prince flashes in my head. I pull back the blow enough to avoid permanent damage. He twitches, falling onto his side. I’m on him without thinking, working the bracelets I’ve seen him latch and unlatch a dozen times. Beneath me, his eyes roll and he tries to fight me off. The bracelets go flying, glinting purple against my sparks.

An arm wraps around my middle, flipping me over. The ground against my back is like a tongue of white-hot fire. I scream this time, losing control. Sparks burst from my hands, and Cal flies back of his own accord, scrambling from the fury of lightning.

Fighting tears, I push up, fingers digging into the dirt. A few yards away, Cal does the same. His hair is wild with static energy. We’re both wounded, both too proud to stop. We stagger to our feet like old men, swaying on uneasy limbs. Without his bracelets, he calls to the grass burning on the edge of the circle, forming flame from embers. It rockets at me as my lightning bursts again.

Both collide—with a tingling blue wall. It hisses, absorbing the force of both strikes. Then it disappears like a window wiped clean.

“Perhaps next time you two should spar in the range field,” Davidson calls. Today the premier looks like everyone else in his plain green uniform, standing on the edge of the circle. At least, it was a circle. Now the dirt and grass are a charred mess, completely torn up, a battleground ripped apart by our abilities.

Hissing, I sit back down, quietly grateful for the end. Even breathing hurts my back. I have to lean forward on my knees, clenching my fists against the pain.

Cal takes a step toward me, then collapses as well, falling back on his elbows. He pants heavily, chest rising and falling with exertion. Not even enough strength to offer a smile. Sweat coats him from head to toe.

“Without an audience, if possible,” Davidson adds. Behind him, as the smoke clears, another blue wall of something divides the spectators from our spar. With a wave of Davidson’s hand, it blinks out of existence. He gives a tight, bland smile and indicates the symbol on his arm, his designation. A white hexagon. “Shield. Quite useful.”