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“You can’t be serious.” Lithian met Casseth’s stare, his own expression blank and disbelieving for several long seconds, until it became clear that Casseth was absolutely not kidding. Lithian shook his head, making a strangled sound between a groan, a whine, and a scoff of disbelief. “You’re serious. He’s serious?” he blurted, voice rising. “Araceli is round as Soudana’s moon, stressed, strung-out, and exhausted, twenty-three weeks pregnant with his infants…and he’s going to climb into a sandy, barbaric bloodbath of a testosterone-show with the very same man who poisoned you, who we know is happy to spit on the rules to win, and is probably intending to do the very same thing he did to you to him if he gets half an oblivionite’s chance at the afterlife?”

Lithian strung his hands into his hair, forcibly curbing the desire to yank. To scream. To deny until the facts became what he wanted them to.

“No. No, no, no — no. Why? Why. I don’t understand. I don’t understand. Why is he doing this? How could he possibly think this is a good idea? Is he out of his mind? Is he even thinking about what he’s risking? Or is he so hung up on his stupid, oversized, violent, bloodthirsty, revenge-driven ego, that he can’t manage to drag his head out of his arse for twenty consecutive seconds and realize that if he—” Lithian shut his eyes and drew a breath. “What if something happens to him? Mm? What if…” He groaned, rubbing at his horns as his voice dropped to a murmur. “I hate that infernal place with such a passion I swear I would have the ocean swallow it and all its creators up in a moment if I could…”

At the last comment, Lithian’s shoulders sank and he raised a hand to pinch at the bridge of his nose. “Of course she is,” he said. “Of course she is. The whole world is mad, and it is the design of my destiny that I should sit back and watch it spin. Abronaxus, help me to find peace of mind in these troubled times, because I am struggling.”

With that ‘prayer’ and a good bit more indecipherable murmuring, Lithian stalked off with the vague intent of seeking Araceli out himself. The rational part of him knew, though, that — unfortunately — there was likely nothing he could do to change either her or Detraeus’ mind in the matter. He had simply been ‘blessed’ with the company of three of the most stubborn persons the gods had ever designed to create. But he couldn’t help but try.



Hours before he was set to fight, Detraeus sat outside Ara’s house in Taliuma, perched on a rock near to where he and Casseth often sparred and inspecting the edge of a newly sharpened blade. It glinted in the early-afternoon sunlight, fresh and sharp. He had gone over each of his weapons religiously, fine tuning every dull edge, reassuring himself that they all slipped to and from their sheaths smoothly as through water. The spells on his arrows were active, his tips clean and precisely cut. All things he went over before every fight, normally, but this was a special case. He had more to gain — and far, far more to lose.

But then, he had no intention of losing.

After a last, full run through inspection, Detraeus set away all his blades in their proper sheaths, refastened his quiver, and headed inside. While he would miss the rush of the pit, as well as its convenience and the sizeable income it brought in, a part of him was relieved to have reason to quit. He preferred his time at Araceli’s side, and every day that he watched her grow bigger, he grew more anxious to move permanently into their new home, leave all of the city behind them and start clean, and safe, within the privacy of the mountains.

For now, though, he would settle for spending his remaining few hours before the coming pit match with Ara. After he removed Casseth’s poisoner from the realm of the breathing, the future could be decided from there. One step at a time.

“Ara?”

Detraeus tensed, moving in immediately at Araceli’s wince and placing one hand to her belly and one at the small of her back, both supporting as his wings stretched. “Are you alright? Are you hurting? Should I fetch Lithian?” His tail coiled around her as he spoke, pulse picking up with his concern that something had gone wrong and match — for the moment — entirely forgotten.

Detraeus watched her, but let himself be guided, startled and alert at first even after her reassurances. At the first kick of movement, though, his pulse stuttered up into his throat for an entirely different set of reasons. A rushing swell of emotion — pride, hope, joy — filled his chest in a wave, and he blinked rapidly, breathless and flushed. “Ara…”

When she kissed him, he shut his eyes, shuddered, and leaned into it. Everything he wanted was in his arms. It was a bizarre concept to him, but — now that he had managed to convince himself that it was genuine — one absolutely precious to him that he guarded viciously. He raised one hand, tangling it lightly in her hair, and left the other at her belly to thumb over the area where one of the twins had last kicked.

“I will,” he said. “I swear it to you.” Glancing down, he hesitated, and then crouched. Bent to one knee before her, he leaned forward, eyes shut, and pressed a gentle kiss to her belly. “And you two,” he added, softer. “I’m invincible, mm?” After looking back up to her and standing, he brushed his fingers along her cheek. “No one has proved me wrong yet. And no one will.” ‘Not for a very long time, if the gods favor me.’ “You won’t miss me but for a moment, and then it will be over. I will kill this thing and be done with this place, and we will move into the mountains and raise our children together. Do you believe me?”

“Mm…good,” he murmured.

Detraeus spent his remaining wait time with Ara, helping her around the house until the hour for his match drew near. They left together and met Lithian and Casseth there, at which point Detraeus reluctantly left Araceli in their company. He had tried a number of times to convince her to wait the event out and remain in the house, preferably with Cas or Lith for company and protection, until he returned. She refused, however, and he was thus saddled with worrying for her, too, as he made his way down, running through final preparations. The pit was no place for a woman over five months pregnant, but the matter was at this point out of his hands, and his wishes only went so far as a means of persuasion.

As the shaky, earthen elevator designed to deliver him to arena level made its way down, Detraeus felt a strange sense of calm. The crowds boomed as usual, a rumble like an earthquake from the surrounding area. It was a massive event. Not one, but two purebloods in the arena at once, each representing the ‘classical’ dynamic of tension in their world: light versus dark. Seren versus Soudana. ‘Order’ and chaos.

Detraeus had everything to lose as he set foot in the arena: a home, a mate, two children, friends, his ‘life’ which had suddenly become infinitely more valuable to him than it had once upon a time.

But he was not going to lose.



Lithian swore beneath his breath as he, Casseth, and Ara situated themselves. They were at the very lowest level, and — thanks to Takhi’s efforts — in a sectioned off area, thank the gods, where Araceli would not be bumped and jostled or additionally harassed. She’d received enough cat calling and stray commentary on the way in. Lithian did not trust the ‘usual crowd’ not to go further than that. Even with a private area, his nerves itched, his attention restless and jumpy. He never moved more than a few feet away from her and preferred to stay within touching range.

As they lined up along the front edge of their viewing spot and the crowd’s volume began rising — signalling the approach of the entrants, most likely — Lithian’s attention was locked on Ara, and he touched his fingers gently to her hip, gauging her reactions. It was a horrible idea to have her here. Too much shock or stress alone could negatively impact her pregnancy, even to the extent of inducing a miscarriage if extreme enough. But since she was here, he intended to give her the benefit of his full attention and take every possible precaution to see that things finished with the best outcome he could manage.

“You’re feeling alright?” he asked.

“We’re quite the event tonight, wouldn’t you say? Just listen to all those people…” The orderite with whom Detraeus was set to fight stretched his wings, staring up to the surrounding stadium and propping his palms on the hilts of blades to either side of his hips. “Pitiful. Restless, eager, and bored, with nothing else to do with their time or coin. And then there’s you…” The man tilted his head, eyeing Detraeus. “What are you doing back here after all? Little whispers in the ranks say you’ve gone soft…dropped your hybrid boyfriend—” Detraeus stiffened, “—and found yourself a dragon girl to ********. Even put your seed in her. Very ‘impressive,’ though I suppose, if she let you in, her standards can’t have been very—”

Detraeus spat.

“…high,” the ord finished with a delay and a grimace. “Is she watching? Come to see—”

“No.”

The bird’s eyebrows rose, twitching upwards. “So she is. How very curious…and the bent mix-blood too, I assume. So much disappointment to be had in so little time. I will make an effort to put on a good show for them, though, you have my word. Keep them on the edge of their seat…and take you out slow. Perhaps I’ll even find your woman after…teach her what it means to—”

The cue to start signaled, and Detraeus shoved back with his wings, Avarice in his hands and drawn in the span of seconds. He fired twice, but only managed to nick his opponent on the first shot, the man already up before the second. Moments after, the man was in on him. Detraeus blocked the first jab with his bow and shoved in, tail whipping around to lash and gouge into his opponent’s side. When the man slashed again, Detraeus crouched, dodging under the blade, yanking him off his feet with a coil and snap of his tail and catching another wingful of air to put space between them again.

They ‘danced’ like this for some time. In and out. Close-ranged and then distant again, like two weighted balls on an elastic string caught in a perpetual swing. Finally, though, his opponent began to tire, and close combat increased as the man’s advances became sharper, and more pronounced. Haphazard. Sloppier, but less predictable, and increasingly vicious with his frustration.

“Is she pretty, at least?” the man asked, panting as he swung in. Their blades rang out as Detraeus diverted the blow. “Will she scream if I split you open?” Detraeus dipped, darting back and blocking again as the man whipped around. His face glistened with sweat, his feathered wings stretched and taunting as a lazy half-smile curved up one side of his face. “And what if I ******** her for you after you’re gone…will she scream then?”

Detraeus swerved and jabbed, sinking a narrow blade into the man’s side and earning him a sharp cry, followed shortly thereafter with a snarl. He nicked, and ducked, taking advantage of the orderite’s new injury — and consequent slowness — to take gouges out of his legs, his sides, his arms. Shallow wounds, here and there like lacerations, until the man was staggering. At that point, he drove deeper, sinking a larger blade halfway through his opponent’s left thigh before pulling back out.

The orderite made heavy use of his wings when he lunged, but with a failing leg, the advance came sloppier than before, and with a pivot and rough thrust of his own, Detraeus cracked his hilt into the man’s fingers. In a moment, he had him disarmed, kicked the blade away, and blocked the other’s path to it. Then, he drove forward again, slower. He clipped at the man’s fingers, listening to him scream, sliced more, long, shallow incisions along his already heavily bloodied skin until finally, the orderite toppled to one knee. Panting, shaking, and staining the sand beneath him, he spat blood onto the arena floor.

“Alright, you win—you win, stop. Just…stop—I forfeit. Is that what you want to hear?” he snapped, voice brittle and hoarse, forced through grit teeth. “Is that what you want to hear?”

Detraeus stood over him, expression vacant. Calculative. After a prolonged moment, he tilted his head. “No,” he said. “I want you to beg me to kill you.”

He kicked, knocking the man onto his back and advancing when he cried out and scrambled back. A dark smear followed in the orderite’s wake. Detraeus drove his boot into the man’s ribs, crushed his heel down on his fingers, and continued to kick until his ‘opponent’ was a crawling, groaning heap of sandy, bloody skin, cloth and muscle.

“Beg me to kill ******** your deformed whore of a dragon mate,” the man rasped, “…and your unborn, monster-blooded—”

Detraeus drew and swung a heavier blade down, cutting to the bone of one of the man’s legs and earning himself a garbled scream. He lopped again. And again. Avoiding anything vital, but fracturing bone, bludgeoning, and slicing like one taking out their anger on the body of a strung pig.

“Beg me,” he roared, and drew his bow. One arrow. Two. Three. Four. He sank them into the orderites body — legs, shoulders, arms — like needles into a pincushion.

The ‘response’ he got sounded like someone swallowing blood around their tongue. Which might well have been accurate.

He sneered, spat, and began stripping off his weapons, one, by one, until he wore nothing but Casseth’s dagger at his hip, and Avarice at his back. He approached, rolled the choking body onto its back with his foot, and turned the man’s head to face him with the toe of his boot. There, with one foot propped between the man’s chin and throat, he drew Casseth’s blade from its sheath and thumbed over the edge, expression back to a dead, hollow neutral.

“Are you ready yet, to meet your goddess?”

Lithian’s stomach roiled as he watched. At first, despite his overarching moral sentiments against it, he at least appreciated that Detraeus was winning — against the man who poisoned Casseth, at that — but as it went beyond that line, and then kept going, and going, and going, his shoulders squared off. Bile rose in his throat, and he winced at every fresh blow.

This was torture.

What Detraeus was doing was torture.

And beyond that, it was foolish. Every moment he waited, he opened himself to the chance that the man still came back somehow or, at the very least, did damage to him. Poison, the preferred method of attack the man had chosen before, worked of its own volition, even if the poisoner died. In that sense, it was not only cruel, wasteful, and needless, but risky and overconfident. Every opportunity to simply kill the man that he passed up, he left himself vulnerable to the risk that his future was permanently damaged.

When Araceli curled in against him and tucked her face to his side, Lithian winced, swore beneath his breath and wrapped an arm around her, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head. “I will,” he promised, and rubbed a hand up her back, cursing her mate’s foolery. “Don’t look.”



At Detraeus’ last comment, the grounded orderite began to laugh: a garbled, wet, rasping sound. Then, he spat. Not aimlessly, but directly at the nearest patch of open skin on Detraeus — in this case, a bleeding slice across his thigh — and immediately, it began to sting. Warm at first, but then hotter, and hotter. Like a brand, or a poker trying to worm its way into his flesh. When he moved to take a step back, the orderite lurched, burying a pinprick of a knife into his calf, and Detraeus snarled as he staggered back. In moments, he had his bow in hand, drawn, and fired, burying several arrows in the man’s head. Wings twitched, and stilled.

Detraeus grimaced. Then, the burning spiderwebbed, both from the cut higher up and the blade. He stumbled, messily pulling the weapon out — more like a needle than a knife — but already his muscles were knotting up, his vision blurring. His heart felt as though it were growing in his chest, his throat swelling and making breathing difficult. Seconds before losing control entirely, his attention flit to the sidelines, searching for Ara — and finding her, coiled in Lithian’s arms.

He collapsed to the arena floor.

Lithian moved all but immediately after Ara, but without the aid of wind or rock, he arrived last and knelt by Araceli’s side as he did. He reached out, laying a palm on Detraeus’ largely bare chest — blood and sand aside — and shut his eyes as he sent a querying pulse of magic through him to weed out and pin down the primary sources of damage. Swelling in the throat and lungs. Reduced blood flow. Arrhythmic pulse. Rapid onset of fever-like symptoms including a thin sheen of perspiration already gathering on his skin.

Cursing Detraeus mentally even as his mind rushed over ways to save him, Lithian funneled his magic to Detraeus’ breathing passages and heart. If the man couldn’t breathe, he wouldn’t have a chance to survive the rest of his symptoms. After minimizing swelling as best he could in their highly limited time and attempting to partially regulate his pulse back to a more normal rhythm, Lithian motioned Casseth in. Several of the stadium guards were already approaching them again.

They needed to get Detraeus out of the pit.

“I need a single, empty room for him that can be closed off so I have the space to myself with no interruptions,” Lithian said, voice clipped and stiff as the guards moved in to take Detraeus.

“Do you work here?” one asked, and Lithian didn’t miss a beat.

“Yes,” he lied. “Only I’m to work with him. But he needs to be moved fast, his vitals are fluctuating.”

Amazingly, it worked. Lithian knew they would want to get Detraeus out of the stadium entirely as soon as possible — back into the safety of his own home and out of harm’s way — but for now, they lacked time. His patient needed immediate attention, after which, if he survived, they would have the luxury of moving him. Until then, however, Lithian had work to do. After getting him to a secure room — ominously dreary, all earth and stone walls with weak lighting and limited supplies — they laid him out on the slab apparently meant to serve as an operating table, and Lithian scanned again for damage.

By now, Detraeus seemed to be flitting in and out of consciousness. His head tossed, lashes flitting blearily, forehead coated in sweat, and he began clenching his fists. “Ara—Ara, where…?”

When Lithian touched his hand to his hip, meaning to inspect the focus of damage there, Detraeus snarled and jerked his hand out, snatching up Lithian’s wrist in a vice-grip.

“Don’t—” His lashes flit again, face contorting in obvious pain even as Lithian held himself absolutely still. “Don’t…touch me…”

“Unhand me,” Lithian said. “Now. And allow me to heal you. Or Araceli will watch you die here, in this room, and you will never watch your children grow. Do you understand?”

Detraeus’ pinched and furrowed, his breathing ragged. But at long last, he loosened his fingers and withdrew his grip. “Ara…?”