One minute, Kerrigan was free-falling into nothing, and the next, strong arms caught her and kept her from face-planting.
“Halfling?” Fordham asked, his tight voice laced with surprise and possibly revulsion.
“Ugh,” she groaned.
She wanted nothing more than to push past the pain and the vision that was hovering on the periphery and not have to deal with Fordham right now. But she only had one choice—have everyone witness her pass out or just him. She chose him.
“Gods,” he growled. He hauled her up and dropped her onto his bed. “What are you doing in my quarters?’
She just shook her head. She wanted to say more, but what had been hanging at the back of her mind, stealing the life of her magic, was now crashing over her in full force.
Then, it was there.
She saw a circle of colors. They drifted around and around, blurring at the edges before settling to reveal the four elements—blue water, green earth, red fire, and yellow air. The elements pulsed and then disappeared. The tournament arena full to bursting. A fight was taking place with all the competitors. She immediately recognized Fordham and Audria among them. It almost looked like… the Dragon Ring fights, but that didn’t make sense. A girl came at Fordham with a bright, glowing arc of blue fire. The scene shifted again. The surroundings were murky. She could only see a competitor coming forward and the sharp glint of a knife.
Then, it all disappeared.
Kerrigan slumped backward. Her head pounded from the vision. She could barely focus, but she needed to tell him. More than the breath in her lungs, she knew that she had to tell him what she had seen. This wasn’t just any vision. This one actually made… a bit of sense.
Fordham was leaning over her on the bed. His hand against her throat, as if to check her erratic pulse. His head was dipped low, near to her chest, but at the sound of her voice, he jerked back up. The defiant, dark prince was still there underneath it all, but in that moment, she saw something that almost looked like concern etched on his face. And he looked younger, impossibly younger for someone who had likely committed years of atrocities upon her kind.
His eyes were so dark gray like storm clouds on an ever-approaching rainy evening. A lock of his dark hair had fallen forward across his forehead. Her fingers itched to reach up and brush it aside. An absurd notion. This was Prince Fordham Ollivier.
No matter what her visions had shown her, drawing them together in some tangled weave, she couldn’t feel anything about this. She could find him attractive. She wasn’t blind. But that was all.
“What happened?” he asked roughly, jerking back as if he had just realized how close together they were.
“You need to listen to me,” she said as evenly as she could. “I don’t have much time. I’m going to black out.”
“Are you ill?”
“No,” she told him roughly. “You are about to go to your first task.” He opened his mouth to say something, but she didn’t want to hear the sarcasm or bite. She didn’t have time for it. “It’s hand-to-hand combat with the elements. Your first task, you’ll only be able to use one.”
“How do you know this?” he snarled, his eyes darting around the room as if anticipating the trick.
“Choose air,” she told him with as much determination as possible.
“If any of this is true and I can only have one, then it should be fire.”
“Air,” she repeated.
Her pulse weakened. She could feel herself barely holding on. But she needed to tell him the last part. She needed to tell him about the knife.
“Princeling…”
He rolled his eyes. “You should rest. Something more irritating than normal has happened to your head.” He rose to his feet. “I have a tournament to get to, and if I’m late, I won’t be able to compete.”
“Wait,” she whispered. Then slightly louder. “Fordham, please.”
He stopped for a brief second at the sound of his full name. But then he strode out of the room.
Gods, no. She needed to…
She knew what she needed, but the exhaustion and magic depravation took her first. And the darkness claimed her.
Kerrigan awoke in the dark on a hard pallet. She cracked open her eyes and looked around the room in confusion. She blinked to adjust to the dim light coming in from the cracked doorway and slowly rose up to an elbow, fighting back dizziness. This wasn’t her room. It wasn’t the Wastes.
She tried to clear her mind. And then they snapped back open. Her vision.
“Scales!”
It all came back to her in a rush. The strangely accurate vision that had been so unlike the ones she’d had in the past. This almost seemed clear. Fordham was going to go into arena for the first task. He had to choose an element. It was like in the Dragon Ring, which meant he had to choose air. She always used air because people underestimated her, and that gave her an advantage.
She didn’t know why or even how the tournament was the same as what she’d been fighting in the Wastes, but it didn’t matter. Either she was being watched or someone else from the Society frequented the Wastes and had taken the idea from there.
But at this moment, it didn’t matter. What mattered was the knife.
Kerrigan hoisted herself to her feet, ignoring the dizzy spell that threatened to topple her back onto Fordham’s bed. She flushed at that thought, and then quickly dismissed it. Everything ached as she ambled back down the competitor hallway, into the main hall, and continued toward the arena.
She had no way of knowing how long she had been out or if her absence was noted. Her first day on the job, and she was already slacking. She would have laughed if it didn’t hurt her ribs.
Finally, she came out to the back side of the arena. She heard cheers within. They’d already started. Scales!
“Kerrigan!” a man snapped.
She cringed. “Hello, Master Callian.”
Master Callian was a tall, imposing man with light-brown skin and a finely kept beard that he took much joy in. He worked in the greenhouse on the eastern side of the mountain. She had disrupted his work one too many times. Possibly maybe even confiscated some of his herbs for recreational use. He wasn’t a fan.
“I am certain this is not where you are supposed to be,” Callian said.
“No, sir,” she said amicably. “I’ve been assigned to Master Bastian’s care for the length of the tournament, and I have to get inside.”
He humphed. “Well, perhaps Bastian can teach you some manners.” He wrenched a side door open and gestured for her to enter. “You’re lucky. I am a secondary administrator to the tournament.”
She wouldn’t call that lucky, but she was glad she hadn’t had to find a way to sneak in. She didn’t know the competitors’ box like she did the House of Dragons’ area.
“Thank you, sir,” she said quickly and then hastened inside.
Half of the competitors were standing around, watching the arena. A few of them looked in her direction when she entered with Callian on her heels, but they made no comment. Most of them looked bruised or banged up but were healing. None of them were Fordham.
Kerrigan’s gaze swung to the arena and the sun blazing overhead. Gods, it was past high noon. She’d been out for hours. She’d missed almost everything. Her eyes sought out Fordham in the arena, but then she was gently pushed forward.