Basem grinned and launched toward her. She brought up everything she knew about him from their first fight. Affinity for earth. Small drop of water magic. Used his strength to overpower his enemies. Trained with an air Fae. Ambushes over one-on-one combat.
“Know your enemy, and if you don’t know your enemy, anticipate their mistakes.”
He stomped his foot, and Kerrigan reflexively stepped to the side. The chunk of rock went flying wide, right where she had been standing. The last time she’d fought, he had pummeled her with rock that she hadn’t been able to anticipate. She’d won because she’d gotten mad and unleashed that anger. Not for any real skill. She had been as much brute strength as he was.
Basem continued to volley rocks at her as she nimbly evaded them. “Come out. Come out, girl,” he snarled. “You can’t run forever.”
Truly, she could. She could run until he ran out of magic or collapsed from the effort. But she had no plan to.
The next rock he lobbed at her, she circled around it, using its momentum to slingshot it back to Basem. A sickening crunch erupted throughout the ring as it collided with Basem’s chest. He stumbled back one step, and his eyes burned a deep dark brown and went wide with anger.
“I didn’t plan to run forever,” she taunted right back.
Basem expected her to retaliate with air. That had been her main element at the last fight, and so she gave him exactly what he’d expected. She stepped forward and sliced her hand down, the wind listening to her every move as it cut through his chest. He avoided the next one and the next before kicking at the earth under his feet. It ricocheted throughout the arena, and the rock under her own feet erupted upward. She was propelled forward. But instead of being thrown off-balance with the force, she used it to vault upward, do a somersault midair, and then come back at him with an arc of flames.
Basem barely moved enough to bring up a shield of water to dispel the flames into steam. Kerrigan landed as gracefully as a cat on her feet on the other side of the ring.
“New tricks,” Basem growled as he forced the water to do his bidding.
Kerrigan dispelled it with ease, taking the water he’d thrown at her and bringing it into her magic. He didn’t have enough water magic to overpower her. His best bet was still earth.
“Same tricks,” she said back as she tossed the water aside. It wasn’t her best element either. “I thought this was going to be a fight.”
Basem reacted as she’d expected him to—with a vengeance. He went entirely on the offensive, slinging rocks and then trying to trap her with the earth at her feet. She evaded the rocks and used the chunk of rock he had tried to cage her with to propel it back toward his face. He barely got out of the way in time.
She watched his sloppy footwork and increasing heavy breathing. He was tiring and fast. No wonder he didn’t do his own dirty work. She had never been more thankful for all those runs with Fordham.
Kerrigan matched him pace for pace, using air to dispel his attacks and floating to avoid his wrath. She knew she was going to have to play up the offensive to get the crowd on her side, but this fight was about so much more than that. And she needed to keep it going for longer than she’d like. She would prefer just pummeling him and seeing this end.
She avoided another large chunk of rock and landed in a crouch. She narrowed her eyes, feeling the adrenaline pump through her as she waited to make her move.
“You are beneath me,” Basem said, kicking up a cloud of dust. “You will always be beneath me.” He threw the dust up into her eyes. “You don’t deserve to live.”
Luckily, she saw his move for what it was and pulled up some water to protect herself before it happened. But she played it up and stumbled backward, scrubbing at her clean eyes. The part was as important as reality. She could warp what Basem saw, use it to her advantage.
“Learn to do the opposite of what your opponent expects.”
Basem laughed, and she sensed him approach her. She held her hands up as if in surrender, to stop him from hurting her. Her eyes flipped up to Clover’s, who was waiting in the wings. She nodded her head once. Kerrigan smiled. When Basem next brought a rock down to end her, she grabbed his fist in her hand, turned it in place, and catapulted him over her shoulder. She opened her eyes enough to watch him collapse back into the rock.
And Fordham’s final lesson: “Kill or be killed.”
“You could never beat me,” Kerrigan said, whipping the dirt into a frenzy. “Never. You are weak. You used ambushes and an assassin to try to kill me, and still, you’ve failed. You will always fail.”
She turned her finger, picking Basem off the ground and into the whirling tornado she had created out of the air and dirt. She added fire to it, and he screamed. She flung her hand out, and Basem collided with the wall on the other side of the ring. Her confidence lifted, she advanced, drawing from her reserves, and tried to get up the nerve to end this. She had never killed anyone, not on purpose, but Fordham was right. She had let Basem live once before, and all it’d brought was retaliation. The last thing she wanted was to have a life on her conscience, but she refused to continue to play this game.
Basem heaved on the ground. A slash of fire had burned across his cheek. He met her glare with his own fury. And then something shifted, as if it moved from anger to satisfaction. Like he had her exactly where he wanted her.
“Big mistake, leatha,” he snarled.
His hand went to the pouch on his hip and removed the amber orb he’d held the night of the kidnapping.
Kerrigan had no idea what that thing did, but it was a move she hadn’t anticipated. She didn’t know what it was or what it could do. She couldn’t possibly be ready for this.
“Need a magical artifact to win?” she asked. “Pathetic.”
“Anything goes,” he reminded her.
Without warning, he hurled the small rock at her feet. She jumped back, expecting it to shatter as it had that first night they’d fought, but it just rolled harmlessly toward her, knocking into her boot. The crowd was silent with anticipation. Kerrigan took another step away from the thing that might as well have been a bomb.
Her eyes met Basem’s for a second, and he smiled. “Carthai.”
The world exploded. Kerrigan dropped to her knees, and her hands went to her head. There was ringing in her ears that she couldn’t explain. Her vision was blurry, and she was seeing double. But all around her, the rest of the world looked… normal?
It hadn’t been an actual bomb. Not what she had thought at all. But somehow, it was still making her bleed from her ears. She could hardly see anything in front of her, and the ringing… the ringing wouldn’t stop.
She struggled to get back to her feet, but then there was a boot at her shoulder, kicking her over. She lay on her back and tasted the rusty blood in her mouth. Her eyes watered as she stared up at Basem’s giant form. He had a knife in his hand as he leaned his knee into her chest. She gasped as the pressure crushed her ribs and pinned her helplessly to the ground.
The knife came to her throat. He bent down until he was speaking into one of her ruined ears, “I own magic in this city. You never stood a chance.”
The edge of the blade cut into her neck. Pain seared through her, bringing her to the edge of consciousness. But she couldn’t lose here. She couldn’t let her life end with him slitting her throat in the Wastes. Fordham had taught her about pain. He had told her how to survive through pain. Pain made her stronger.