Empress Game: The Empress Game Trilogy Book 1 (24 page)

Perfect.

Add to that Malkor’s willingness to use Corinth’s safety against her and she was pissed off. Really pissed off. Ready-to-rip-someone’s-head-off pissed off.

Divinya had arrived even earlier than she and now waited at ease, joking over something with her attendant.

Kayla hated her.

She hated her for her obvious health and smug attitude, but even more so for her collusion with Janeen. The full extent of Janeen’s plan hadn’t been uncovered yet, but she and Divinya had conspired to the series of events that had nearly cost Isonde her life and
had
cost Kayla her freedom. How dare she smile.

The official called the contestants to the ring. Kayla took a deep breath, hoping her shoulder was strong enough, that it could do what needed to be done. Pain was only an obstacle, not a wall. She could push past it.

What damage would she do in the process?

It didn’t matter.

Beating Divinya mattered. She’d worry about the rest of her opponents, the treatments she’d need in between each series and the final damage later. For now?

Let’s fight
.

She approached the center where the official waited with a box. Divinya smiled when they arrived at the same time, her teeth flashing white against her ebony skin. She looked as friendly as Kayla felt.

“Ladies, your weapons.” The official opened the box, revealing a pair of knives for each of them.

“I hardly expected to see you this morning,” Divinya said, as they selected their weapons and the official deposited the box outside the ring. The Ordinal eyed her up and down, a slight smirk on her face. “How’s the knee, by the way?”

Clearly Janeen had not caught up with Divinya about their plan going awry.

“Fine as yesterday. Better, even.” That dimmed Divinya’s smirk. “Surely you hadn’t expected otherwise?”

Divinya shrugged a shoulder. “Some fighters are careless with their injuries.”

“And some are just careless. Come,” Kayla said, with a grin of her own. “I’ll show you how well my knee feels.”

The official sounded the chime and the dance between them began.

Kayla lunged immediately, closing the distance in two running steps. She darted straight into Divinya’s space with no subtlety, attacking with lightning strikes.

Her right-hand knife thrust to the throat met Divinya’s forearm block. Her-left hand knife overhand downward strike to the shoulder met with a high rising block. Right knife in an undercut to the ribs? Hit.

“Point, white!”

First blood—Kayla.

Kayla ate up the incredulity on Divinya’s face. She had seen enough footage of Divinya to know she liked to control the tempo of the match. Her unpredictable style was designed exactly for that reason.

Apparently she didn’t like to be rushed.

“Ready now?” Kayla asked.

Divinya twirled one knife. “Amateur technique.”

“Seems about right for your amateur defense, then.”

The official came between them, calling the point to be recorded and lining them up for the next go ahead. The chime sounded and things settled in more slowly. They paced around each other, gauging footing, defense and seeming weak points. It was test and strategy and acting in one. Here and there Divinya darted around, leaving Kayla one step behind. Her breaths came in short, focused bursts, ready always to be the last before some great drastic action. Kayla watched Divinya’s yellow eyes, waiting, waiting.

The circling became rhythmic, lulling. Step step feint, step step feint step. Kayla hung on the edge of action, waiting, watching.

Divinya circled, launched two low strikes and an upward sweep. Her knife was at Kayla’s throat before Kayla had finished processing her last movement.

“Point, red!”

Frutt.

Kayla huffed out a breath, releasing her body from the waiting game, shaking off the edge of hypnotism Divinya’s feint and fade style gave her. She couldn’t shake the pain out of her shoulder as easily.

::Fight, Kayla. You are the sea that swallows her river, the sky that absorbs her smoke. Absorb her flow. Make it yours.::

Kayla froze as the psi voice invaded her mind.
Who in the
—
?

::It begins again.::

The chime sounded to start the next point.

The circling continued. As the mesmerism crept in, the grace of Divinya’s steps convinced Kayla that waiting only led to defeat. The longer you gave her, the greater Divinya’s chance of not only scoring on you, but utterly embarrassing you.

Kayla lunged, feeling the seconds ticking by as a countdown to her defeat.

This time Divinya anticipated. She drop-stepped and opened to the right, Kayla’s attack brushing past her like wind over a fern. Divinya followed up with an elbow to Kayla’s unprotected back. She hooked an arm through Kayla’s flailing arm, knocked her knee out from under her and flipped Kayla to the mat. She twirled her knife once for flair before jamming it downward, stopping just above Kayla’s heart for another point.

“How’s that knee feeling now, Princess?” Divinya broke loose and turned her back as she walked away.

The fall had stretched the tendons in Kayla’s shoulder and the abused muscle screamed. She pushed angrily to her feet. If Divinya took the next point she’d win the first match. Kayla would have to win both of the other matches to be declared the victor of their best of three series.

::She is flow without substance, style without weight. She uses your own strength against you and waits to make your effort her own.::

The psi voice in her head—unfamiliar. But the feel of it, its silent touch, mimicked Vayne’s presence in a way that made her chest ache. How?

Get the frutt out of my head.

The chime sounded.

Kayla stepped in circles with Divinya, offering a few hesitant attacks here and there. Time melted out of existence. Circles. Patterns. Her body screamed to break form and attack but her mind feared another miscalculation, and kept Kayla dancing to Divinya’s tune.

I need another point
. Another point. The first match was crucial. She needed to steal away the momentum. She needed—

The whirl of black that was Divinya shifted abruptly, backpedaling herself while Kayla drifted into the next pattern she’d thought Divinya would make. They were off-set, her strong to Kayla’s weak side. She pressed her advantage, coming for a head strike that Kayla barely ducked. Once they closed, time roared back to life and Kayla came up to speed.

She rose with a cross block that trapped Divinya’s wrist between her own. She twisted and stripped the dagger from that hand before launching a thrust kick to Divinya’s midsection that sent her sprawling back a step. Divinya switched her remaining dagger to her lead hand but could do no more before Kayla was on her. Kayla attacked with both knives, a double strike to the chest, and Divinya blocked one while trying to grapple Kayla’s other arm.

She had an awkward grip on Kayla’s elbow while they fought each other one-handed. The blades struck once. Again. A third time.

Kayla swung her trapped arm down at the elbow with all her might, connecting the pommel of her dagger with Divinya’s forehead. Divinya swung wildly with her remaining dagger. Kayla knocked the arm aside and laid her dagger at the base of Divinya’s throat.

“Point, white!”

Damn, that felt good.

She shook her shoulder out, trying to ignore the burn. She could do this. Just one more point. And… then one more whole series.
Then
coolant cells and a pressure syringe full of pain blockers before her next opponent.

Assuming this opponent didn’t finish her first.

The chime sounded for the final point of the match. Divinya seemed off and Kayla pressed the advantage without letting up. A continuous series of attacks had Divinya stepping back and back, ceding control of the floor to Kayla and leaving her with uncertain footing. They neared the edge of the ring, and with nowhere to go, Divinya raised her hand and abdicated the last point to Kayla, rather than letting Kayla score the point herself.

Sore loser.

They each stalked to their own sides for a mid-series break. From the corner of her eye, she saw Divinya brush past her companion, ignoring whatever the woman had to say. Kayla had no one. Not that Isonde had had much advice to offer mid-set in the way of fighting styles and techniques, but it had been nice to have someone honestly on her side who was looking out for her. Now that same person lay comatose, mind and body frozen, all because of the woman across the ring.

Frutting Empress Game. Isonde should have become empress-apparent as soon as Ardin had made his preference known. Instead they had to go through this bullshit, where a simple, “fair” tournament had put Isonde into a fight for her life.

Soon the official called them back to the ring for the second match. Divinya seemed much her former self, and even had a smile and a joke for the official as she made her way to the center.

It quickly became clear as they danced around the ring—here slowly, there with rapid, complementary steps—that Divinya had regained her center. Her focus had doubled, if anything, and her form looked more fluid. She once more had full control of the fight, and she knew it.

She offered fewer attacks, letting Kayla come at her time and again, doing nothing more than evading and watching Kayla tire herself out. Kayla couldn’t wait forever. The woman clearly had more stamina. Divinya might be happy prancing in a circle all day, but Kayla wanted to lunge across the space and beat the woman like she deserved.

::Be as quiet as she, see how she flows. You are the spool she winds her thread around; she has no shape without you. Bend her dance to your tempo, guide her feet with your steps.::

By the vacuum of space, if you don’t shut the frutt up
—

Divinya caught her split attention and struck, gaining a point before Kayla could think to block.

The loss of a point only made Kayla more cautious, more careful about her footwork, more choosy about her opening before attempting an attack. The match crawled by as Divinya ground her down.

“Come at me,” Kayla demanded.

“When I can clearly make you come to me?” Divinya grinned, changing pace and stance so rapidly that Kayla had to hop to keep up or be left in a vulnerable place. “See?”

Kayla growled.

The match closed in the same way, Divinya leading Kayla around by the nose and finally striking when Kayla made a misstep on an attack.

Three points to none.

Kayla sat on the edge of the ring again, gulping water, frustrated to be a puppet on Divinya’s string. And who the void was
speaking
to her? She’d scanned the stands. The Wyrd contingent was nowhere in sight at this end of the arena, and Princess Tia’tan fought at the far end. It obviously wasn’t Corinth. He’d never say anything so heavy or useless as “be the sea that swallows her sky, the spindle that tangles her up,” or whatever.

You want to do something useful, whoever you are? Spew your nonsense in Divinya’s ear.

Frutt Divinya’s pacing. Frutt her smoke and mirror games and her melt away defense.

This was Kayla’s fight, no one else’s. She wasn’t going to win it by mimicking Divinya’s style or by waiting for Divinya to give her an opening. If she let Divinya control the fight, she had already lost.

Kayla might be an Ordochian princess, but she was also a pit whore. It was time to drive the fight, Kayla-style.

She stared at Divinya as they both entered the ring. Watched the smugness, the arrogance of someone who thought the series was already over, of someone who thought sabotaging an opponent to beat them in the Empress Game made them anything less than the worst kind of coward.

Kayla would flatten the Ordinal to the mat, face-first, and enjoy it.

The chime sounded.

Kayla rushed in but Divinya expected it. She back-pedaled and opened to the side to give herself coverage from a body shot. Instead of backing off to reset, Kayla sidestepped to match her, then vaulted backward away. She caught Divinya with a kick under the chin as she flipped, feet over hands, and landed a body-length away in a front stance. Divinya shook her head, momentarily dazed. She regained composure and slid away with a series of L-stance shifts, once again studying Kayla from a comfortable distance.

Kayla was anything but comfortable. She was up on her toes and ready for a real fight. She sidestepped, zigzagged, sidestepped, zigzagged, minutely eating up space and forcing the momentum of the fight. When she had the right distance, she took a running step, straight into a slide across the mat, one foot tucked, one foot extended. She slammed into Divinya’s knee and Divinya crumpled atop her in a heap, unable to switch her weight off that leg fast enough.

Kayla kneed her in the gut, sending a
huff
of air rushing from her lungs. Kayla scrambled out from under her and rose just high enough to drop both knees square onto Divinya’s lower back. She laid her knife alongside the Ordinal’s throat one heartbeat later.

“Point, white!”

Point one.

Divinya rolled and shoved her off. “What the frutt is this, a back-alley bar fight?” She got to her feet and stared at the official, incensed. “You can’t call that a point! That’s brawling.”

The official looked unshaken by her outburst. “The rules state that a point is granted when one opponent holds the other at mortal advantage by knife. That’s it. The manner in which they arrive at that point is not specified.”

Divinya gaped at him.

“What’s the matter, Ordinal, can’t hang in a real fight?” Kayla wiped at the bloodied split lip she’d gotten when Divinya landed on her, elbow accidentally to the mouth. So worth it.

“You fight like street trash.”

“Maybe, but I still kicked your ass right there.”

“Bah. We’ll see.” Divinya stalked off, sulking. She limped a little on one leg.

The chime sounded.

Kayla rushed, unwilling to give Divinya time to make sense of it all. She’d thought to catch her off-guard, but Kayla was the one who was surprised—Divinya seemed to remember something of her hand-to-hand skills. Instead of just melting back she turned and blocked Kayla’s left arm with both forearms, pushing the arm away before issuing a swift backhand that nearly cost Kayla her nose.