Unease wraps its bind around my chest again—pulling it tighter.
Tighter.
Something’s not right.
“I’m confused. What does this have to do with me?”
Raising a single brow, Saiza flicks me an amused look. “Everything, Kholu. They’re fighting for you.”
My heart drops so fast my next words choke out. “They’re fighting to the death to entertain me? Are you serious?”
She frowns. “No, not to entertain.”
“Then wh—”
“This is a Tookah Trial,” she says, attempting to smooth some of my unruly hair behind my tapered ear. She gestures with her other hand toward the males now grappling in the sand, fists throwing. More blood sprays with the ferocity of their violent swings. “They are fighting for the great honor of being bound to you. The honor of building a life and producing offspring with Kholu is the greatest one could wish for. To pin the moons to the sky for good will ensure the future for offspring of the entire Johkull Clan, and their offspring, and theirs. To secure such peace is a great privilege.”
Her speech flays me, little by little, slicing skin, sinew, and bone in swift, icy blows …
No.
No, no, no, no—
Hock uses Zaran’s own blade to hack through his opponent’s neck in short, slitting increments, cracking his neck halfway through. The rest of it tears free from his motionless body now splayed across the sand, and all the breath bursts from my lungs. Like Clode just siphoned it free.
Crouched upon the lifeless corpse like a feasting beast, Hock fists Zaran’s blood-matted hair and lifts the head like a trophy, roaring triumphantly as he shakes it, blood slipping from the gory wound.
The crowd roars, folk bashing their chests with fisted blows, the gong sounding in rhythm to my thrashing heartbeat.
Hock sets his eyes on me, and all the heat escapes my body, violent unease exploding in my chest.
No, no, no—
“Hock is your victor,” Saiza murmurs against my ear, and my thoughts churn like a tangled length of barbed threads. “You are lucky. Aside from his roskr and the Oah, he is our strongest fighter. There will now be great celebration, after which he will escort you to his tent and show you the pelts of his kills, upon which you will hopefully make many strong sons and daughters in the cycles to come once your bond grows sturdy.”
Sons and daughters …
A heaviness settles on my chest and belly, making me feel crushed, yet somehow so incredibly … empty.
Failing to pull breath into my lungs, I slit a glance at the Herder, now almost smudged entirely from view. So close to turning invisible that I’m certain I could shove my hand straight through it.
I’m not surprised it’s hiding. It should be fucking ashamed of itself.
I’m just about to tell it as much when Hock lumbers forward, kicking up blows of sand with his charging steps. He thumps Zaran’s head on the ground before my dais.
I gasp, gaze dropping to the male’s lax face. To the fleshy mess of tissue, tendons, and bone.
The blood puddling upon the sand.
I’m still looking at it, trying to work out how the fuck I got here—scarcely garbed, painted in blood, and staring at a severed head—when Hock kneels before me. He plucks his sooty málmr from the rug and reaches for me, trying to thread the loop over my head. Like a shackle for my neck.
Rage explodes beneath my ribs.
“No,” I snarl, jerking back.
Hock’s eyes flare with a mix of confusion and scarcely veiled wrath.
He growls, grips me by the shoulder, and jostles me closer to the tune of rumbling murmurs—
I fling my head forward, feeling his nose crack from the force, whipping back to see blood spurting from his flared nostrils.
The world around us stills.
I shove to my feet, scurrying backward while he stalks into my patch of shade, growling through the stream of blood pouring from his face. “I will fight for myself!”
A hush falls upon most of the crowd, buffeted only by a few gasps. Perhaps from those who understand the common tongue.
Hock pauses, gaze darting to Saiza who translates my frantic request, his brow becoming a bunched mantel above his stormy sunburst eyes.
He looks to the Oah. “Géish den nahh cat-uein?”
His words are a brutal clash of sounds, tension thickening.
The Oah seems to deliberate, his wide-eyed Oah-ee paler than she was before. She looks at me, her babe now bunched and squealing at her breast.
Her lips move, soft words pulled straight to my ears on a gentle twirl of wind. “What are you doing?”