But something in me told me to resist. To fight.
Slowly, I shook my head.
The man’s eyes sharpened on me. “After all the Descended have done, you would still defend them? You would spare their lives, when they would so happily take your own?”
I hesitated. Some part of me did still despise the Descended for all the evil they had wrought over the centuries—evil they would gladly return to if left unchecked.
But they were still my people. The blood of the Kindred ran in my veins as surely as my mortal blood. If I wanted to be truly worthy of my Crown, I had to stop denying that truth. I was mortal. And I was Descended. And I would fight with everything I had to protect them both.
From each other—and from him.
I straightened and lifted my sword. All around me, a wall of silver flames began to rise.
“I do not rule for you,” I shouted. “I rule for them.”
The man’s face froze over with vicious wrath. “Then you will die like the rest.”
A blinding explosion of light lit the world aglow until there was nothing but endless white.
Now, Daughter of the Forgotten, the voice whispered. Now, you are ready.
I was once again in the arena.
Once again standing helpless as dark, spiked death speared for my heart.
There was no time to shield. No time to dodge.
Not even time to scream.
I could only watch in horror as the shadowy bolts made direct contact all across my body.
A gasp burst from the audience, and the realm of Lumnos collectively held their breath.
But I felt… nothing.
There was no pain of torn flesh, nor any crimson bloom of fresh blood. I didn’t fall backward from the force of any impact. The only reaction at all was a soft glow and a deep prickling over my skin, a sensation that was at once ice and fire, frost and flame.
I ran my palm across my chest to feel for any puncture wounds or signs of injury and found none. My eyes lifted to Rhon’s, my own gobsmacked confusion matched on his expression.
I rose to my feet, still wobbly from my head injury but healing fast, and began to walk toward him. He fumbled to throw out another attack, then another, each one colliding against me with no effect. Wild murmurs skittered through the audience.
“How?” Rhon sputtered, stumbling to get away.
I shook my head. I had no answers to give. I knew very little about Descended magic as it was, but I could guess from the thousands of faces gaping at me that this was as new to them as it was to me.
My hands began to tingle. From one palm, swirling tendrils of darkness spilled out and puddled at my feet in a rolling fog. From the other, scores of tiny orbs shimmered in the air like glitter in the sunlight. I wiggled my fingers and the orbs swelled and shrunk, then clumped together to take the form of a fluttering phoenix.
It struck me then—what I had been missing all this time.
I had been begging my godhood like a needy toddler, asking it to save me whenever I was scared or angry or in need of comfort. And, like a parent coddles a babe, at first it had watched over me, holding my hand protectively as I took my first tottering steps as a Descended.
But I wasn’t a child, and this world could spare no time for me to learn to walk. My mother and her flameroot powder had taken that chance away.
I was a Queen, with a realm in peril and a populace who needed me, and I would have to do far more than walk. Whoever it was that watched over me—the voice, the godhood, maybe even Lumnos herself—had forced me to learn a painful but necessary lesson.
Even Luther had told me, but I didn’t fully understand until now. The magic doesn’t just answer to you, it’s part of you. Be proud of who you are, and embrace it.
I did not need to surrender to my power in helpless submission, nor did I need to beg it to come save me. All this time, I had been waiting for the godhood to embrace me, when what I really needed to do was embrace myself.
Just as I cherished the humanity and love that my mortal family had instilled in me, so too could I wield my immortality, my magic, and my Crown with pride. Both halves were necessary to make me whole, and I would not succeed in this war without accepting them both.
I turned my focus back to Rhon. With barely a thought, the light and shadows in my hands took the shape of two arrows, each one pointed at his chest.
His eyes bulged. He shoved his hands toward me and unleashed the full brunt of his magic. An armory’s worth of dark weaponry assailed me from every side.
I didn’t bother to raise a shield, and as more and more of his magic connected with my flesh, I had the curious feeling that it was refilling my energy—making me stronger, rather than weaker.
I stood in perfect stillness within his torrent of power. Eventually the forms of his attacks became blurry and misshapen, then hazy, until finally the darkness that trickled from his palms was no more than smoke.
He stumbled over his feet and crashed, quivering, to the sandy ground.
My light magic flared at his ankles and bound them together in a glowing chain, then did the same with his wrists. My shadows twined around his limbs, writhing against him, encircling his neck and tightening like a noose.
The magic seemed so simple now, so blissfully effortless. As easy as flexing a fist, as natural as smiling.
“I didn’t even want to Challenge you,” he bleated. “No one in my House did. The Hanoverres forced us—they said we would be voted out of the Twenty Houses if we didn’t. Even the Warden was with them.”
I shook my head and stalked toward him. “It’s not your Challenge that has condemned you. I gave you the chance to walk away and let that child live.”
“Please,” he whimpered, “don’t kill me.”
“I begged you then, like you’re begging me now. You should have listened.”
“It’s the law!” He looked around in a wild frenzy, as if someone might come running to save him. “I didn’t have a choice!”
“I gave you a choice.” With a twitch of my finger, the dark rope squeezed his neck. “You chose murder over compassion. Why should I not sentence you to the same fate?”
“Mercy,” he wailed. “My Queen, please have mercy!” He clasped his bound hands together, his head bowed low as he sobbed for clemency.
The crowd’s thirst for violence reached a fever pitch. There was no longer any doubt who was the victor. Rhon had no magic left, and even if he did, it had no effect on me. I had shown that I could wield my magic—and kill with it, if I so desired.
The Challenging was over. I had won.
All that was left now was to take a life.
But as the clamor rose louder, the spectators screaming their demands for death, I found my own bloodlust washing away.
Rhon deserved to die. He had taken two innocent lives in a cruel and unnecessary killing, and he had done it purely to spare himself the embarrassment of being caught.
But he had also done it to protect his House. And while it would never, ever be a good enough excuse for the murder of an innocent, these past weeks had shown me how the Descended’s power-crazed society could push people to the darkest corners of themselves.
If I had any hope of leading this realm to peace, I would have to show them there was a better way. I would have to create the better world I wanted to live in, one act of compassion at a time.
I rolled my wrist and let my magic fall away.