The Speaker's staff cracked once more.
"Second round! Three enter — one leaves!"
Zahra stayed silent as the following lots were drawn. A breeze drifted through the chamber, calm and oddly purposeful, making the torches gutter.
Atem had prepared himself for brutality. For spectacle. For raw force.
He had not been prepared for this.
For precision.
For deadly calm.
For a hooded fighter who moved like they were born for the sand.
And for a flicker — just a flicker — of something disturbingly like admiration curling in his chest.
Or attraction.
He banished the thought immediately.
But it didn't leave.
Another victor, Memnon, spurred on the crowd with his ruthlessness.
He was the favourite to win.
Rumour had it that he scared an entire army of wild men who came to attack his town from the sea. As blood dripped from the gashes on his smiling face, he indeed had a presence that would leave men quaking in their boots.
The Pharaoh's Champion would be his personal bodyguard; he wasn't sure he'd want to have such a man following his every move.
Subtly rubbing his face, he cursed himself for falling for his advisor's plea.
This may not be a good idea.
The Speaker raised his staff once more, calling the survivors of the first round back into the pit.
The air had changed.
No one was laughing now. Not after what she'd done to Theroux.
She felt the familiar spark beneath her skin — anticipation, temptation, instinct.
She was called, and she and her next two opponents stepped into the pit.
The competitors stood with new wariness, giving Zahra a wider berth than before. The only exceptions were them — the two men who now stepped forward, cracking their knuckles in unison.
Brothers.
Dagan and Kadan.
Broad-shouldered, thick-necked, their matching braids tied back for combat. Northern-born, if she judged the stitching of their fighting skirts and the cut of their boots — hardened by frost and war, not sand.
Oh, good, she thought dryly. Two men sharing one brain.
The pair looked at her — cloaked, small, still — and their eyebrows rose with mocking pity.
Apparently, her fight with Theroux was not enough to make them see her as an equal.
"We'll break you quickly," the first sneered.
"Before you embarrass yourself," the second added.
Their confidence slid over her like water. Zahra kicked the sand with the toe of her bare foot and waited. Of course they'd move together. Of course they'd try to take her apart.
Zahra lifted her chin beneath her hood as Dagan and Kadan spread out, mirroring each other perfectly. Twin predators closing in.
Atem leaned forward on his throne, elbows on his knees. He didn't blink.
Tadal's hand hovered near his chest, fingers twitching with each shift of the sand.
The Speaker dropped his arm.
"Begin!"
The two men began circling her immediately — synchronised steps, expression matching, their eyes locked not on her hood, but on her feet.
Good. They were smart.
But she was smarter.
She planted her soles into the sand, feeling the give, the heat, the tiny shifts beneath the surface. Every grain whispering movement. Every breeze carrying warning.
Not yet… don't rush… The wind seemed to speak.
She waited. A coiled cobra, waiting for the opportune moment.
Kadan lunged first — quicker than she expected, a fist like hammered stone swinging for her head. She ducked, sweeping to the side just as Dagan tried to grab her cloak.
They were coordinated. Their timing, impeccable.
Exactly as she'd hoped.
The Pharaoh's jaw was set hard as he watched the movements below.
This was no longer a display of bravado or the usual brutality of competition. This was… something else.
A dance. Precise. Predatory. Beautiful in its danger.
He felt his pulse jump when the smaller cloaked fighter slid beneath Kadan's arm, twisting like water around stone. There was a sharpness to the movements, a trained instinct that didn't belong in any common arena.
It unnerved him.
It fascinated him.
And beneath that, it irritated him, because he did not understand them.
Tadal had trained him personally. Tadal knew the shape of strength, but wasn't himself a fighter; he was a man of politics. But most of all, Tadal was unusually intuitive; he knew the potential of a gifted warrior.
So why had he hidden this?
Why had he hidden this cloak?
Atem's fingers curled around the arm of his throne, knuckles whitening briefly.
He didn't like fighting blind. And this cloaked fighter made him feel very blind indeed.
The brother closed in.
Show me your flaw. She thought, while her body bobbed and weaved, narrowly missing their swings.
Dagan's fist slammed into the sand where her head had been a fraction earlier.
Come on! Show me…
Kadan's boot cut the air near ribs.
They were relentless. She gave ground carefully, letting them herd her—an illusion of control.
Her breath slowed.
Her heartbeat evened.
Her patience, unyielding.
Show. Me.
Then she saw it.
Dagan's temper. Kadan's Impatience.
The tiniest mismatch in rhythm, barely a heartbeat, where Kadan always struck just a breath too early.
Zahra smiled beneath her hood—a thin lion-like thing.
Kadan lunged again, bellowing his fury.
She stepped towards him—a single step.
It startled him.
Enough!
She slid beneath his arm, twisting sharply, and her shin snapped against his supporting leg at the exact moment he put his weight on it.
A crack rang out.
Kadan's scream echoed as his leg buckled forward.
The crowd roared.
On the throne, Atem inhaled sharply. He'd seen the timing, the calculation. The lethal precision that wasn't luck at all.
Tadal's hand twitched, half pride, half agony of watching her take risks he never liked.
Dagan roared his brother's name and swung for her head with murderous force.
Good. Let the anger burn through precision.
Fall into the trap.
It was exactly what she wanted.
He was strong, stronger than what she'd face so far, but now, with rage blinding him, he'd become predictable. Pathetic really.
She almost felt sorry for him.
She blocked the first strike with her forearm, teeth rattled with impact, then another aimed for her chest.
Too fast.
Too fast–
She barely caught it with her wrapped hand, her wrists jolting with pain. But, unlike Dagan, pain sharpened her focus.
She twisted, slamming her other fists upward into his chin.
His head snapped back.
His eyes rolled with it.
His body hit the sand with a weighty thud.
Silence fell.
Then–
The speaker thrust his staff high.
"Maahes is victorious!"
The crowd erupted.
****************************************************************************************
Well, that reveal was always going to happen.
You can't wear a cloak your whole life! Especially in Egypt... Tell me what you think about our heroine's reveal!
If you're here for the action, how was it for you? And don't forget... there's still one more round to go!
Stay safe, my lovelies,
Lauren xxx