by Vi Voxley
“Reim!” he called.
Her ache for him was so bad that Violet nearly suggested throwing caution to the wind, but then nodded instead. The Overlord didn’t handle defeat well – it just wasn’t in his nature. It was better they were gone before he came up with an excuse to detain them.
Areon looked at her, smirking. “Oh Violet,” he said. “You will make our escape really hard, looking like that. Very distracting.”
Violet smiled. “I doubt that,” she said. “My father’s guards are used to seeing calayas.”
“I was talking about me,” Areon grinned, making her smile even wider. Safety couldn’t come fast enough. Three years and they still had to wait.
Reim walked up to them, his hand in Marelle’s. Violet noticed the smile on her face – unlike any she’d ever seen before – and the same frustration that she felt. The Overlord had almost ruined their tournament, now he was ruining the first moment with their champions.
“I’m guessing it’s better if we make ourselves scarce,” Reim said.
“Yes,” said the Prince. “I doubt the Overlord is overjoyed with losing two of his daughters to us.”
As if on cue, Irmela appeared at the end of the walkway. She ran over to them, unable to fight either her smile or her concern.
“I’m so glad for you both,” she told Violet and Marelle and then sent a reprimanding look to the Raiders. “No tricks from you two when it comes to my daughters.”
“No, my lady,” Areon said seriously. “No tricks with them.”
Irmela seemed satisfied with that. “Now you must go,” she said. “The Overlord and Rumeon are rounding up their guards. The tournament is over and the rules are a bit foggy from here on out. I told them that if you were allowed to come here, you should also be allowed to leave, but you,” she pointed at the Prince, who grinned in response, “have a knack for making enemies.”
“That’s a nice way of putting it,” said the Prince.
“Mother…” Violet began. There was so much she suddenly wanted to say, three years of silence resting heavily on her soul, but Irmela smiled and hugged her.
“I know, my dear,” she said. “I’ll see you soon, once the Overlord has accepted your champions.”
“So not for years,” Marelle said, but she still couldn’t stop smiling.
“Probably,” Irmela said. “But I can always come see you. The Prince can’t do a single thing without drawing attention. I’m sure I’ll find you.”
“But father won’t let you.”
“We’ll see about that. He can’t say no to me. He can try to kill your champions, however. Go, girls, and be safe.”
Tears welled in Violet’s throat at the prospect of their hasty departure, but it was a natural part of a calaya’s life. Their destinies resided with their champions. They were bound together and there was no denying that they had to go.
They only had a moment more to say goodbye to the others before the first sounds of their pursuers started echoing from above them. Violet and Marelle exchanged a worried look, but their champions seemed quite alright with the turn of events.
“Don’t worry,” the Prince told them, smirking. “The tournament was the Overlord’s playground, his arena, his rules. Now we have you and we are no longer bound by his will. If the Overlord wants to hunt the Raider Prince, let him try.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
They weren’t far from the walkway when Ronay caught up with them. It was a delay, but given that the Prince could guess the reason, it was well worth it.
“Is your life always like this?” the warrior asked, a beaming Maige at his side.
“Pretty much,” Areon said. “Does this appeal to you?”
Ronay grinned. “I think I might get used to it. Besides, I owe you a debt. You helped me on the arena.”
“And you don’t think Maige would object to suddenly becoming the bride of a mercenary?”
“Maige does not,” the calaya said. “I think you’re a better man than you make yourself out to be, Prince.”
“Oh, don’t say that,” Areon said, amused. “You’ll ruin my reputation. Alright, you two, come along then. Anyone else want to join? No? Very well. Reim, I hope you’re taking notes – some people like me.”
“Yes,” his second-in-command agreed. “They don’t know you very well.”
“You know me and you like me fine. You threw me your sword.”
“That’s different. I tolerate you and you’re welcome for the sword. Mind you, the Overlord could very well have set some champions on me just then, catching me unarmed.”
“Do you always bicker like that?” Violet asked, smiling by his side.
It warmed up his entire soul. Seeing her there, happy in his company, not even a trace of the girl he’d met mere days ago. More like the memory he had of her, joyful and carefree, a perfect match for him.
Once they got to Beren, they wouldn’t leave his bedroom for anything other than a glorious siege. Or he could let Reim handle that and not come out at all. Yes, that sounded reasonable.
“Not always,” Areon answered, still distracted from merely staring at her. He hadn’t lied. The girl was going to get him killed, damn that slender, mouth-watering body of hers and that lovely strand of purple in her hair. The long, flowing hair he desperately wanted to grip, to bury his face in when he pounded into her and…
Priorities – what a pain in the ass. Survival first, Violet later. The Prince felt that the world was being completely unfair. His calaya bride should always come first.
“I only fight with him when he’s being like this,” Reim explained. “When he’s being Areon.”
“Isn’t he always?” Ronay asked.
“Yes and no,” Areon said.
“No,” said Reim. “Areon is the one who gets us into trouble way over our heads. The Prince is the one that gets us out of it.”
Ronay chuckled while Reim seemed to remember something. “Do you think we should have taken Sarto?”
Areon laughed, as the calayas looked puzzled. “My proxy,” he explained. “Don’t worry about him, the Overlord and Rumeon would never hurt someone so beneath their notice. Worry about us, we will have to go above ground at some point soon.”
“Where is that awesome armor of yours? It could come in handy if we run into trouble. Somewhere nearby?” Reim asked.
“Not exactly,” Areon said. “I hid it near the arena. Leave it. I’ll get another one.”
Reim cursed under his breath. “Of course you did,” he said. “Where else?”
He was doing that long-suffering voice of his, but then all of them laughed along with him. It was impossible to be concerned or uneasy or afraid after you’d won a calaya tournament. The threats above their heads were, like he kept saying, just things that happened. Everything that mattered was already a fact and the rest was history-to-be.
Reim was leading them through some tunnels he’d checked beforehand. It wasn’t as if the Overlord’s overenthusiastic murder attempt came as a surprise to them. Any mercenary worth his name knew a quick way out if he needed one.
They were going as fast as they could, but the pursuers were on their tail. The calayas couldn’t be expected to be able to keep up with warriors, but luckily the areas around the arena were as if a maze. The guards pursuing them had to stop at every intersection to figure out which way they’d gone, while they knew perfectly well where they were going.
“Did you signal Beren?” Areon asked.
“I did,” Reim said. “He awaits us home.”
“Does that mean there’s a shuttle waiting for us?” Ronay asked.
“Well, if there isn’t,” Areon said, grinning, “someone is going to be answering some very unpleasant questions. I would rather not battle the Overlord on the ground in his fiefdom.”
“I would rather you didn’t battle him in the air either,” Violet said. “He’s still our father.”
Her voice shook a bit. Areon felt the desire to punch whoever had made her beauti
ful voice sound like that, but it wasn’t advisable to kick himself in the face.
“Yes, family relations make everything so complicated,” he said, and seeing the look on the calayas’ faces, added quickly, “I won’t let this come to any battle. Even I think it’s bad taste to begin our relationship by killing your father.”
Reim glared at him. “You really don’t know how to talk to women.”
“So I’m told,” Areon said. “Be ready now.”
Before them, daylight seeped in through an open pathway. The noise had picked up. The arena was slowly emptying of people and thousands of voices tended to carry. Had the situation been different, Areon and Reim could easily have hidden themselves in the crowd and slipped away unnoticed. It was impossible, however, to hide three calayas. And now, Areon’s calaya strand was exposed as well, so that made any stealth maneuvers unrealistic – they’d remain hidden for a second at best and would be noticed as soon as they got outside.
“The shuttle will be in place?” Areon asked in his Raider Prince voice.
It was amusing to see everyone but Reim wince at the sudden change. Areon’s easygoing manner was replaced by the stoic, determined stance of the Prince. He could have sworn Ronay was standing on guard – at least he was getting into his new role fast.
The look in Violet’s eyes was everything but startled, though. No, it was definitely undressing him with a fervor he hadn’t seen in the girl before. How was a man supposed to conduct a daring escape like that? He grinned at her.
“Hold on to that idea,” he said.
Then he addressed all of the calayas, “You girls might not like this part, but at least you have jumping experience.”
Ronay had been listening intently for a long moment, but that comment made him grin. “You cannot be serious.”
“That’s what I usually say,” Reim said. “But for him, these things tend to work out.”
“For him, I believe,” said Ronay. “What about us?”
His second-in-command laughed. “The Prince looks after his own people.”
Violet was listening too. “We’re above the arena,” she finally said. Behind them, the guards seemed to have picked up their trail again. They had to go sooner rather than later. “I thought we were going upwards because we were under the arena, but now we’re…”
“On the last level of the audience seats, yes,” Areon said.
“And where’s the shuttle?” Marelle asked.
“Somewhere below us,” Reim said, smiling to her. “We hope.”
“Your vote of confidence is inspiring,” Ronay said, but he still seemed more amused than worried.
“But why here?” Violet asked him as they made their way to the light.
“Despite what you’d believe, it’s the safest place,” the Prince explained. “They’re all looking for us on the ground. Up here, we have the advantage of surprise. It will take them at least a few minutes to get up here, even more with the moving crowds. By the time they reach us, the shuttle will have seen us and we’ll be gone.”
He thought for a moment, the first rays of sunlight caressing his face. Chuckling, he took Violet’s hand and led her out into the open. “But mostly because I thought it would drive the Overlord insane.”
Judging from the look on the Overlord’s face, he’d succeeded. They came out into the open air almost opposite to the host’s dais. The arena stretched wide between them, but it wasn’t big enough for the Overlord and Rumeon to miss them. The shocked fury on their faces was truly magnificent. Next to the old champions, Irmela seemed quite amused in comparison. They were suddenly plastered on all the screens, standing there on the highest point of the circles around the arena. Already, guards were hurrying their way, but below, so was the Beren shuttle, its sky hatch opened, inviting.
Areon hoped that whoever was piloting that thing had thought to put something down to soften their landing.
The calayas looked petrified – no doubt from the prospect of jumping off a ledge ten stories high into a narrow hatch without any safety. The shuttle rose as high as it could and got as close as possible, but it was too big to actually land, so they had to jump.
There were guards closing in on them from both sides of the circle, not to mention the ones who’d finally caught up with them from behind. The audience still present was cheering for them wildly, overjoyed by the addition to their spectacle.
“We’ll die,” Marelle put the thoughts of the girls into words at last.
“No you won’t,” the Prince said. “You won’t jump yourself. You’ll just have to trust us. Think you can make it, Ronay?”
The warrior measured the distance and snorted. “Is there a choice? You sure do know how to make an exit. Don’t you think they’ll start firing at us soon?”
“With the calayas here? No,” the Prince said. “They want to get close enough to make sure who they’re hitting. I suggest we be gone by that point. I’ve had enough blood for one day.”
Ronay looked at the awaiting shuttle again and shrugged. “I can’t say life is boring around you. Maige?”
The calaya was looking at him with the kind of trusting smile only true love could muster. Areon sincerely hoped Ronay’s skills were good enough. It wouldn’t have been in good taste to get the audience’s favorite couple killed right before their eyes.
Maige nodded and Ronay took her into his arms. “Relax,” the warrior said and jumped.
To her credit, Maige just squealed and let his movements guide them. They landed squarely in the shuttle. Judging by the grunt Areon could hear even over the shuttle’s engines and the audience roaring beneath them, there was no cushion.
“Stand and fight like a man,” the Overlord’s voice carried over the arena, magnified to sound in every corner of the vast space.
“He really doesn’t know you very well, does he?” Reim asked, wrapping his arms around Marelle.
Areon laughed. “Apparently. Mercenaries don’t fight fair. And I don’t know if he’s noticed, but we don’t really have weapons. You want to get going now before the guards figure that out too?”
Reim snorted and jumped, gone in the whirl of Marelle’s long dress. He managed to land better, but he’d also had practice on their many misguided adventures.
In the meanwhile, the guards had figured out that he wasn’t armed and were getting too close for comfort.
“Stand back, Violet, this –” Areon warned, but the calaya just laughed.
“What are you talking about?” she asked. “You’re not unarmed. You have me.”
She stood right in front of him, her back to him. It wasn’t a conscious decision to wrap his hands around her slim waist, it was pure instinct. It still did the trick, though. The smell of Violet’s hair was divine, the strand of purple he loved so much right under his nose. He resisted the urge to nuzzle himself against her.
She was quite something, wasn’t she?
“You stand back,” Violet warned the guards. “If my father sees you hurting a hair on my head, I doubt you’ll live to see tomorrow.”
It wasn’t an idle threat. Areon remembered well from his time in the Overlord’s service that he didn’t joke around with his daughters.
“Tell my mother I’ll miss her and my sisters,” Violet told the guards, who stood there baffled. Truly, Areon had to give her credit, no one had considered using calayas as weapons before. And there he’d been prepared for another fight, the fool that he was. “Tell my father he needs to start accepting his defeat.”
“You can’t seriously expect us to tell the Overlord that,” one of the guards complained.
Areon thought he recognized him – an old guard then, well informed of the way the Overlord handled constructive criticism, and what he thought of killing messengers.
Violet laughed. “Tell him what you want. I’m going now. Any time you feel like it, Areon.”
The Prince looked behind him, standing nearly on the edge of the circle. He could feel the drop under his heels. The guards
were creeping closer, hoping to seize him somehow without hurting Violet.
He’d had such a great parting line prepared, but he felt Violet deserved her moment of outsmarting. He tightened his hold around Violet’s slim little body, shuddering at having so much contact with her, and jumped. The looks on the guards’ faces were hopefully caught by one of the screens, otherwise it would have been a pity. It was difficult to see the shuttle from where they were standing, so for a moment, the guards seemed to think they’d jumped straight down. They were left staring mutely while Areon landed securely in the shuttle with Violet in his lap.
She laughed, twisting herself around in his arms.
“That was amazing,” she said. “That was so fun! Let’s do it again, but maybe without the guards.”
He smiled and kissed her, tasting her soft, sweet lips. She laughed into the kiss, so happy that she made the air around her brighter as well.
“You can let me go now,” Violet said after another long kiss, the shuttle already speeding away. It was flanked by an escort of similarly baffled fighters, unable to really take any action because of the calayas on board. Soon they broke off, sneaking back home defeated.
“We’re safe.”
“Yes,” the Raider Prince grinned, pulling her against him even tighter. “My point exactly.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Violet liked Beren from the moment she laid eyes on him. Ships were generally known as women, but Areon insisted that his flagship was part of him and therefore a man. Reim insisted that the ship boasted the same aggravating, infuriating qualities as its master from time to time. So he it was.
Her new home. Hers, Marelle’s and Maige’s.
To be completely honest, Violet was glad the other calayas were with her. The life of a calaya bride was scary enough; she wouldn’t have wanted to bear it alone. Of course, she loved Areon and trusted him, even with Reim jokingly insisting that that was a fatal flaw. But she felt better knowing there would be someone on board she could talk with freely. It would make getting used to the life of a mercenary much easier.
