Daivad watched as the rebel’s arm was cinched in a tourniquet and they were given a new sword. It seemed Richard had learned nothing in the eight years Daivad had been gone. The prince had no idea that all he was doing by putting on this ridiculous show was embarrassing himself. Embarrassing his mother.

There was no way the prince could win this. Then again, there was no way the rebel could either.

Richard shrugged off his red coat and tossed it aside, into the black muck, as he faced off with his opponent. A murmur started up in the crowd, steadily increasing in volume. Grumbling. Getting angrier. Everyone but Richard saw how pathetic this was.

Disgusted, Daivad turned to—

“You are the Traitor Prince!”

Daivad froze, his back to the sands.

“Your subjects all see it! Listen to them!”

At the rebel’s stoking, the crowd blazed louder.

“The prince who serves the people of Lushale is the one Queen Arantxa drove away. The one too righteous for the Earthbreaker name!”

Fuck.

Daivad turned back to see the rebel stagger, dizzied, even as she continued to spit and stab her sword at the air before her.

“He will be the one to free Lushale from the Earthbreakers! DAIV—”

He braced himself half a second before the explosion ripped through the Arena. On instinct, Daivad sent his magic into the rumbling stone underfoot, listening for a fissure, a crack, a crumbling that might indicate the Arena was about to collapse around him. The wooden stands cracked and collapsed all over the Arena and the crowd screamed. Chunks of rock and a wave of sand blew up over everyone, and the bodies of the monsters were blown apart and rained down over the splintered stands.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Daivad felt the Arena’s foundation begin to crack, and he threw a punch straight down with his whole body, knuckles meeting stone floor, driving his magic lower, stories and stories down. He planted his knees, rooting himself to stone, and kept the fracture from spreading. The rumbling eased, coming only from the scrambling, panicked crowd now, not the earth itself.

What now? In moments the crowd was going to be all over him. But he was the only thing keeping this place standing. His arm shuddered with the strain.

He could just let this cursed place crumble. Maybe even add to the wreckage himself and hope Richard was crushed with everyone else. All the people here had come to see blood—what did it matter if it was their own, added to the sand? With Richard trapped in the rubble, at least for a time, and Aran in Ixhale, Daivad could break into the inner circle himself, free Nyxabella’s mother and her. He could take her with him instead of her patchwork monster.

“Help me!” a voice shrieked from the stands. “Help me, please!”

“Help me lift this, Alex! We can free her!”

Fuck.

Sweat poured down Daivad’s face from the effort of steadying half the fucking Arena. The fracture was tiny, and yet the weight of all this stone was enough to drive it wide. If not now, then in a day, a month, a year. He had to stabilize the Arena long enough for Aran to come back and smooth the foundation—

Smooth it. Of course. He’d been thinking too much like rigid Order, not enough like flexible Chaos.

Carefully, slowly, Daivad lifted one knee—and felt the fracture loosen, widen just a tiny bit—but then he swept that leg around, pushing his magic through the stone in a wave. He imagined it softening, spreading, smoothing. Mending itself.

It was slight, imperceptible to anyone but an Earthbreaker, but the Arena shifted, unsteady on its new softened foundation. So Daivad swept his leg back and planted his knee again, bidding the stone to harden once more. The stone stilled. Tentatively, Daivad began to retract his magic.

It was far from perfect. The fracture was still there, it just had scar tissue holding it closed for now. But it should hold long enough for these people to get out of the Arena—assuming Richard didn’t do any more damage. Aran could fix the thing later.

Those in the crowd who weren’t trapped within the splintered stands were finally beginning to make it onto the walkways of the Arena. Daivad had to go now. He didn’t even get the chance to glance back and see what had become of Richard and the rebel.

He will be the one to free Lushale from the Earthbreakers!

Daivad gritted his teeth as he made his way down the Arena and back toward the sewers.

What the fuck had he done?