Trail of Lightning (The Sixth World #1)(73)

“Well what?” I ask.

“Who’s going to bet against him?”

“Him? Who’s ‘him’?”

He grins, an evil spread of his thin lips. “You still haven’t guessed who you’re fighting?”

“No.”

“Everyone’s been waiting to see this one.”

I frown, puzzled. “I only just agreed to fight. How could anyone be looking forward to my fight?”

He laughs. “Mósí knew you would come. She’s been spreading the word about this fight ever since the Coyote brought her that thing you both are fighting over.”

“What?” Ma’ii brought Mósí the fire drill?

“She wasn’t so sure about your opponent,” the guard continues. “The Coyote promised, but we couldn’t believe he’d actually show up. But the Coyote called it.”

“Ma’ii. You’re talking about Ma’ii.”

“Why would Ma’ii bring Mósí the fire drill instead of just giving it to us to begin with?” Kai asks, just as puzzled as me. I shoot him a worried look. What is the trickster up to?

“And he said you’d come for sure,” Bear clan says. “That you couldn’t stay away. He’s got your number down, girlie.”

I ignore that last part. “So Ma’ii set this whole thing up?”

The Bear clan man shrugs his massive shoulders. “I don’t know what he and Mósí worked out. I just know this is going to be a hell of a fight. Or . . .” He studies me, no doubt trying to decide if he bet on a winner or a loser. “. . . if the stories about you are just bullshit, it may be a bloodbath.”

“A bloodbath?” My stomach drops like a stone. “Who the hell am I fighting?”

But he doesn’t have time to answer me. They’re calling my name.





Chapter 31


I enter the arena.

Shouting slaps my senses. Blood rushes through my veins, pounding in my ears, turning everything into a dull roar. I scan the crowd, packed to capacity and screaming in a frothing frenzy, but I can’t see much with the bright glare of the lights in my face. Mósí is a shadow in a glass box, same with the place where Clive should be. Kai is lost to the gloom somewhere, waiting back in the cell I just came from, ready with his medicine bag and what prayers he knows, should I need them.

And then something bright catches my eye. Ma’ii. Still in his cerulean and tangerine. He twirls a short soot-blackened stick though his clawed fingers, grinning. It takes me a moment to realize what it is.

He touches the drill to the tip of his top hat, a salute. Or a sendoff.

And I know. I know who is waiting for me on the other side of the ring a split second before they announce his name.

“Naayéé’ Neizghání!”

He steps out of the tunnel opposite mine and the crowd falls to a hushed awe. He is as magnificent as I remember him. Handsome, yes, but feral and utterly otherworldly. Waist-length ebony hair swings freely down his back. Eyes dark as the hour before dawn. His face chiseled by a master. Sharp cheekbones, an aquiline nose, and heavy brows. He’s without his flint armor today, his bare chest banded with thick muscle and a stylized lightning tattoo over his heart. His broad legs are clad in soft leather, and he wears traditional hunting moccasins. He’s every inch the hero of legend, stepped out of the stories and into the pit to fight me.

Silence falls as he strides out into the arena, graceful and deadly. I know him, have trained with him for years, am sworn to try to kill him tonight, and even I stand open-mouthed and stunned in his presence. He lifts his hand and he’s holding a lightning dagger, a smaller version of his iconic sword, in his fist. He smiles. Bedlam erupts, the crowd chanting his name.

He looks at me, those terrible eyes boring into me, and his smile breaks into a grin, warming as the sunrise.

“Yá’át’ééh, Chíníbaá.” His voice carries over the din of the crowd, rolling over me like thunder. “I did not expect to see you this day.”

I struggle for a moment to think. Manage to croak out a single word.

“Why?”

My voice is taut as a drum. I am shivering, sweat running down my back, my hands so slick that it’s hard to hold my knife. Mósí is saying something about the fight, announcing odds or rules or something equally irrelevant. The only thing I can think of is the man in front of me. A million questions roll through my mind. I want to run to him and wrap my arms around him, hold on and never let go. I want to sink my knife into his heart and make him suffer like I’ve suffered. But most of all I want to know why. Why did he leave me? Why didn’t he come back? Why now? Why here? Just . . . why?

He laughs, a deep earthy rumble. “Where else shall I be? I have come to claim what belongs to me and mine, by blood if I must. The question should be, why are you here? Death comes to all the five-fingereds in time,” he continues. “Are you sure that this is your time?”

I try to speak, but my voice has abandoned me. My heart jackhammers in my chest.

He lifts both his hands, silencing the crowd. Light blazes off the tip of his dagger. “Let no one say Neizghání is not without mercy!” he shouts. He turns to me. “Walk away now, Chíníbaá.”