Kaelen dropped the rope ladder. She climbed, each rung a knife in her ribs. At the top, he wrapped a cloak around her shoulders. “Twenty-six,” he said quietly. “You’re the youngest to reach it.”
She smiled without humor. “Tell my mother I kept the ribbon.”
But Ararza was not thinking of victory.
Then it slammed backward into the wall.
Kaelen raised an eyebrow. “The champion’s purse for Vol 27 is a death sentence, Ararza.” Ararza Vol 26 Young Female Fighter
For three heartbeats, she was a fly on a mountain.
“I am not afraid of the dark,” she whispered, and drove Whisper up through its lower jaw into its brain. Kaelen dropped the rope ladder
She touched the hollow fang at her throat. “So was the first one.”
The Gornox shuddered. Its grip loosened. She fell, rolled, and watched the mountain topple. “Twenty-six,” he said quietly
She sidestepped at the last breath, rolling under the sweep of two claws, and came up behind its left flank. Whisper bit shallow—a line of black blood. The beast spun, furious, its tail whipping like a falling tree. She leapt, tucked, landed on its back.
