Will took his time turning around to greet his mother, and kept one hand firmly on Sigrid’s arm. The way he figured it, she was his now, won fair and square, and screw anybody who got between them. If his mom wanted to join that group, so be it.

When he finally turned around, Wilhelmina’s icy fury betrayed itself in the hot glare of her gaze. He sighed and flicked a glance at his dad. “There’s a room set up for challenge mediation.”

Troy nodded and opened his mouth to speak.

Wilhelmina shook her head, interrupting him. “There’s nothing to mediate here.”

“Willie,” Troy said, a warning note in his voice.

Will clenched his teeth together. “We’re making a scene, not to mention that there are more challenges coming up, including one between the director and Lukas Alexiou.”

Wilhelmina’s jaws snapped shut. “Very well.”

Will threaded his fingers through Sigrid’s and silently lead the small group away, weaving around the teenagers readying to clean the mat for the next match. The murmurs of the people crowding the bleachers faded into a dull roar by the time they reached the room near the men’s locker room, normally reserved for visiting coaches. The outer door snicked shut, silencing the crowd, highlighting the squeak of their shoes against the waxed floor.

Will opened the mediation room’s door and held it as Casey, Sigrid, and his parents filed inside, then closed it and leaned back against it, his arms crossed over his chest.

Wilhelmina took three steps into the room and whirled on him, seemingly unmindful of the tight fit of their group among a row of lockers to one side, a desk against one wall, and two chairs in front of it.

“This is unacceptable,” she said. “I’m asking for a rematch.”

Will shrugged one shoulder. “You can try.”

Sigrid cut a silencing glance at him. “On what grounds?”

“The unsuitability of the match.” Wilhelmina tossed her head back, sending her dark blonde curls flying around her shoulders. “The inability of the winner to meet my terms.”

Will dropped his hands to his sides. “What terms?”

His mother’s mouth tightened. “She knows.”

“I agreed to meet your conditions prior to the challenge,” Sigrid said evenly. A thin thread of fatigue underscored the words. “What more do you want?”

“All of it.” The words were nearly spat out. “Everything you have, and full physical Retribution when you discard him.”

Fury whipped through Will. He shoved himself away from the door and in two strides stood toe to toe with his mother. “Fuck that, Mom. I’d rather walk out right now than submit her to Retribution.”

Wilhelmina smiled coldly. “Then walk out.”

Sigrid’s already pale skin leeched of color. “Will.”

He shook his head. “If that’s what she wants, that’s what she’ll get. C’mon.”

He held his hand out to Sigrid. Her eyes widened, so blue, they nearly glowed. “You don’t know what you’re doing, Will.”

“Oh, I’m well aware.”

He left his hand hanging in the air between them, his gaze glued to his mother’s, and waited. Wilhelmina thrust her chin out, her shoulders stiff and ungiving as Casey clasped her hands together at her waist and bit her lip, worrying it between white teeth.

Troy placed a gentle hand on his wife’s shoulder, then glanced at Will. “Do what you have to, son.”

“I am, Dad.” Will wiggled his fingers at Sigrid and deliberately softened his voice. “Come on, honey. Let me take you home and tend to those bruises.”

Sigrid hesitated, her mouth a thin line in her face, and for a moment Will’s heart flipped over in his chest and unease tightened his skin. Would she really turn him down after winning the challenge with Chana? Would she really forsake him now, when he’d thrown his mother’s ridiculous demands in her face?

Finally, Sigrid placed her hand in his, and relief whooshed out of him in a silent sigh.

“I’ll have my lawyer contact Anya early next week to draw up the contract,” she said.

Wilhelmina’s mouth trembled once, then firmed, and her expression blanked. “Don’t bother. I have no son to negotiate for.”

Casey sucked in a breath, and Troy said, “Willie, don’t,” but his mother shook his hand off and turned her back on Will.

Something inside him died in that moment, hope that she’d finally see him as the man he was, and had been for well over a decade, or maybe the last yearning a son had to earn his mother’s respect.

Whatever brand of hurt it was, he tucked it away. There’d be plenty of time later to examine it in full. He pulled Sigrid into the curve of his body, shielding her from his mother’s hatred the only way he could. “Casey, you know what to do at The Omega. Dad.”

Troy shook his head as he stepped forward and clapped a hand to Will’s shoulder, and the embrace said everything neither man could say, sharing a love so deep, words could never fully express it.

It’ll be ok.

Will wasn’t so sure. He nodded once, then opened the door and lead Sigrid away from the family he’d once thought so strong, only death could tear it apart.

 

 

Rebecca stood on the mat facing her opponent, the leader of the Shadow Enemy, if only in name. A judge stood to her left, and hadn’t that been a hard task, finding someone among the People who would fairly judge a challenge involving young Lukas? Who among them did not hate the Shadow for the brutal slaughter of centuries past, for the deaths gouged out of the People’s number? Family, friends, loved ones, all sacrificed in a feud stretching back millennia.

She’d found neutrality in an unlikely source suggested by Hawthorne: The Councilmember’s house-bound niece, a former Councilmember, and a member of the subversive Eternal Order, Isolde Zellinger.

Never would Rebecca have trusted such a Daughter to judiciously mediate a dispute between younglings over a beloved toy, let alone a challenge of such import the outcome could reverberate through both the People and the Shadow for generations to come. Yet here they were, facing that exact situation.

Isolde stepped forward, a in each hand, and began the proceedings. Rebecca forced her attention there, on the ceremonial rigmarole so necessary for the maintenance of tradition. She ached for it to be over and done with, so she could return to her husband’s side and the comfort of his love.

When had she become so tired of it all, of her duty to the People, of the traditions handed down from time immemorial, of the fight she herself often spearheaded?

The Shadow approaches and the Blade must yield

She staunched the shudder automatically rising within her, but only just. The Woman spoke true, of that Rebecca had no doubt, but today was not the day for the Blade’s demise. Lukas would never dare go beyond the bounds of the challenge and kill her, not when his very life would be forsaken at the hands of the People assembled as witnesses.

Not when his beloved nephew’s life was at risk.

And Lukas was weakened today by his recent ordeal at the hands of his brother and uncle. He lacked the strength to win the challenge, let alone to kill a Daughter of Rebecca’s skill.

No, today was not the day the Woman had foreseen. That time rested in the future, beyond the here and now that must first be dealt with.

Lukas restated the challenge he’d issued to her only days past, Isolde laid out the standard terms of contact and handed them the hanbōs, and Rebecca dutifully tested the one given her. She fought today not for herself, but on behalf of the People, something she would do well to remember.

Rebecca finished testing the hanbō and nodded at Isolde, then waited politely until Lukas did the same.

“Begin,” Isolde said, and her voice held the regal ring of authority it always had, free of the imprisonment she’d faced over the past few months.

Lukas nodded at Rebecca, a respectful salute. He rotated his wrist, swinging the hanbō in a small circle, and stepped cautiously to his left, his gaze fixed on Rebecca.

Slow and easy then. She mirrored his steps, carefully tracking his movements around the mat. Whatever his strategy, it was obscured by the hard set of his blue eyes in a face so cold, it could’ve been chiseled from ice. It wasn’t determination she saw there so much as grit, and that worried her a bit. Determination was fueled by needs of the moment, but grit was in it for the long haul. Grit created future goals and stuck by them long enough to see them accomplished.

What was Lukas hoping to gain here? What was his long-term goal?

Nala.

The answer hit her even as he swung out and swiped the end of the hanbō through the air a mere half inch in front of her stomach. She swiped the testing blow away, unrattled by the almost leisurely swish as it passed by.

Was he toying with her?

She lunged into a thrust aimed for the soft part of his torso, just below where the two sides of his ribcage met. He stepped back on one foot, dodging the blow, and pushed the tip of her hanbō aside with his free hand, then swiveled around and swung the hanbō in a backhanded arc toward her exposed ribs.

Not toying, then.

She spun away from the blow, out of reach, and settled into a ready stance. This time, he mirrored her, even going so far as to switch the hanbō to his opposite hand, so that they were, in a way, exact mirror images. Light and dark, good and evil, or perhaps both were subjective. Perhaps he thought himself the good here, the light, despite his role as the lead of an organization that had, for millennia, tried to eradicate her kin one brutal murder at a time.

Around the mat they went, slowly revolving around each other as the crowd’s quiet murmurs stilled and silence fell around them. A testing blow here, a feint there, but it was gentle, like the first snowfall in early winter, when the ground was still warm from the summer’s sun.

This could last all night.

Rebecca parried a thrust, twisting her hanbō around Lukas’s in an attempt to disarm him. He easily countered and danced back, hanbō in hand, and she blew out a breath. It was time for this to end, time for young Lukas to receive his comeuppance.

She was going to let him stay.

The thought echoed in the back of her mind as she attacked, vicious now in a sharp contrast to the almost leisurely blows they’d been trading. It was time to end the challenge, but whether he won or not, he was too valuable to let go. He’d been right the day he’d issued the challenge. The People needed him as a go between with the Oracle. He knew her too well, knew too much about her, to risk having him wander about on his own, unprotected, following his own agenda.

He’d earned Rebecca’s respect here in a way she’d never expected.

But she must best him today, for the sake of every Daughter and Son who had fallen at the hands of him and his forbears. Justice must be met.

Still, she tempered her blows, refusing to strike hardest where he was most vulnerable. Humiliation wasn’t the aim here, merely defeat, and that could be accomplished with honor, as she had always fought. As she’d taught her own daughters and granddaughters, and the many, many others she’d counseled or taught or lead over the long, long centuries of her life.

It was time to end this.

And so, she did.

Three minutes after her real attack began, after a dizzying array of strikes Lukas had barely been able to counter, if at all, and two points earned for her part, Rebecca caught him in a rare defenseless moment, when his body was turned slightly away from countering a thrust, and swiped the hanbō against the back of his legs. His feet flew out from under him and he landed flat on his back.

Quickly, she tapped his chest lightly with the end of her hanbō, then stepped back. “Do you yield, Shadow?”

He rolled over on his side and onto his knees, and to his credit, not a single groan issued from his throat. He placed the hanbō across his thighs and looked up at her, pride shining from his eyes in place of the defeat she’d expected to see.

A burst of whispers in the bleachers interrupted his answer. Rebecca glanced around and located the disturbance. The Oracle, followed by four Handmaidens, was stepping calmly down from the seat she’d assumed at the beginning of the first match earlier in the evening.

Lukas sighed, and when Rebecca looked back at him, his head hung low and his shoulders were slumped. He rubbed a hand over his sweat soaked hair, ruffling it into dark spikes, then looked up at her, and his expression was no longer that of a proud warrior, but one of a man facing certain hardship.

He opened his mouth, pressed his lips together into a thin line, then said, “Take care of Stephen.”

She arched a single eyebrow. “I thought that’s what we were settling here.”

Lukas shook his head. “Take care of him if Nala kills me.”

“What?”

“She’s done it before, so many times.” He laughed, low and bitter, and closed his eyes tight. “Probably will again.”

The Oracle stepped onto the mat, startling Rebecca out of her confusion over his answer, and walked straight to Lukas. The Oracle said something in her guttural, oddly familiar language. Lukas responded with a single word, then she slapped him hard and spoke again, her voice so dispassionate, chills ran down Rebecca’s spine.

She tightened her grip on the hanbō, ready to step in. Domestic violence was unacceptable, whatever form it took. She would not allow anyone to abuse an individual under her care regardless of the sins he’d committed. Battle was one thing, attacking a defeated man something else entirely.

Lukas held a hand up, though whether he meant it as a plea to the Oracle or to Rebecca, she couldn’t say. He spoke in a low voice in the Oracle’s language. Nala shook her head once, then he glanced up at her and Rebecca nearly gasped. His cheeks were red and the muscles of his neck and arms were pronounced, as if he were holding himself in check.

“Tell them who you are,” he gritted out, and when the Oracle shook her head again, he screamed, “Tell them!”

The Oracle stood there for a moment gazing down at him, then at long last, she spoke in the same, indecipherable language she’d been using.

Lukas laughed wearily and hung his head, his rage abruptly gone. “In English, Nala. English.”

The Oracle tilted her head up, chin high, and said, “I am Abragni, the Light of the People and the youngest of the Seven.”

The hanbō slid from Rebecca’s grasp and thudded onto the mat, and she sank down behind it, her legs suddenly too weak to hold her weight. “Abragni?” she whispered, and the name was echoed around the gymnasium, over and over again until it built into a roar that was a single name, obliterating the sounds of the attendees rising from where they sat and filing down onto the floor. Soon, a circle of people spread out around Abragni, kneeling down as close to her as they could.

A Sister, alive. After all this time.

The Oracle slid her fingers into Lukas’s hair, stroking gently. She glanced around at Rebecca, her expression like stone. “He will stay.”

Rebecca bowed, touching her forehead to the cool mat on which she knelt. Yes, Lukas would stay, and not just for his own sake or that of the boy bound to his care. How could she possibly turn away the mate of her own progenitor, the last surviving member of the Seven Sisters and a founder of the People?

The Light.

Rebecca eased upright as the Prophecy floated through her mind. All along, they’d had its key hidden here within the refuge she’d helped create, and now, the pieces were falling into place one by one.

It was a good time to be alive, she thought, and stood, as the leader she was, to officially welcome this oldest member of the People back into their fold.