There was a soft laugh from the viewing platform, and Manon’s teeth popped down.
“Abraxos. Now.” She reached for the saddle again.
He bucked away, slamming into the wall and shrinking back.
One of the men brought out a whip, but she held out a hand. “Don’t take another step,” she snapped, iron nails out. Whips only made Abraxos more uncontrollable. She turned to her mount. “You rutting coward,” she hissed at the beast, pointing to the Crossing. “Get back in line.” Abraxos met her stare, refusing to back down. “Get in line, Abraxos!”
“He can’t understand you,” Asterin said quietly.
“Yes, he—” Manon shut her mouth. She hadn’t told them that theory, not yet. She turned back to the wyvern. “If you don’t let me into that saddle and make that jump, I’m going to have you confined to the darkest, smallest pit in this bloody mountain.”
He bared his teeth. She bared hers.
The staring contest lasted for a full minute. One humiliating, enraging minute.
“Fine,” she spat, turning from the beast. He was a waste of her time. “Have him locked up wherever he’ll be the most miserable,” she said to the overseer. “He’s not coming out until he’s willing to make the Crossing.”
The overseer gaped, and Manon snapped her fingers at Asterin and Sorrel to signal them to dismount. She’d never hear the end of this—not from her grandmother, or from the Yellowlegs witches, or from Iskra, who was already making her way across the floor of the pit.
“Why don’t you stay, Manon?” Iskra called. “I could show your wyvern how it’s done.”
“Keep walking,” Sorrel murmured to Manon, but she didn’t need a reminder.
“They say it’s not the beasts who are the problem, but the riders,” Iskra went on, loud enough for everyone to hear. Manon didn’t turn. She didn’t want to see them take Abraxos back to the gate, to whatever hole they’d lock him in. Stupid, useless beast.
“Though,” Iskra said thoughtfully, “perhaps your mount needs a bit of discipline.”
“Let’s go,” Sorrel coaxed, pressing in tight to Manon’s side. Asterin walked a step behind, guarding Manon’s back.
“Give that to me,” Iskra barked at someone. “He just needs the right encouragement.”
A whip snapped behind them, and there was a roar—of pain and fear.
Manon stopped dead.
Abraxos was huddling against the wall.
Iskra stood before him, whip bloody from the line she’d sliced down his face, narrowly missing his eye. Her iron teeth shining bright, Iskra smiled at Manon as she raised the whip again and struck. Abraxos yelped.
Asterin and Sorrel weren’t fast enough to stop Manon as she hurtled past and tackled Iskra.
Teeth and nails out, they rolled across the dirt floor, flipping and shredding and biting. Manon thought she might be roaring, roaring so loud the hall shook. Feet slammed into her stomach, and the air shot out of her as Iskra kicked her off.
Manon hit the earth, spat out a mouthful of blue blood, and was up in a heartbeat. The Yellowlegs heir slashed with an iron-tipped hand, a blow that could have severed through bone and flesh. Manon ducked past her guard and threw Iskra onto the unforgiving stone.
Iskra groaned above the shouts of the swarming witches, and Manon brought her fist down onto her face.
Her knuckles howled in pain, but all she could see was that whip, the pain in Abraxos’s eyes, the fear. Struggling against Manon’s weight, Iskra swiped at her face. Manon reeled back, the blow cutting down her neck. She didn’t quite feel the stinging, or the warm trickle of blood. She just drew back her fist, knee digging harder into Iskra’s chest, and struck. Again. And again.
She lifted her aching fist once more, but there were hands at her wrist, under her arms, hauling her off. Manon thrashed against them, still screaming, the sound wordless and endless.
“Manon!” Sorrel roared in her ear, and nails cut into her shoulder—not hard enough to damage but to make her pause, to realize there were witches everywhere, in the pit and in the viewing platform, gaping. Sword raised, Asterin was standing between her and—
And Iskra, on the ground, face bloodied and swollen, her own Second’s sword out and poised to meet Asterin’s.
“He is fine,” Sorrel said, squeezing her tighter. “Abraxos is fine, Manon. Look at him. Look at him and see that he’s fine.” Breathing through her mouth thanks to her blood-clogged nose, Manon obeyed, and found him crouching, eyes wide and on her. His wound had already clotted.
Iskra hadn’t moved an inch from where Manon had thrown her onto the floor. But Asterin and the other Second were growling, ready to launch into another fight that might very well rip this mountain apart.
Enough.
Manon shook off Sorrel’s firm grip. Everyone went dead silent as Manon wiped her bloody nose and mouth on the back of her wrist. Iskra snarled at her from the floor, blood from her broken nose leaking onto her cut lip.
“You touch him again,” Manon said, “and I’ll drink the marrow from your bones.”
•
The Yellowlegs heir got a second beating that night from her mother in the mess hall—plus two lashes of the whip for the blows she’d given Abraxos. She’d offered them to Manon, but Manon refused under the guise of indifference.
Her arm was actually too stiff and aching to use the whip with any efficiency.
Manon had just entered Abraxos’s cage the next day, Asterin on her heels, when the Blueblood heir appeared at the stairway entrance, her red-haired Second close behind. Manon, her face still swollen and eye beautifully black, gave the witch a tight nod. There were other pens down here, though she rarely ran into anyone else, especially not the two heirs.
But Petrah paused at the bars, and it was then that Manon noticed the goat’s leg in her Second’s arms. “I heard the fight was something to behold,” Petrah said, keeping a respectful distance from Manon and the open door to the pen. Petrah smiled faintly. “Iskra looks worse.”
Manon flicked her brows up, though the motion made her face throb.
Petrah held out a hand to her Second, and the witch passed her the leg of meat. “I also heard that your Thirteen and your mounts only eat the meat they catch. My Keelie caught this on our morning flight. She wanted to share with Abraxos.”
“I don’t accept meat from rival clans.”