After our emotional moment, after all our sweat and tears had been left out in the middle of the arena, the Magos clan swooped in and smothered us. Everyone got in their hugs and told us how immensely proud they were. I had no idea how I still had tears left, but more spurted out as Catherine held me tight and rubbed my back lovingly.

“I knew you would do us all proud and show Noelle the respect she’s fought for her whole life. You have no idea what that means to a mother.” She released me and wiped my cheeks, cleaning them of fresh tears. “And I am truly honored she finds you as dear to her as one of her own sisters. You will always be considered family.”

My stupid eyes wouldn’t stop crying.

I smiled back at Catherine, speechless. I had been shown such an outpouring of love and acceptance from this family, I didn’t know what I could have possibly said to properly express how grateful I was that they had taken me in and made me part of their lives. Instead, I just wrapped my arms around Catherine again in my own deep hug. The rest of the family noticed and joined in, becoming a large group hug, with everyone pulling in close to embrace and relish this joint victory for the Magos clan.

But the sweet moment could only last so long, and we broke from the center of the arena to the family’s seating for the next round. In all the overwhelming emotional moments I had just gone through, I had completely forgotten about my injury until I sat down. Sharp pain lanced up my left side as I doubled over and held my aching ribs. Noelle gasped and started apologizing for the injury.

“My Goddess, Amelia! Did I really hit you that hard? I’m so sorry, just the intensity of the moment got the better of me!” She immediately put her hands on the injury, and I felt warmth pulsing from her palms as she worked to heal the damage she had caused.

I winced a bit and shot her a quick smile.

“It’s ok, Noelle. I’m pretty sure I tagged you a little too roughly as well.” I gave her a quick wink, “Silver lining? I’ve now got a good idea on what haunts Roscoe at night!”

Noelle didn’t say anything, but her face turned an embarrassed pink.

Ash scooted over to help patch me up so I would be ready to go when my turn came around again. A good thing to, as Dorian’s match was about to kick off and I didn’t expect it to last long.

“And over in this corner! Your local Lordling, the farmer, Dorian!”

Cheers erupted from the crowd as Dorian waved. The crowd, while still excited for the next match, was noticeably tamer than before. Their energy level was much more subdued, and the cheers were now just a general excitement. Where Noelle and I had received chants at our introductions, poor Dorian got no such love, including from Chad. While waving to the crowd, Dorian looked over at him and mouthed, “Farmer? Really?”

Chad ignored him and began the match, reminding everyone of the same strike rules as before. The fight commenced and was over about as quickly as I had expected. When scanning the brackets for who the other four entrants were earlier, I noticed three of them were from the voluntary militia. Surprisingly, Edward was the fourth.

His matchup being someone that trained under him worked to his advantage, as Dorian knew exactly what his opponent was up to. Like Noelle had, Dorian moved with a speed the man hadn’t seen before and, after a couple of quick parries and dodges, Dorian struck him three times and it was over. The match was called, and Dorian shook the man’s hand and clapped him on the back good naturedly, encouraging the guy for his effort.

Edward’s match was next, and the family and I erupted at his introduction, the house banners waving frantically from our section of the crowd. Anya, not missing a beat, also had a poster ready for him and waved it proudly while shouting “Go, Papa!”

I recalled my initial gut impression of Edward when Catherine had told me what societal pressure he had been under when he married her and before Ash was born. I had been delighted to learn these past months that those impressions were completely off base, and he was, without a doubt, the amazing man, husband, and father that she claimed.

He doted on Catherine and his children endlessly. I would frequently stumble on the two of them in the far-off corners of the house, enjoying a few quiet moments to themselves. From either stealing quick kisses or cuddling in the living area when the kids weren’t around, how they had miraculously stopped at nine children was beyond me. His genuine affection for Catherine was no secret, and his children loved him even more for it.

Chad moved on to Edward’s opponent, “And our other challenger, the leader of your local Militia, the capable fighter, Talyon!”

I immediately groaned at this. Talyon was, indeed, the best fighter in the militia. He had already been their leader from skill alone, even before Chad and Dorian started giving them further direction after the horde. His skills during training had advanced almost as rapidly as mine and he was also a local favorite. I had spoken with him a few times, as his rising reputation and self-confidence gave him the courage to attempt to court me.

There was nothing wrong with him, despite some arrogance he also started showing as his status rose. But he just did nothing for me. We had nothing in common, but I could tell he thought us being on the same level meant we should test the romantic tension he insisted existed between us. Maybe combat lessons weren’t the only thing he was picking up from Dorian… Honestly, he was just shooting too high, as he would still have been child’s play for me on the battlefield.

He wouldn’t even break a sweat with Edward though. Did Edward even know how to fight? I knew, as the town foreman, he was pretty strong, but that didn’t mean he knew which end of a sword to hold!

The match began and Talyon stalked towards him, sword extended, inviting Edward to make the first move. Edward obliged, only to have Talyon quickly parry the blow away with a circular flourish that whipped the blade from Edward’s hand completely.

Edward’s eyes opened frantically as Talyon closed the distance to his now unarmed opponent and the crowd gasped at what was sure to happen next. However, Talyon had recognized the disparity in skill level and merely tapped Edward on the top of his head gently with his sword, graciously ending the match. The entire crowd seemed to exhale a sigh of relief.

Sure, he was overconfident, but he was smooth too.

Chad’s match was next and was announced by the Baron of the town, who I was sure Chad had coached to get his titles right. Chad’s match was over about as quickly as Dorian’s had been, and for the same reason. Neither of them had the skill level to surpass their tutors.

As expected, Dorian and I were up next, and I stood to take my place in the arena for the next round. As I walked towards my starting spot, the noise of the crowd grew to a fever pitch, excited that I was back on the field.

Dorian sauntered over to his spot, his signature charismatic grin plastered on his face.

“You ready, Princess?” he called. “If you think Noelle took it easy on you, just be ready for what I have planned!”

My grip on my sword tightened. I was happy to go back to swinging it around, instead of another intense hand-to-hand match. Noelle studied under Dorian, after all. I had to remind myself that he was just egging me on. He wanted me to make mental mistakes while in a hurry to smack him around. Where Noelle’s fight was more straight forward in needing to study her movement and technique, Dorian’s would be deceptively psychological.

I was sure of it.

Chad introduced us again to the crowd, for the purposes of riling them into a frenzy more than anything else. Dorian was, again, teasingly introduced as the local farmer. He grinned and played along, waving to the adoring crowd as they cheered for him. Chad introduced me next, and the crowd went nuts, their excitement level shooting up several notches. I flinched at the start of their uproarious cheering.

“Am-a-zon! Am-a-zon! Am-a-zon! Am-a-zon!”

The chant echoed endlessly, my fan base growing by the minute. The match against Noelle had only further increased my reputation, and now everyone was on the edge of their seat, waiting for what I would do next.

No pressure.

Taking a cue from Dorian, I turned and waved to the crowd nervously, resulting in them getting even louder. Noelle and her family we’re leading a cheering section of their own. The air was so charged with energy, there was a permanent buzz to it. There was no way I could have anticipated this match would have felt more intense then my last.

I turned to face Dorian again, who didn’t appear shaken by my immense support. On the contrary, he wasn’t even paying attention, instead giving himself a quick once over like he believed his immaculate image was critical to his success. He twirled his sword around in his hand a few times playfully, before pointing at me.

“Begin!” Chad announced.

Dorian flashed his grin once more before dropping his expression to a serious one. My face was already emotionless. I was as ready as I was going to be. I gripped my sword in both hands, ready for his first move, and started to circle him. Dorian arced slowly away from me to maintain our distance.

“I warned you already, but in case you’ve forgotten, you shouldn’t be looking past me to the finals!”

He leapt towards me and swung his blade down. I side stepped rather than attempting to block the falling attack and then backed further away.

He completed his swing, then rotated his wrist smoothly to continue, sweeping the sword in my direction, following my retreat and I immediately raised my blade to block the swipe. We stood there holding our stances for a moment, blades connected as we pushed against each other.

“If you don’t take me seriously, this will end quicker than my last match!” he growled.

There’s no way I’m losing in a few seconds!

I angrily pushed his blade away, then whipped it back in a diagonal slice aimed at his shoulder. If I could clip his sword arm, it wouldn’t score me a point, but would still help in the long run. He adjusted easily however, and brought his sword up to block, anticipating my counter after I’d shoved off him.

Chad’s words echoed in my head.

“Predictability leads to death!”

“I told you to take me seriously, Amelia! Now, you must pay the price!”

He reached down near his waist to grab something and flung it at me! I realized too late that there was also more than one.

I was too close to him and any attempt to dodge would be pointless. I jumped away anyway, but he had anticipated my retreat and it made no difference. Three small objects hit me in my chest, right shoulder and face and exploded.

I shut my eyes and sputtered as some sort of liquid splashed and spread across my upper body. I started wiping at it with my free hand, only to realize it was also sticky and had a sweet smell to it. I looked at the liquid now also coating my hand and sniffed.

Honey??

I looked over the rest of my body and was not pleased with what greeted me. The sticky syrupy substance was all over my thin shirt and face, and now I had just ran one of my hands through it as well.

I cursed under my breath at this new development. Not only was my right hand now a liability, but my clothes were also starting to become semi see through from the substance. The combination of the liquid and a slight chill floating through the spring night was starting to draw unwanted attention to me.

I glared angrily back at him, only to see more small objects mere moments from hitting my face. I raised my arms defensively as the objects exploded on contact, dusting me in a white powder. As I tried to blink through the cloud, I discovered it was at least just flour and not something worse.

He’d aimed strategically and now the flour was sticking to the syrupy substance that had already coated me. I was not only sticky, but itchy and uncomfortable. Shielding my face had the adverse effect of coating my arms, extending the affected area, and had the flour sticking to sweat.

The crowd shifted from their normal cheers to loud, raunchy whistles and cat calls at my new condition. If his smile was any indicator, Dorian was also very pleased. Shaking my head in frustration, I held my arms awkwardly away from my body, afraid of touching myself for fear of spreading anything further.

This was not going to work.

I wasn’t going to be able to fight in any traditional stance covered in all this, while also avoiding my cleaner body parts. It was a disgusting and irritatingly underhanded move by him, but I shouldn’t have expected anything less.

“You suck!” I yelled angrily.

He just shrugged in reply. He had to have known I was going to be pissed, but I don’t think he realized how much. I would have rather gone on a date with Chad if it meant I didn’t have to talk to Dorian for a couple of days.

I felt disgusting and everything itched, even where I was still clean. The gooey mixture was starting to thicken in places and draw more attention to my wet shirt and chest. Sure, this was a genuine tactic used to give him an advantage, but did it have to have such a raunchy bonus?

I covered myself to try and make it harder to ogle me, with the men in the crowd booing in response. My right hand and arm were now useless anyway. Pressing them to my chest would make it easier to remember not to use them. Plus, I’d get the added bonus of using my arm to shield my torso from blows, preventing points.

I extended my sword towards Dorian and stood slightly sideways, leading with my left leg, with my torso and right side turned away from him.

“Come on! This is how you wanted this to go, right?”

My face burned with anger, feeling none of the respect for Dorian as I had Noelle. All I felt now was rage. I slid my left foot forward and lunged, acting like I was fencing. Unfortunately, the sword was too heavy, and I was not skilled enough, and the attack was slow and awkward. Dorian took advantage of my clumsy attempt at something new, slapped the lunge away and countered with a lunge of his own, skewering me in my stomach.

“Oof!” I gasped, the air rushing out of my lungs with the blow.

I winced as I shuffled away to try and give myself some space, but he pressed forward with more lunges, trying to take advantage of my disorientation and end the match. I continued to retreat and swept my sword from side to side to knock away more thrusts. I intentionally took a hit to my arm and used the opening to swing back. Unfortunately, he copied my move and blocked my attack with his own arm while sweeping further past me. I whirled around to track him and felt something wet hit my back and ass.

The bastard had flung more bombs!

I finished whirling in his direction behind me, snarling and swinging my sword angrily. He had retreated with the move to reset himself, so my useless swings hit nothing but air, but I felt a little better.

I was miserable. Everything itched, I was wet all over and getting colder the longer this dragged out. I shivered while rolling my shoulders and tilting my head from side to side in agitation. I wanted to scratch anything and everything, but that would just cause more problems. And now my back, ass and thighs were also covered in his home-made stupidity.

He was so infuriating! Those bombs hadn’t been necessary, it was purely for his entertainment! Was he not taking me seriously? I mean yeah, he’d pissed me off even further, but tactically it did him no good. I was already as frustrated as I was going to be. Then the light bulb flickered to life.

His strategy had worked.

I wasn’t thinking clearly. I wasn’t moving or fighting cleanly. I was completely off my game, and he had absolute control of the fight.

“Doing ok over there, love?” he casually asked.

I could have killed him.

“If it’s all the same to you, I’ve a date with the prince and I don’t wish to be late. Let’s hurry this along, shall we?” he said playfully.

He rushed to close the distance between us and started attacking with alternating strikes, which I turned away without too much difficulty. He seemed to be testing my mobility after his latest bomb salvo. Maybe he was watching my steps and wondering if I was distracted by the discomfort.

At least that’s what I thought he was doing.

Without warning, his pace and attack pattern completely changed. Pressing forward and forcing me into an aggressive retreat, his strikes became a blur. His angle of attack started varying to any body part where he thought he had an opening: legs, sword arm, head, sides. I struggled to defend each of the new attacks.

I hadn’t wanted to admit it mentally, as it just would have been another distraction, but the wet concoction was getting stickier on my body, and it was affecting the fluidity of my movements. Each adjustment to block was lagging further behind the last, until my attempt to defend a swing at my head was so far behind that his strike flat out knocked my sword away from my body.

My arms flailing uselessly at my sides, I was completely defenseless as he shoulder tackled me in my front, shoving me even more off balance. He took advantage of my exposed chest and smashed the flat of his wooden blade into it hard, scoring his second point.

And he wasn’t finished.

Still off balance, he whipped his sword back up attempting to finish me and it was all I could do to drag my blade across my body for the deflection to prevent the blowout loss. The swords crashed together, successfully keeping me in the match, but unfortunately the resulting blow knocked my weapon clean out of my hand.

I finally lost my balance and tumbled backwards through the dirt with it sticking to anything it touched. I dragged out the roll, attempting to further separate myself from Dorian. I popped back up to my feet after a fair distance, expecting him to be right in my face. Instead, he stood roughly where I had left him, studying his left shoulder that he had infected by touching me. The shove hadn’t gotten him nearly as dirty as I had hoped and wasn’t going to be slowing him down.

I just can’t catch a break.

I stood defiantly, now covered in dirt, as well as everything else, from head to toe. I was unarmed, my sword laying on the other side of the arena. I frowned as it taunted me from so far away. Dorian must have kicked it off to the side while I was rolling in the dirt. And he now had two points to my none. I clinched both my fists. I could barely hear Chad droning on about the state of the match in the background, along with the reactions from the crowd.

Headshot or nothing now, honor be damned!

Noelle fought me with a level of respect. She had multiple opportunities to end our match, but she allowed me moments to breathe, and I had felt the need to reciprocate. Dorian had shown me no such respect. He fought dirty, throwing anything my way that he felt would further tip the odds in his favor.

Looking down at myself again, I was disgusted with what I saw. I glared back up at him, wishing that, in my fury, my golden eyes would shoot lasers, forcing him to melt into a pathetic puddle.

He deserved what was coming next.

“Done daydreaming over there, honey?” emphasizing yet another stupid affectionate nickname. “We’ve got a fight to finish!” He gestured at my disheveled state, “Although I wouldn’t blame you for quitting. If you ask me, it’s already over.”

My eyes snapped back to attention. He wanted me to quit?! I took up an unarmed stance to let him know I wasn’t done yet!

He merely shrugged and sighed, “If you insist.” His nasty grin slid back in place, “I’m enjoying the view right now anyway!”

Letting my emotions boil to the surface, I sprinted towards him. I would only get once chance at this! Hopefully he hadn’t expected me to go on the immediate offensive, and I wanted to use speed to throw him off. He set his feet in the dirt and lunged forward with his sword, hoping to strike me from a distance before I could get within arm’s reach.

And I had banked on it.

I nimbly ducked and slid narrowly to the side and let the blade whoosh past me. Now successfully within range, I threw a punch as hard as I possibly could and punched him square in the balls.

He immediately curled over in pain and dropped his weapon, groaning loudly as he grabbed his crotch. I picked up his sword and stood next to his writhing form. I waited for him to look up at me, eyes bulging in their sockets as he processed the pain from a cheap shot of my own.

“Turnabout is fair play.” I taunted.

I whirled the sword like a golf club and smacked him upside his head with the flat of his own blade. His head twisted to the side violently and his body flopped and rolled over. He was unconscious before his limp form stopped moving.

I pointed the sword at Chad and then threw it in the dirt in disgust.

“Call the match, Prince!”

The crowd went ballistic.

“The Amazon wins! What a match! Gentlemen, better protect the family jewels around this demoness! She’s a wild one!”

I stalked past Dorian’s unconscious body, resisting the urge to kick some dirt at him, and over to the sidelines where Noelle’s family had faces ranging between shock and excitement. Noelle had already obtained a cloak to cover me with, unconcerned with my messy state.

“Come on, let’s get you out of here and get you cleaned up before the Finals.”

I looked back at Dorian, whose limp form already had men from the crowd gathered around him, poking him to see if he was still alive.

For just the smallest moment, I felt a pang of guilt.

Noelle followed my gaze and chuckled to herself before helping me along the trail towards Bronzemead and a change of clothes.

Like she knew what I was thinking and had felt the same way herself at some point, she chimed in, “Don’t. He’s done worse, received worse, and still deserved worse that he’s never gotten.” She squeezed my arm playfully. “He might keep his distance from you for a bit, but he’ll live.”

I looked down at myself again and decided that Noelle was right. When you play with fire, it’s only a matter of time before you get burned.