7 Deadly Instincts (The Sinfire Chronicles Book 1)

The hours became a blur of running and resting—at one point, around dawn, they cooked eggs on the very same cart they’d used during the first Redemption Midnight event. And then, they started the run back towards the coliseum.

Lilian was unexpectedly quiet on the return. She did at one point snort, “How are we going to do anything after all this running? And Blonko is a freak, I guess, but that doesn’t mean he can kill us.”

“I think he wants to just kill me, princess” Gray said as his feet pounded the cobblestones. “So that’s something you have in common.”

“I don’t want to kill you.” Lilian then got mad and threw a question at Ames. “How come you didn’t scream at Gray? That was mean.”

“Too tired,” the quelling elf said with a smile.

The day was cloudy and cloud—no surprise there. Snow came and went but didn’t seem very serious. Back in the market, a thin crowd of die-hards cheered them, but most people were just going about their day.

And then it was noon, they were back at the coliseum, and Crewel floated above them. “The second event of Redemption Midnight is Sixblood! You know the rules—pass the ball into the hoop and get a point. The teams with the most points win. As a reminder, the top teams remain Squad 23, Froggy’s Thunder, and the Fire Flyers.”

There were three wooden hoops on one side of the stadium, attached to the wall, and three hoops on the other for a total of six. Each hoop had colorful ribbons dangling from it. Last night they played, the ball would change color to match the ribbon. Eventually, they had been multiple balls in play, with one of the balls being multi-colored, so it could pass through any of the hoops.

The crowds had returned from the night before and were hooting and hollering.

Gray closed his eyes. He was exhausted—Ames slipped her hand into his and he felt better. She then touched his face, and he felt healing energy fill him. It was an old manamancer trick—ease exhaustion and repair muscle with magic as well as give him a bit of power to keep on fighting. But like with all healing, it hurt. He grunted in pain, but it was necessary.

Ames then turned to Lilian. “Can I touch you?”

Lilian winced. “Will it hurt?”

Ames smiled. “Yes. You might not enjoy it, but I will.”

“Because you hate me,” Lilian murmured.

“Because I find you…difficult. I haven’t screamed in a while, so you’re doing something right. Just relax.”

Lilian squeezed her eyes shut. Her mana mark must’ve been really hurting her because it was a bright red. “Relax while you hurt me. Sure.”

Ames touched the princess, healing her, even as the Cradleport woman complained. “Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!”

“It’s not so bad as all that,” Ames said sternly. “Pain means you’re alive.” She paused. “But there’s more to life than pain.”

She smiled at Gray.

He nodded. “It can’t rain all the time.”

“No. But it can kill you with snow,” Lilian said bitterly. “What’s our plan?”

“Don’t die!” Gray laughed and laughed, and he wasn’t sure why. He felt good, hopeful, and then the game started.

One ball—the color of a rainbow—and any hoop would do.

* * *

The Sixblood match was divided into three twenty-minute periods. Most of that first period were the recruits fighting for control of ball. With only the one ball, it was hard to keep possession of it long enough to throw it through a hoop.

Flying was allowed, which gave the two dragons sister on the Fire Flyers the advantage, though more than once, they were knocked out of the air by either fireballs from the various orcs or from Ames, hurling mana blasts.

Gray tried to use his bloodless blade to throw mana, but it certainly didn’t feel like his trusty stick when he filled it with magic.

At one point, Minkus Puffergone, the goblin on the Lucky Bastard’s team, had used his manahand to stop one of the dragons from taking off. The ball had tumbled across the grass where it was picked up by the new dwarf woman who was soon run down by Blonko.

Unlike the last time they played, with only three recruits per squad, they didn’t have enough people to capture a hoop and hold it, and so, the game felt more like Chaotica than Sixblood.

The first period was scoreless until Gray realized that.

After a ten-minute break, where they drank water, Gray pulled Ames and Lilian in close. “We need to get the ball and control it, obviously. I can’t imagine the Magistrate will only have the one ball. He needs someone to score.”

“Besides stating the obvious, do you have an actual plan, Gray?” Lilian said nastily.

Ames went to scream, but Lilian grabbed her arm. “Don’t. I’m sorry. Gray, what’s your plan? I would really like to know.”

“We get you the ball, Lilian, and you make the goal happen, no matter what. Ames and I keep them off you. At this stage, we only need the one point. I’m thinking getting two is probably not going to happen.”

“Not with that attitude,” Ames said with a smile. “Self-mastery is choosing to have a positive attitude.”

Lilian sighed. “Not you too.”

“Me too.”

Crewel announced their break was over and they trotted out to the middle of the field along with the other squads.

Froggy grinned at him. She was flanked by the huge bearkin, who hadn’t been able to effectively leap as well as Tomi and the thick, muscled orc who was not a good runner. His fireballs, though, were very effective, and it was clear he had power.

“Hey, sexy,” Froggy called to him. “You just can’t help yourself from collecting angel heads, can you? But why did you choose this ugly one? What’s up with her face?”

Lilian’s core flared up—mana from around her was sucked into her core as the fury overtook. “What kind of monster are you? Or are you a demon? You’re calling me ugly? Have you looked in the fucking mirror?”

Froggy only laughed. “I love looking in the mirror. I see the bitch who is going to win this. What do you see? Besides that ugly mana mark next to your eye?

Both the bear man and the orc laughed loud enough that Gray missed whatever Crewel was saying.

But then he dropped the ball, and the second period began.

Blonko got the glowing ball and he tucked it under his metal arm and then swung his sword to clear the recruits trying to get to him. Kabe then created a firewall all the way to closest hoop.

Ishnash threw a fireball into the face of one of the dragon sisters, knocking her back, which allowed Blonko to storm forward.

Gray and his squad went for him, but soon found themselves engaged with the dwarves, who were clearly blocking their way from getting to the orcs.

Kain crossed swords with Gray. The dwarf growled through his beard. “No offense, lad, but I have to stop you. Someone needs to score in this game, and it might as well be the orcs. And then we’ll get our turn.”

Gray vented his core, tossing the dwarf back, but also causing Lilian to be thrown across the grass.

Dizzy from lack of mana, Gray was caught by Ames, who was already running with him toward Blonko and the hoop at the side of the wall. Ames’s dwarf was still on the ground, probably trying to recover from her pain touch.

Lilian stumbled after them, not at all happy. “A little warning next time, dammit!”

“The dwarves are working with the orcs,” Gray gasped. “We probably should’ve tried to form an alliance.”

“No one would want to,” Ames whispered. “Not with us.”

She was right. They were too popular and too powerful. Everyone knew that if Squad 23 fielded a team with seven magi, they would be unstoppable. It was in everyone’s best interest that they lose. They’d gotten lucky during the egg cook-off, but then, that had been a shitshow with all the sloth monkeys everywhere.

Gray felt the fury give him mana, and the envy—why hadn’t he thought of forming a partnership?

It was too late to do anything with Froggy—she was too much of a deceptive witch for him to trust her. She had hurt Lilian by calling her ugly, he was sure of it, even though the princess got mana from it.

“Point for the Wrath City Raiders!” Crewel shouted.

Blonko was trying to score again when one of the dragons swooped down and caught the ball.

A fireball from Froggy’s new orc, Grist Gulnash, knocked it lose and the Viktor the bear kin caught it and dashed toward the next hoop.

Until he ran into Minkus the goblin’s manahand.

Play continued, and yes, the dwarves were able to score, but only because the orcs used walls of flickering flames to keep other squads away from them.

The second period ended with only those two teams scoring.

Back at the sidelines, Gray, Ames, and Lily drank water.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Froggy and Mean Marla talking. Phillapalla Kech, the dog woman the fire flyers, soon joined them. There was a lot of nodding happening over there, and more than once, Froggy shot him a smile, and then licked her lips, trying to be seductive, but her mouth was too big, and really, so was her tongue. It was surprisingly thick and an off-putting gray color to boot.

Gray knew they only had one shot. “We get the ball first, at the beginning of the period, and we empty our cores to get a point. No matter what. After that, we help the orcs and dwarves to block the other squads from scoring. Only three squads place per event. We just need to be one of those squads.”

Lilian giggled. “So our plan is to score. So glad we have you to tell us such things, Gray. What would we do without?”

Ames screamed in Lilian’s face.

The princes winced. “Sorry. That one was on me. I should’ve known better. Okay. We get the ball right away. You give it to me. And we score.”

He nodded. “That’s the plan.”

They hurried out to the middle of the field as the crowd cheered.

Crewel dropped the ball, and right then, both Gray and Ames vented their core, leveling all the squads around them.

Lilian had been far enough away that she hadn’t been caught in the blast.

She poured her mana into her meridians, shot forward, and caught the ball.

Blonko swung at her with his metal arm, but she danced around him, and even bashed in his knee before streaking toward the nearest hoop.

A dragon sister flew in toward her—she wasn’t going to make it.

Ames couldn’t throw her mana blast—she was still trying to get to her feet and she was too far away for Gray to give her mana.

It was up to him.

He filled his hand with his magic, completely focused. Spinning, he hurled his first mana blast across the field.

It struck the dragon in her face, blinding her for a second.

It was all Lilian needed. She tossed the ball through the hoop.

“Point to Squad 23!” Crewel boomed.

The crowd went wild.

Gray ran to Ames, filled her core with mana, and then both of them hurried to Lilian, who was still on the ground.

The princess smiled up at him. “I might be hideous, but when it comes down to it, I can still dance. Would you be so kind as to give me mana, Grayson Fade?”

He knelt and touched her, replenishing her core.

For a second, he was caught up in the beauty of her blue eyes. The mark was there, but it was easy to ignore. They all should’ve grateful for it because facial marks were more powerful than the normal kind.

He felt the old lust for his lover, and he loved how happy she was. Looking back, Lilian had always been silly or sad. Now, there was this other side of her—this excitement for life.

He knew exactly how that felt. Like him, she had entered a new world filled with magic.

He pulled up and they went running across the field.

Ames was right there with him. “I like that lust you felt. It was fire inside you, and it makes me want to taste you, please you, drink you.”

“After the game, Ames,” he said.

“Wishful thinking!” Lilian called out from behind them.

And then the game of Sixblood turned into a battle between two factions: the teams that scored and the teams that hadn’t.

It didn’t take long for the orcs and dwarves to see what Squad 23 was doing, and even Blonko stopped taking swings at them.

Working together, Gray and the rest of their faction stopped Froggy’s Thunder, The Lucky Bastards, and Fire Flyers from scoring.

“We have a tie for first place!” Crewel shouted. “And, yes, the remarkable Squad 23 is the only team that has won both of the events we’ve had so far. The Lucky Bastards do not seem to be that lucky, since they have not scored at all. Just one event to go. That one, however, will not have an audience. For our last event, it will be underground, our very first event to take place in the Underdwell.”

There was a gasp from the entire coliseum.

Even some of the recruits around him looked worried.

“Is this bad?” Lilian asked.

Ames ignored the question. She came over and pulled Gray close and kissed him tenderly. Gray didn’t know what was going on but he kissed her back, relaxing into her familiar scent. Her lips were soft, her body was warm, and he wanted to take her away to Third Barracks and make sweet love to her.

Why not? They’d won the first two events. Someone might be able to tie for first place but their standings were set.

Lilian watched them kiss for several long seconds and then walked away.

Gray couldn’t help but see her core filling with mana.

Why was she so angry? He was so too tired to care.

And then they were taken underground. It was cold and only going to get colder even before the blindfolds.