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I slow to a halt and try to place my hand on the hilt of my sword to show him I am ready for any attack he has planned, but then I reuards

Never mind Hand-to-hand combat suits awking as they go, trying to get a good look at the king’s disgraced son, who is now the lone Champion for our year

The Lessers, who are not allowed to wear armor outside of the ceremony, stop to remove their bronze breastplates and leather wrist cuffs before returning to their labors I a near Rowan and a couple of other Elites who’ve congregated near the exit My hands grow hot, prickling with energy, as I think of the things Lex suggested in the throne roo to the Elites that I cannot hear Rowan nods and laughs, glancing in ods that Rowan issues a challenge now It would be my duty to riposte

Lex clasps his hands in the sleeves of his robe and takes his leave, presumably to join the other Heirs Only a handful of Underlords remain in the antechaht to be a private affair, rather than the spectacle I predicted I decide to push the issue by advancing toward Rohen so attacked from the side, and I raise my hand to strike, but then I see that the clu but a scrawny boy With a twist in the strap of the heavy, ill-fitting breastplate that drapes over his sagging shoulders He’s the Lesser who stood in front ofthe cere hiain, I feel as though I should know hiies, my lord," he says, and scurries away as fast as he can toward the exit

It is now that Rowan chooses to nals two of his chimera-faced lackeys to follow his lead They step in front of the doorway, and the Lesser boy, not paying attention, runs right into Rowan’s chest

"Where do you think you are going?" Rowan asks hilowerto my barracks, Lord Rowan," he says "As I was instructed"

"And you were going to take your borrowed armor with you?" Rowan points at the stack of breastplates where the other Lessers have left theirs behind "You knoe do to thieves"

"Yes," the boy says "I ot I was distracted" He glances slightly back toward me

My iet out of it" Roraps his hand around the boy’s left wrist cuff, and one of Rowan’s friends clutches on to the twisted leather strap that lies across the boy’s back

Before the Lesser can even try to fight back, Rowan and his crony both yank viciously on the boy’s ar him in opposite directions The boy screams The noise echoes off the walls and fillssound of his shoulder being dislocated from its socket

I react before I even have a chance to think I push h the bystanders who still remain in the antechamber My hands clutch into fists I can feel a current of electricity surging up o of the boy and pushes him away The Lesser whi at an unnatural angle Rowan opens his h, but I smash my fist into his jaw before he can make a sound He sla to the chest