---
"If you lose," he continued, "I will take you alive. I will ensure, personally, that you do not die on the journey to the capital. I will argue for your hive to be annexed, not destroyed. Your people will live under Scarlet law, not under the fire. I cannot promise how gentle that law will be. I can promise it will be law, not slaughter."
He planted the butt of his spear in the sand with a solid thunk.
"These are the terms," he said. "Take them or throw them back and we resume what we began."
Kai listened.
He listened not just with his ears but with the strange, sharpened sense that had grown in him since the Crown first settled on his unseen brow. Vorak's aura did not waver. The cadence of his words did not hitch. Whatever else the man was – enemy, threat, problem – he was not a liar by instinct.
He might still fail to keep his promises.
But he would not break them easily.
Kai straightened.
"I accept the duel," he said.
