Sacred Planet: Book One of the Dominion Series Read Online Free PDF Page A

Besides . . .” He twisted himself around to see Sierra, conked out like a toddler. “I kinda want to make sure this girl gets home safe.”
     

The Champion

Chapter Eight
    Deep in the Sagittarius Arm of the Milky Way, on the planet Triumph . . .
    The ground trembled under Kastor’s feet.
    He paused on the battlefield as wisps of hot air brushed his skin and fluttered the shreds of clothing exposing his cuts. Strands of carmine blood had escaped him in the minutes before his leukocytes sealed the wounds. He pressed his fingers against gleaming red streaks over his deltoid and painted his cheeks under the eyes—first his left, then his right. The aristocracy of Triumph, of all Sagittarius, would see his noble blood.
    Solidified lava spires rose high into the air as steam escaped their peaks. Shadows blended in with the rough, scorched ground. Heat escaped from deep fissures, where warm, orange light glowed from Triumph’s molten mantle. So hot that the air rippled above the earth. So hot that Kastor’s skin couldn’t keep from sweating—a body designed to contain blood but not perspiration. It beaded over his forehead and neck and between the hairs of his forearms until it gathered the volume to roll into the hollows of his muscles. The skin under the titanium band around his wrist felt especially damp and soft, almost enough to slip the damn thing off. But cheating would do no good. Where was the glory in that?
    Kastor loosened his grip on his katana, keeping the blade edge ablaze—white-hot and ready to sear through the armor of his prey. The red laser wall crept ever closer, only thirty meters out now, the entire diameter of the playing field perhaps seventy-five. Drones hovered above, beaming the holographic partition, closing in fast. Where, an hour before, the playing field had spread across ten hectares of brutal landscape occupied by twenty equally brutal contenders, now it comprised less than a stone’s throw and two finalists who had managed to stay within its bounds. One of them hid somewhere in this sphere of playable ground while the other watched and waited.
    Kastor wheeled around, studying the shadows and fissures for movement, but movement was everywhere. The entire crust of the planet moved constantly, creaking and shifting, melting and cooling, evolving, growing. A young planet, still roaring with volcanic power and unreached potential, like Sagittarius itself.
    Like Kastor.
    Enough waiting. The laser wall was shrinking; his prey had to be close.
    “Guarin!” Kastor called out, voice carried by the heavy air. His prey, wherever he was hiding, heard. So did those watching. Including the Grand Lumis.
    All of the royal courtiers and their staff watched, as did the Queen Matriarch in the court of the Grand Lumis. Somewhere on this hot planet, Kastor’s old cradlemate watched, inspiring him with her unseen gaze. And in the hours it took to beam the video feed through the spacebend network to the thousand courts across the Sagittarian Regnum, all the nobility would witness Kastor’s glorious moment.
    He raised his voice again. “Guarin, step outside the wall and end this, or come out and fight. Your stealth annoys me.”
    The laser wall contracted all around him. Ashen clouds swirled above. In the distance, past the laser drones, hovercraft hung in the sky, their decks lined with onlooking nobles. Guarin made no appearance. Why did the noblemen of Swan have so much guile? The slithering serpents. Nothing exasperated Kastor like guile. He resolved to wait. He would not deign to hunt down his prey. That was exactly what Guarin wanted. No, the laser wall would do the work for him, foil the serpent’s ploy. Kastor stepped to a black mound and leaned against it, stabbed the incandescent tip of his blade into the ground, and rested his hands on the hilt.
    Moments slipped by. Sweat tingled across Kastor’s skin. The ruby-red Eagle insignia glowed bright from the titanium band on his wrist, beckoning him