Night curled against his hide like a caress as he awaited the competitor he sought, making him feel sick with its intimacy and promise. He hated to fight beneath Her light, but it gave him further incentive, boiled his blood to a higher temperature. He would show Her that he was stronger than what she thought could break them, just as he would shed blood in defense of his brother’s loss and rape of personal items. Even if he still felt as if Destrier had betrayed him. Kaj shook his head firmly, trying to jostle himself into the right frame of mind for fighting. No, he couldn’t be distracted, couldn’t be confused. But he was, helplessly. It only infuriated him more, that he couldn’t even fight for his family with a clear mind. Yet another failure to add to the list. The feeling of dissent, disgust, followed him about even as his kin remained doggedly loyal. All but those whom he’d wanted to remain the most, Kaj thought with a pang through his heart. What are you fighting for?

The wind rustled through the sparse grass, the moon taunting him high above, his only answer.

It didn’t supplement him while he awaited his opponent, the air brisk against his coat. Only his neck remained warm, the glass armor keeping his heat close, his sins even closer. Scalding, even, against his skin. A flash of gold caught his eye, silvery moonlight like a beacon, searching out his opponent and bringing him to the light of justice. Kaj wielded that hammer, and he would bring it down upon the thief regardless of personal faults and inhibitions. A sneer lifted his lips, to see the one that had targeted his family bathed in the murderous light of the Goddess he similarly despised. He hated him, hated what he stood for, what he’d done. What he was making Kaj do, what he was making him think and feel. Kaj bared his teeth fully, muscles rippling as he widened his stance. Come and get me, he thought darkly. Neck arched, glass warm against his skin. Kahlua was watching out for him, in her own way. It wasn’t a comfort.

The thief was lithe, fast. He reminded Kaj of Resplendence, but Kaj would have no such restrictions for the battle that was to come that he’d had when fighting his Doctor. Kaj would crush him, would destroy him. Maybe that would make the war in his head silence itself.

For all his posing, his procrastination, the thief finally surged forward. Kaj gnashed his teeth, over-eager. Finally. It was a dangerous line he was toeing, but the storm inside him broke like a flimsy dam nonetheless. Kaj didn’t intend to just dominate the thief, to make him understand the error of his ways. Kaj was going to unleash everything on the poor bastard, and as he bunched his hindquarters and shot forward in answer to the golden’s movement, his tongue thirsted for the taste of blood. Of death. Oh, but Bronze had taught Kaj well, and the Storm Bringer was already moving to arch his wings high out of the way when the two came together like arcing comets. Kaj was slower, but he made up for it with fury, and he laughed maniacally as his wings snapped high with a sound like the crack of a whip, bite missing. Kaj turned his body into the hooves he suspected were aimed his way. He still had the scar from Bronze, an even older one from Maskan. Common move, boy, he growled mockingly. The weanling knew nothing of blood and battle, and Kaj would teach him, would grind his crimson life into the sand and dirt below. The whelp would learn respect, of the King and his possessions. So Kaj would take that blow, because he had one planned in retaliation. Kaj planted himself deep into the earth, an oak that couldn’t be weathered by the slim-whip seedling he fought against. Massive right shoulder slammed outward, supplemented by a hard right lunge, ready to knock into the slimmer stallion. Teeth aimed for the spine of the shorter stallion, a snarling beast descending for the bite. Hooves nicked against the outer side of Kaj’s right leg, right above the knee, sparing the joint. It stung, but it was nothing beneath the monstrous fury that had consumed him. So long as the joint was spared, the beast didn’t care. He’d suffer the scrape, the surface bruise. For a minute he gleefully envisioned knocking the thief completely free of his hooves, descending upon him, dishing out the killing blow. Some sort of muted internal horror at the thought jerked him away, made him realize what he was doing. He wasn’t that stallion anymore. He was doing this for his family. Right?