NOW, THE BLOOD #3
The man who was not a man lay prone with Mina tucked under him, face down.
She hacked at the smog, tearing her face against the ground to rip the gag from her mouth.
Above her, the man burned through the rope on her wrists with a finger, and she stilled in shock.
Then, because Mina was nothing if not understanding, she grinned and sighed beneath him.
He’d burned her platform and snagged her just before blowing up the pit.
Bal and Janos coughed through the dust, but the pouch was nowhere to be found.
Bal stood, then stepped sideways and crashed to his knees, the fury draining from his eyes and his body finally noticing all the blood it’d lost. Janos heaved, the only one of the trio still standing.
“Where’s the pouch?” Isobel demanded.
“I think it burned!” Janos yelled back at her.
She twisted her lips before a delicate hand touched her throat. Then she said, “Then, as Janos Rivel is the last man standing, I declare him the winner of this trial!”
With that announcement, Esme’s body finally sagged with life again. The trial was technically finished.
She leaned over the railing to check on Mina and found her speaking softly to the man who’d saved her. Bal was still, as if he’d been stabbed into the sand like a blade. Janos looked around stupidly. But most importantly, the will wasn’t throwing a fit. It accepted that?
Esme fucking didn’t. Everything in her life was accepting. Swallowing shit down and pretending not to gag. From Isobel buying out the nobles at the beginning of this trial, to the bitch damn near killing the love of her life.
Well, Esme was done swallowing.
She nudged the shadows she’d sung her rage to earlier. They hadn’t forgotten her plan. Blackness squirmed through the feet of the crowd as they cheered. Daphna jumped at the flood of black serpents under their feet.
“Es…” They leaned forward in their chair. “What are you doing?”
“Either act hurt or I will hurt you,” Esme seethed.
It was all the warning Esme gave her Wraiths before waking up an entire arena’s worth of shadows.
They slithered below the stands in a makeshift earthquake.
As spectators began to scream, she grabbed the shadows lining their bellies and sleeping along their muscles, and wrapped them around their throats.
And she squeezed.
The entire arena erupted into anguish, even Bal. Esme made sure to strangle the nobles hard as she could. The only people untouched were Mina, the man who’d saved her, and her fellow Wraiths.
Well, them and Isobel.
The queen ducked into her box, fearing what seemed like a temper tantrum from the will. And surely, Esme made it look like one, wringing throats and dispensing earthquakes. Except Esme couldn’t hurt Isobel, not like how the will could. What she could do, though, was much worse.
“It’s your stupid fucking rules!” a noble cried, pointing at Isobel. Similar jeers rose amongst the tormented crowd.
Isobel peeked up from her box. Of course, she knew better. She knew she wasn’t in pain. Her eyes found Esme’s.
As much as Esme wanted to relish this, she couldn’t play her hand just yet, so she caved in on herself. Her eyes bled red as she hacked and heaved. Still Isobel watched her, waiting for her tell.
So Esme sliced open her own throat.
Isobel’s eyes jumped open as Esme dropped to her knees.
The rest of the Wraiths played their parts, doubled over in pretend pain.
Even Urias bent, maybe because he was too scared of what Esme would do if he didn’t.
The Wraiths’ eyes burned in terror at what she was doing.
Fine, it was horrible. Fine, people were vomiting blood and going blue.
Fine, the stands might collapse against her earthquake.
Fine.
Esme wouldn’t stop until she got what she wanted. No more fucking swallowing.
“Take it back, you cow!” came a yell from the crowd and someone threw a knife up into Isobel’s box.
The queen flinched back from the edge. More and more people began to pelt rocks and goblets at her, some were even trying to scale the pillars of her box.
Mak’kon couldn’t help, and her servants were all flapping uselessly. Even Hallel wept with a knotted throat.
Esme gave her no fucking choice. Commoners were climbing the pillars. They’d torture the words out of her if she didn’t give them up freely.
“I—I take it back! Janos hasn’t won! There is no winner! The trial has ended in a draw!” Isobel shrieked at the crowd.
Esme stopped her shadows instantly. The arena quit its shaking and the strangling shadows loosened their coils. But the injuries stayed. The moaning, the crying, the screaming stayed.
The rage stayed.
All of Amaris brayed for Isobel Asterou’s head. She had done this to them. She and her biased, stupid rules and twists and turns. The crafty bitch—she’d almost killed them.
Esme grinned from her box. Her throat gushed blood down her dress. She had more open skin than unbroken. Blackness crept in on her vision, but it didn’t matter.
Up in her box, Isobel begged for her very fucking life as Mak’kon just barely kept the tide of hateful commoners from skinning her alive.
Because Isobel could buy Esme out. She could twist the rules. She could cheat.
But no matter how low Isobel hit, Esme would always claw through all nine of Muhnir’s hells to go lower.