Chapter 40
ARIEL
M y father never returned.
With his absence, a new fear that something terrible had happened to him joined my old concerns about Hemming, Eldrien—and Shayfer. A sick feeling swam in my gut, and I pushed up off the ground just as the door opened.
New leathers similar to my own flew through the doorway and slapped me in the face before I caught them.
“Put them on,” Vesstan demanded, lingering. The light from the hallway spilled past his silhouette, highlighting me in the shreds of my dress that still remained. I slowly stood as he watched me like a scorpion about to strike. “Now.”
I felt stiff and sore from the beating I’d taken and the restless sleep I’d had on the stone floor, but I kept that from him as I stared him down and slipped the pants on under the cover of the silken skirt.
Disappointment flared in his icy eyes, but he said nothing.
Maneuvering into the halter would prove much more of a challenge, so I dropped the bodice I’d worn the night before to the floor and strapped the leather top in place.
“It’s strange how similar you look to your mother now,” he said, his snide tone meant to strike, as it did. “Perhaps if I’d locked you up down here the night you arrived, I might have realized your identity sooner.”
“Or perhaps I would have just carved you up sooner.”
His haughty expression soured. “You seem to think rather highly of your skills, Ariel, even after your failure. Perhaps I should give you another chance to show me exactly what you can do.”
His arm shot out and grabbed my hair. He yanked me through the doorway, making sure to knock me into the threshold along the way. I crashed to the ground and scrambled to regain my footing as he dragged me by the hair through the stony halls until we reached a door I hadn’t seen before. Dread seeped into my veins as his various threats ran through my mind. It seemed he’d grown tired of waiting—and I’d run out of time.
I kicked and struggled against him, but I knew all too well that nothing I did would matter. His strength seemed unparalleled. He was a god, after all, and regardless of my bloodline, I lacked that same level of power. It was as simple as that.
But that didn’t mean I wouldn’t put up a fight.
“You may wish to conserve some of your energy for what’s to come?—”
“Suck a donkey’s?—”
A swift boot to my gut silenced me in a second. As I curled up and tried to find my breath, Vesstan continued through the forbidding doorway into another dark tunnel lined with an occasional torch.
“You may also wish to watch that foul mouth of yours, or I might rethink the generous offer I’d planned to make you.” I tried to speak, but my diaphragm was seized too tightly for anything more than fighting to breathe. “Not curious at all?” he asked in a mocking tone. “How you wound me, Ariel, but I shall try not to take offense. You do seem rather preoccupied at the moment.” Bastard . “No need to worry, though. We’re almost there.”
No sooner had he said those words than a light began to glow softly around me. It grew stronger with every step we took, and a tiny hope began to bloom in my heart. Sunshine, I thought to myself, and I waited for the sweet smell of salty air to revive me. But as the tunnel spat us out into the blinding rays, I realized we weren’t really outside at all. Instead of crisp sea air assailing my senses, I smelled the stale scents of blood and death.
The stone beneath me gave way to sand and dirt, and I tried to crane my head to take in my surroundings. The vast, empty space seemed to swallow us whole as Vesstan continued on. The further into whatever this place was we went, the more of it I could see. We were in a circle of sorts, with walls of stone extending high above the sandy ground. Carved into the upper levels were recesses lined with ornately carved wooden chairs that seemed to span the circular space in its entirety—chairs occupied by those who’d filled the balcony and the dance floor during the party. And at the very top, crowning this bizarre expanse, was a crystal dome glittering in the light of the sun. The colorful pattern it cast on the ground was strangely beautiful, seeming to dance over the burnished stains in the sand below.
I recognized the source of that shade. I’d seen the earth soaked in blood many times before.
Once we reached the center of the circle, he released me and continued on toward a metal door on the far side. “You will never leave this island, Ariel, but I wonder…” As his words trailed off, he ripped open the metal door to reveal a wall of bars—a prison —behind it. And in that prison, tethered to the walls at the rear, stood Eldrien, Hemming, and Shayfer. A sob caught in my throat at the sight of them, especially Shayfer. His clothing was indeed soaked through with blood, but he was very much alive. Eldrien looked exhausted, his lean frame bruised and hunched forward. Hemming’s sleeve was as red as Shayfer’s shirt, and I wondered if he’d tried to help him before Vesstan had rendered him unconscious and carried him off. The three of them lunged forward as far as their restraints would allow, eyes wide at the sight of me.
Tears welled in mine as I took them all in. But those tears quickly began to steam as anger at what Vesstan had done stoked the fire within.
“Tell me something, Ariel,” Vesstan said loudly enough for his voice to carry through the vast space, “what would you be willing to do to free them?” I stared back at him in silence. “Would you fight for them?”
“Yes.”
“Ariel,” Hemming said, the warning in his tone thick and haunting.
“No matter the odds?” Vesstan continued, undaunted by the growing rage in the prison cell at his back.
“ Yes .”
Vesstan feigned contemplation as he sauntered back toward me. “Then prove it.” He stopped short and dropped any shred of well-mannered pretense. A snarl twisted his upper lip as he opened his mouth. “Earn their freedom in battle, for you know what will become of them once I tire of torturing them. This is your only chance to spare them.”
I lifted my chin a notch higher. “Then I accept.”
“As I knew you would.” He looked past me as his smile widened, and I turned to find Thallen directly behind me, a heavy iron chain in his hands. The shackle flew out of his hands and ensnared my ankle as he fastened the other end to a spike anchored deep into the ground. “Send them in,” Vesstan ordered as he disappeared into a tunnel beside the prison cell without so much as a backward glance.
As I tracked him into the darkness, the sound of heavy footfalls filled the arena. I turned to see large men clad in thick black armor filing in through the tunnel I’d been dragged through. They continued to pour out into the open space, pacing the perimeter until they’d encircled me. I counted eight of them, their faces shielded from view by their midnight helmets. They raised their swords in unison, then loomed there like harbingers of death awaiting the command to kill.
Unarmed, I stood in the middle of Vesstan’s assassination squad and tried to formulate a plan. He had no idea how well I’d been trained or what battle experience I had, which meant my attackers wouldn’t either. That would buy me a little time and the element of surprise, but once those were exhausted, I would be in trouble. The chain around my ankle kept me tethered to the ground, and I didn’t know how long it might take to melt it away, provided the metal wasn’t warded and could be melted at all.
My mind began to race as I spun around, looking for a way to get free.
Then I saw Hemming staring at me through the bars imprisoning him and the others, his piercing grey eyes focused on me. The second he saw my frantic expression, he strained against his chains, trying to rip them from the stone they were embedded inside.
“Ariel!” he shouted over the growing noise of the crowd and the armored soldiers now drumming their swords against their shields. “Look at me! You need to focus, understand?”
“Yes, but I?—”
“ Focus , Ariel. You can do this.” I swallowed hard and nodded a little too erratically. “Be patient and choose your moves wisely.” I closed my eyes and took a deep breath in a weak attempt to steady my nerves. When I opened them, I saw Hemming’s unfaltering confidence looking back at me, and it summoned my own.
I scanned the warriors encircling me, taking them in one by one. Their stances. The way they held their weapons. No amount of fancy armor could make up for weaknesses in the basics, and I could tell that Vesstan’s army had clearly not been bred and raised to fight like the Nychterides. They’d undoubtedly never had to. Their appearance was like nearly everything else we’d encountered since we’d arrived on Vesstan’s island—a grand fa?ade.
Hemming was right.
I could absolutely do this.
“Remember what you’re fighting for,” the malicious god called out over the din from a throne high above. “Let the battle commence!”
Knees bent and arms loose at my sides, I slowly turned in a circle, waiting to see who would make their move first as they all inched toward me, swords at the ready. The chain around my ankle jingled as I moved, and I realized I was not wholly without a weapon, beyond my scales and fire. I crouched down lower still, wings spread wide and scales dropping into place, and inhaled as though I planned to shoot flames at whoever broke ranks first. Then I waited for the inevitable.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a shadow move. In a flash, I snatched up the slack in the length of chain and pulled it taut between my hands. As a sword slammed down toward me, I thrust out my chain shield to block it. The second the steel met iron, I wrapped the links around the blade and twisted it out of his hands. Unencumbered by the weight of armor, I easily dove for the weapon. I secured it in my hand in one smooth roll, then shot to my feet with the sword arcing through the air toward the exposed area just below the soldier’s helmet. It sliced through his flesh with ease, separating his head from his body. The head flew through the air, a shower of red along with it, then hit the sand with a soft thud and rolled to a stop only feet away from another soldier.
I dared a glance up to where Vesstan sat. The amusement in his eyes quickly gave way to disbelief, followed by blinding rage. “Get her!” he shouted as he launched to his feet. “ Now !”
There was no time to relish the unhinged look on his face. The others swarmed me like angry bees, the war cries buzzing in my ear eclipsed only by the sounds of metal clanging, fire roaring, and the raucous crowd’s reaction every time another body dropped. Their numbers were overwhelming, but I focused on picking them off one by one, avoiding any substantial wounds until only three remained.
Then I felt the sharp sting of a blade bite into my side, and I dropped my sword arm out of reflex just as the soldier before me lunged. I quickly parried the blow, but without enough force, and he crashed into me, driving me to the ground while the others looked on, anxiously awaiting their turn to inflict pain and damage.
The weight of the male was oppressive, thanks to the metal enwrapping him, and I struggled to even breathe. “Time to see just how much god-blood runs through your veins,” he growled in my ear as the bracer on his forearm dug into my throat. Gurgling sounds escaped me as he slowly crushed my windpipe, and the world around me began to darken in my periphery. I’d lost my sword in the fall, and I threw my right hand out in an attempt to find it lying nearby, but the laughter of the remaining men and the crowd told me my search would be in vain. “Too late for that, I’m afraid.”
My lungs burned with the need for air, and I knew my time was running out.
Then I heard Hemming’s voice amid the mob’s uproar as though he were in my mind. “The chain!” he shouted repeatedly until his intention registered in my mind. I could feel the dull metal digging into my hip where it was trapped, and I reached for it, fingertips frantically searching. Finally, they grazed the cool iron and wrapped around it. With one final surge of energy, I yanked it up toward me and looped it around his neck. Realizing what I’d done, he released my throat long enough to try to disentangle himself from the noose I’d created with the chain.
Gasping for breath, I pulled as hard as I could on the iron, cinching it tighter. “It’s never too late,” I wheezed before I bucked my hips and tossed his weight to the side, quickly regaining my feet with the help of my wings. The other two glared at me through the thin slits in their helmets as they reached for me, but I had other plans.
With a snap of my wings, I shot into the air as far as my tether would allow, hauling the soldier up with me. The chain snapped tight around his neck as he dangled above his compatriots, feet kicking wildly as he fought to breathe. They flocked to the chain and began to pull me down, but my wings were just strong enough to combat their attempts. My crimson appendages beat hard and fast until the body hanging above the sand no longer moved.
I hauled him up to me and released the noose biting into his throat. He dropped at the feet of what was left of the army below while they stared at me through their armor with hateful eyes.
I dared a look over to where Hemming was encaged. The feral smile on his face was all I needed to see.
“Enough!” Vesstan cried.
The final two soldiers released my tether and backed away. Once they cleared the immediate area, I dropped down into the center of the arena amid the bodies I’d felled and lifted my chin to Vesstan in silent celebration of my victory.
But that celebration would prove short-lived.
Vesstan rose slowly, his body coiled with rage, and turned to a group of guards standing near a tunnel closed off by an abnormally tall gate. He said nothing, not even acknowledging the way I’d decimated his soldiers. Instead, he lifted his arm, and the oversized gate began to rise.
The creaks and groans of metal rang out through the arena as the spiked tips of the gate pulled free of the ground and lifted high like a nightmare opening its wide maw. The soldiers quickly made their way around the perimeter of the circle to a much smaller doorway that had opened for them. Their urgent pace caused my heart to speed up, and I instinctively backed away from the dark abyss behind that massive gate, as though I could feel the threat long before I could see it.
And then I heard it. An earsplitting, unearthly sound that cut through the arena like a blade.
I turned to see my friends’ faces grow pale as fear overtook them. The ground shook with every step the creature took through the huge tunnel. Pale green, reptilian eyes found me from the depths of the darkness and locked on me as it stalked toward the open gate.
I retreated toward Hemming’s prison until the iron around my ankle bit in tight. Then his voice cut through my rising panic. “ Ariel ,” he said, demanding my attention. I stared back at him through the bars of his cage, and his intense gaze nearly pulled me from my debilitating fear. Nearly. “Listen to me. You need to get free of that chain.”
I desperately knelt down and summoned a blaze to melt the metal tethering me to the ground. An angry amber glow filled the thick black links, and I pulled as hard as I could to rip them apart, but they barely budged, even under the brute force.
A roar of frustration escaped Hemming.
Another terrible cry rent the air in response.
My gaze drifted to the impending doom awaiting at the far end of the arena. Breath caught in my throat, I looked on as a golden-scaled foot slammed down into the sand beyond the tunnel, followed by another. They were massive and clawed and built for destruction; but even they were not as terrifying as what followed.
The head of the beast slowly pushed out through the gate into the light, green eyes still glowing as it stared at me. Its snout was long and full of teeth larger and sharper than any blade I’d ever wielded, and its neck seemed to extend for an eternity, allowing it a reach advantage I had no hope of combating. And at the base of it was a silver collar, much like my father’s.
The dragon, too, was a prisoner.
My momentary sympathy for the beast was cut short when it finally made its way into full view, revealing its formidable body—and its golden wings. They snapped wide and beat several times, creating a near sandstorm in the arena. I sheltered my body with my own while the sounds of Hemming struggling to get free echoed from behind me, but there was nothing he could do, and we both knew it.
Vesstan had saved his winning card for last.
I wondered if my display had angered him to the point that only my death would appease him. And with a glorious sense of irony, he’d use a dragon to see it done.
An enormous one.
It looked at Vesstan as though awaiting his directive. His gaze slowly cut to me, and the dragon threw back its head and spewed fire into the sky above. I could feel its searing heat rake across my body from across the arena.
“Hemming!” I cried out as fear began to overtake me.
I looked back to find his eyes narrowed with focus. “All enemies have a weakness, Ariel—even dragons. You know what yours are; maybe its are the same.”
I turned my attention back to the beast slowly making its way toward me. “How can I get close enough to even try?”
“Use your size. You’re smaller and faster?—”
“And hindered by this damned chain?—”
“That you used to your advantage once!” he snapped. “And you’ll do it again because you have to, understand? You have to…”
“You are the Aima Kori ,” Eldrien added, his voice filled with worry. “Your people need you.”
“As do I,” Shayfer said, an unfamiliar strain in his elegant timber. “Hemming, too.”
A stomp of the dragon’s foot shook the ground so violently that I staggered to steady myself. Whatever time it had afforded me was clearly up. The magnificent beast lowered its head to my level, covering half the arena in the process, and chuffed a cloud of smoke at me in challenge.
“You are descended from these creatures,” Hemming shouted at me. “Show it who the superior being is.”
I hurried over to pick up my stolen sword and the slack in the chain at my feet and started toward the dragon with measured steps. It snorted at me again as though it found my approach amusing, which, in fairness, it probably was. How was I to fell a being the size of Vesstan’s ballroom? That question riddled me with doubt as I began to sidestep, circling to the left. The dragon made no move to stop me. Instead, it just tracked me with those unnerving eyes, remaining totally still.
Like a predator preparing to attack.
As I got closer, I pushed my scales forward again. The dragon’s eyes narrowed when they came into sight, and I wondered if it realized what I was—that I had been blessed with the traits of its own kind. Then I wondered whether that realization would be well received.
The golden beast inhaled so hard that it sent my hair and the sand flying all around me. Knowing what was to follow, I sprinted to the left, hoping to get out of range. Molten fire shot past me, and I took to the air as high as I could, dropping the chain as I flew. Up and up I went, until I realized that I’d nearly reached the glass ceiling. I looked down at my ankle to find only a short length of chain dangling from my leg.
The dragon’s fire had freed me.
It watched me soaring above, brushing against the transparent barrier closing me in, and I couldn't help but think that it had done so intentionally. That we were in some way kindred spirits, and it knew as much. That it did not wish for me to be imprisoned, as it was.
Or killed.
I looked down to see a chain affixed to the dragon’s hind leg and wondered why it had not freed itself. Then my eyes fell to the collar clamped tightly around its neck, and the why became clear.
For a brief moment, my gaze drifted back to the glass above, a plan formulating in my mind. If I could get the dragon’s fire to melt the bars and chains imprisoning my friends, then we could escape, either with Shayfer’s ability or with Eldrien and me carrying Hemming and Shayfer through a melted section of the glass dome. Was it possible that the dragon would be sent after us? Yes, but it was a risk worth taking, especially given what it had done to my chain. I needed to get close enough to Hemming and the others to tell them the plan. Hemming and Eldrien could shield Shayfer from the flames, sparing him from further injury, and with any luck, we’d be gone before Vesstan even realized what had happened.
Once we were free, we could figure out a way to save my father.
I smiled at the sky above, knowing there was a marginal chance this could work. And a chance was all we needed.
“ ARIEL !” Hemming shouted from below a fraction of a second before a wave of heat washed over me. Flames engulfed me, vibrant orange blocking everything from view. Flames that nearly seared my scales from my flesh.
It took only a moment before pain unlike anything I’d ever felt tore through me. I frantically beat my wings to try to escape the fiery attack, but my efforts were in vain. Instead, I floundered inside the torrent of flame until it ceased. Through the thinning plumes of smoke, I watched the charred remains of my blood-red wings flail in the air as I struggled and began to plunge. They disintegrated to ash and dust with every futile beat until they were little more than bone and ruin.
The roar of Hemming’s beast split the air as I fell from the sky, hurtling toward the ground. And in those fleeting seconds, all I could think about was the fate of those counting on me—the fate of the male I loved—and how I’d failed them all for the last time.