Chapter 10
I portaled to the middle of the crumbling walkway and tilted my head to take in the sight of the looming Crave Arena at the far end.
Strategizing my entry to the arena had kept me up half the night. Should I portal to my bottom room in the Pinnacle? No.
Should I portal to the top where all the reds and purples would be? A certain trap.
I could have portaled to the gate at the end of the passage to chitchat with the guard before Tiers began… but I wanted to see the trap.
I turned to peer back at the Pinnacle. The other contestants were gathered around the start of the walkway.
Purple and red smoke shrouded the entire peak of the Pinnacle.
In readiness for my appearance, no doubt.
Most of the demons were focusing on the spot they must have collectively decided I would appear. Did they hold a vote on that?
Though, some players had already discovered that wouldn’t be the case. One demon elbowed his neighbor. Another demon blurted her discovery for others, pointing wildly in my direction.
Our number had more than halved in the first round. We’d each had to kill one, yet some demons had decided to take out far more. Just under one hundred demons remained, most of them either red, purple, or blue. So I was looking at about sixty contestants who had gathered to join in on the ambush.
I laughed. This shit really did tickle me. I was aware that I must have undiagnosed disorders.
I called out, “That’s all you came up with?”
Shoulders shaking with more laughter, I then turned to walk to the arena. I kept my muscles loose, and my posture confident and relaxed. Sixty demons were a real problem. That was a partial army.
My heart pounded as thoughts of Adeuto’s broken heart filled my head.
I couldn’t die. He couldn’t lose me today.
He needed me, because I understood what it felt like to lose a mother, and I was sixteen at the time.
Panic rose in me at the idea of his life without me to guide and love and protect him.
But sixty demons.
Suddenly the ideas I’d rustled up over the week between dealing with Carmine’s moods seemed really likely to fail.
My gut twinged, and as the combined smoke of my attackers launched at my back, I opened a portal into the Crave Arena. Over the crowd, specifically. Because of my undiagnosed disorders.
Screams rent the air. Howls of anger. Shrieks of pain and indignation.
“You’re pissing them off,” I sang, then snorted.
The twinge in my gut disappeared as their smoke attack was pulled back. I closed the portal.
The other players weren’t scared of the crowd, but they were scared of the king.
I made it to the other end of the walkway and glanced back. No one had started across yet. Funny that.
There must still be contestants who couldn’t portal, and if they didn’t make it to the arena, then guards would hunt them down. For me. Work smart, not hard. I lashed a whip of my power at the thinnest points of the pillars holding up the sad excuse for a walkway. We needed a new one anyway.
Bye-bye.
In a thunderous crash and roll of rock and rubble, the walkway collapsed hundreds of feet below.
Most would still make it across. Some wouldn’t, and so they could leave with their lives intact. I would kill anyone who got in my way. I wouldn’t do it gladly, but I would do it.
I strode into the passage, smelling the sulfurous arrival of those who could portal behind me. Ahead, near the gate, a few reds appeared with a yellow in tow.
The yellow who’d baited me in the first round. How was he still alive? Demons seriously had to stop underestimating yellows and oranges. Clever bastards.
The guard didn’t meet my gaze as I stood before the gate.
“Mate-Intended,” he mumbled.
Not even a smirk for my outfit? I’d left my gloves and hood at the fortress, but otherwise, my fighting attire was similar.
I’d tucked loose, coarse trousers into well-worn, leather boots, and opted for a leather vest that laced high on my chest and over each shoulder.
If I was lucky, a few daggers would slide off instead of embedding in my kidneys.
The crowd was in a clamor, but they hushed altogether and at once.
When total silence reigned, Carmine’s cold voice filled the Crave Arena. “Let Tiers begin.”
The same words as always, and yet so much had changed. If his subjects hadn’t already heard from the servants in the fortress, then they’d soon learn their king had gone back on his declaration. His future queen and mate won that discussion.
That felt good.
If only he didn’t have his own reasons for allowing me to play.
The gate rolled up, and I took a breath.
This would be a blood bath from the second I entered.
I lifted a foot and heard the sudden shift of weapons and bodies at my back. I snorted.
Time to play.
I stepped inside, and obeyed my gut, tilting my head to allow an enormous blade to slice overhead. Boot to the stomach. Ouch. The lesser injury, however.
I spun and caught another blade between my hands. Rolling back on the slippery, sandy stone, I kicked the demon away. A scream did make me wonder where she’d landed.
Reds, purples, and blues—dotted with some terrified yellows and oranges—formed a wall between me and the gate. I’d kicked one away, so that must leave… fifty-nine? Shit.
I pushed fear back to the smallest corner of my mind.
“Could you give me a minute?” I asked.
The demons glanced at one another.
“Thank you.” I turned and walked into the jutting stones.
Did they really just do that?
I broke into a run once in better cover. Hide in the depths.
I had serious magic to work.
Footsteps pounded in my direction. They wouldn’t rest until they’d found me, and they wouldn’t kill each other until then either. I was the biggest threat, so this game would last until I reached the checkpoint or was killed.
I drew my smoke in tight, so it didn’t give away my location. As adrenaline-fueled as this situation was, the itch under my skin was immediate, but I shoved the urge to release aside.
My gut warmed, and I took the advice of my divination magic, crouching in the dip between four huge jutting rocks. Now for the plan that had seemed so much better before I got here.
I started to layer my demon magic. Creating discs and compressing each on top of the other in an attempt to turn gas into solid, I did my best to shape the growing form at the same time.
Two legs.
Pants and a leather tunic.
Arms. Head. Hair.
The other players would expect me to be covered with smoke or scales, so hopefully the darkness of what they looked at would pass their quick scrutiny.
This was my decoy Syera.
Yikes.
“It’s so bad.” I winced, looking at her. She was me, if I’d been run over by a car and covered in soot after.
And she was all I had.
As long as the yellow-scaled guy didn’t see it, then it might work.
“Run away,” I whispered to my “likeness.”
Yet as I whispered to her, my divination magic floated out to cover her. My eyes widened as the likeness of me adjusted, drawing in and pushing out where needed, until I was looking at my reflection.
My mouth dried, and I reached out fingertips to touch her. I gasped when my fingers encountered solid form. Every part of her was an exact replica of me, and the key to binding my smoke had been my magus magic.
This was huge! This meant so much that I couldn’t fathom in the space of five seconds. I’d never heard of this magic.
And I just couldn’t give the impossible phenomenon the awe and appreciation it deserved right now.
A floating sensation filled me. I rarely felt this sensation because this deep state only arrived when I was immersed in my magus magic.
I’d realized in this exact moment that I had focused too much on my demon magic since arriving in this realm.
I should be focusing on what all of my power could achieve—the things that only a magus-demon combination could create.
I would rectify that error if I lived.
My voice floated out. “Run now, magic of mine. Run for me.”
The calm and echoing quality to my voice filled my soul, too, and as my magical decoy slipped away between the sharp rocks that could not hurt her, I crouched in wait, listening to the closest footsteps.
A call went up. “Oyx Wehy!”
Those closest to me raced away.
“Thank you,” I purred, slipping from the rocks in the other direction.
I raced to the checkpoint, doing my best to stick to the shadows of the largest rocks in case the crowd decided to betray me. I didn’t see why they’d stay quiet. They wanted to be entertained.
I was most of the way there when their call went up. I lifted my gaze briefly to spot those demons who were standing and pointing. I had no idea where my decoy was, but she was working beautifully. Half the crowd was torn between me and whatever was going down to the far left of the checkpoint.
I still had to kill, though. I couldn’t be sure if the demon I’d kicked away onto the rocks had actually died.
I’d make my kill closer to the checkpoint.
The ground flattened into a rolling expanse of the slipping and smooth stone as the checkpoint came into sight. No cover now. This was the crowd’s favorite part. The part where a demon felt hope at reaching the checkpoint. That was also when a player might feel the most despair.
Oranges and yellows were ahead and closing in on the checkpoint. Some of them were turning on each other to make their kill. Looked like the unlikeliest of contestants would survive to see yet another round of Tiers.
I readied my power to open a portal. There was an orange at the back of the herd with my name on him.
A roared order from the far left stole my focus.
I squinted to where the huge group of demons battled me. Fake me. Wow, Decoy Syera could really move. But she was tiring. The power in the smoke I’d given her was finite.
She staggered at a blow from a purple, and a voice rose above the others.
“Ia Mio.” She’s mine.