Chapter 20
As it turned out, emotional and mental turmoil made for a great sleep. I hadn’t felt this rested in… three years? Maybe five. Lust hadn’t jolted me awake to force me to train in the middle of the night. No dreams either. I’d cried myself to sleep by the door and woken after dawn in the same place.
Luckily I wasn’t training today because of Tiers. I would’ve slept through it, which wasn’t ideal on “probation.”
I sat cross-legged on the bed to begin centering my magus power.
Strategy had come slow last night, but ideas now flowed through me. I couldn’t underestimate the other demons today, but their combined power was far less than last week’s. And I had a little treat for them.
Once centered, I dressed for battle in the long pants that Carmine’s soldiers tended to favor, a long-sleeved tunic that laced at the front, and boots. I tucked the blue gemstone from Adeuto into my right boot, then I moved into the hall to warm up.
The fortress grew quieter as the royals left for the arena. Once total quiet had fallen but for the shuffle of soldiers’ boots, a loud hissing carried through the air from the Pinnacle and arena.
Showtime.
The walkway was half gone after my efforts last week, so I’d portal into the passageway. Should I portal right to the arena gate or just to the mouth of the passage?
I had a feeling that the remaining demons would be prepared for either.
Before opening a portal, I radiated magus power over my golden skin as a defense against foreign smoke.
Nothing else for it… I portaled to the gate.
The first net of purple smoke wasn’t a problem. The thirty other layers of smoke that joined in the space of seconds were a problem.
In a blink, I was like one of those balls made of rubber bands. In the middle of purple, blue, green, yellow, and orange smoke was me. Trussed up. There was also the smoke of the sole red who had survived last week.
Was he the ringleader today? I couldn’t see past all the layers of the trap to tell.
At least their efforts to weaken me only slightly stung through my magus defense, but my magus power wasn’t endless.
Which meant I’d need to break out.
Breaking out of thirty magical traps was possible, but afterward… what would I have left to protect myself? And kill one. I didn’t have enough power to throw them off and kill them all. Plus, there must be around ten other demons who weren’t joining in on this trap.
None of my clever strategies would work from inside here. This was a big problem.
The hush of the crowd was barely noticeable from within the humming hiss of so much curling smoke. Even Carmine’s voice echoed strangely.
“Let Tiers begin.”
He had to know that I was trussed up, but not a trace of concern sounded in his voice. The gate creaked and whined open.
I grunted when the closest layer of purple tightened and I was jerked to the ground.
The demons dragged me into the arena.
Ouch. Their trap did not cushion me from the ground.
The crowd hushed at my dignified entrance, and I had an inkling that they may be watching Carmine in the hopes of a real show.
I cleared my throat. “Is your plan to wait me out? Or…?”
Should I goad them?
Too late.
The purple smoke tightened, and I sucked in a breath at the crushing sensation around my body.
“I love you too,” I wheezed.
Her efforts were followed by around… oh, twenty-nine other vise-like grips. They intended to shatter my scales.
And shit, that was exactly what it felt like. I panted against the press of so much magic. They were giving it their all.
Which meant I had to give my all.
Except I couldn’t. I had to make the checkpoint, and if my theory about losing control to lust when my power was depleted was true, then I couldn’t risk a repeat of last week with Carmine. Except that was preferable to dying, if I had to choose between them.
My mind fled in all directions before one panicked tendril landed on thoughts of my son.
The power that he had over my soul was unlocked, and an utter calm spread through me. From mind to fingertips and back again.
I couldn’t panic. My trap-loving mother had taught me better than that. There was always a way out of a trap, though sometimes the only answer was power. And sometimes not.
I pushed power toward the gem in my boot, but again, only warmth and reassurance trickled back at me. I could use both right now, but neither would help me out of this trap.
I didn’t have enough demon power to get out. But I was more than a demon.
My magus power.
That was the only thing stopping my scales from shattering, and that would run out too. Before that happened, Carmine would intervene and slaughter every other player here.
They would join the thousands of demons who’d died here over centuries.
My lips curved at the thought. Because of course. To hold a divination affinity was to know that I was never alone, and that the living were one plane of existence.
Tiers had been played for hundreds of years. That was a lot of dead demons.
I dove deeper into my divination affinity and whispered my intention into the ground of the arena.
The arena started to rumble and shake. My body leaped like a pebble as the entire structure warped and groaned.
“Rise,” I bid, and my voice was not entirely my own as it echoed powerfully through the arena.
Screams and moans rose through the stands as we were joined by every dead player in the history of the game.
I felt the jolt of surprise in the smoke of those harnessing me.
“Hold,” roared the purple. She was in charge, not the red. Good to know.
She shouted again, “They’re not real. It’s magus tricks.”
Well, yes. But she shouldn’t underestimate a ghost. They were rather more solid than echoes, and I’d filled them with my intent.
“Ignore them. Crush her,” came another order.
So they did.
And I smiled as one of the nets trussing me up flickered, then disappeared.
The first of them had fallen victim to a ghost, and that was all it took for most of the others to abandon their efforts to fight the new threat.
Only six demons had the strength or stupidity of mind to continue their efforts on me.
In their weakened net, I regained my footing.
I walked to the purple, who was sweating with her efforts to trap me.
I released my demon magic to bat away her paltry power. She stumbled back, and I formed a disc of my power, then launched it at her neck.
Her scream was cut short, and I supposed that her body was cut short too.
The remaining five. Where were they? Oh, scrambling over rock.
I ignored them to whistle low at the sight of all I’d unleashed. Thousands of demon ghosts, all in terrible, gory conditions. Headless, many of them. Some had holes in their chests where their hearts had been. Others were nothing but melted flesh with flames still licking their bodies.
I threw another few discs out and caught two more of the remaining five.
“Demons,” I called at the ghosts.
They blurred to me and knelt.
“Catch the three.” I pushed my intention into them, and the demons blurred away after the worst of my attackers.
I turned to the red male.
He was waiting for me to notice him. A red, and not a lesser red. There was a more complex hue to his scales that placed him somewhere between red and crimson.
I circled him. “You did not join with the other reds last week.”
“I knew they would not win.”
“You joined the ambush today.”
“Desperation, Mate-Intended.”
“You cannot beat me, demon.”
He dropped to his knees. “No, but I might live another week.”
“To plan another ambush against me?”
“No, I will not do that. If I live another week, then I will present myself to you for death.”
He was doing that now. But consider me curious. “What is so important that you must die next week instead?”
“My family, Mate-Intended. In another week, I can prepare them for the loss of me and what I provide.”
Being a mother, I could not miss the depth of his tone that was one reserved for children. He may have a mate, but the fear that had fueled him to drop to his knees and beg for time was driven by the greatest love of all.
“You might have your week, demon,” I told him. “You will drop to your knees just like this in the last round. Or I will ensure your family hears the painful details of the torture you met before death.”
He sucked in a breath. “Yes, Mate-Intended. Thank you, Mate-Intended. I will not fight back.”
I wrinkled my nose but opened a portal and walked through to stand immediately before the checkpoint.
I’d made my kills—many of them, if the kills of the demon ghosts could be placed at my door.
But I turned from the checkpoint to watch the demons scrambling through the arena. I pulsed my magic forth and blinked at the tiny number of competitors remaining. Yep, the dead had done my dirty work, and they’d loved every moment, judging by the cackling and gurgling laughter filling the air.
Beyond them, the crowd was… silent. Fascinated. Some had covered their mouths, but all eyes were fixed on the morbid massacre in the arena.
A fight between two living demons caught my gaze. An orange kicked savagely at a yellow, who tumbled over the ground.
The yellow lifted his head, and I could tell that he was weakened—at the end of his strength. My favorite yellow.
The orange turned away to struggle with an enormous boulder. Yep, that would do the job.
I unsheathed my father’s blade and slid the weapon across the ground toward the yellow. The yellow’s eyes widened, and he managed to tuck the blade beneath his body, then feigned unconsciousness.
I crouched in wait, keeping my senses tuned to the surrounding fights. Some had made the checkpoint already. Three demons. A green and two oranges.
The red ran past me, and I let him enter the checkpoint too.
The orange staggered with the boulder to my yellow. She planned to rearrange my yellow’s face.
He rolled at the last moment, but didn’t plunge the blade into her stomach. Instead, the yellow pushed the blade between her legs and stabbed her in the ass.
The orange howled and arched back. The weight of the boulder threw her balance off.
The yellow hooked his foot around her ankle. The orange lost her footing, and I wasn’t alone in holding my breath as the boulder came crashing down.
On her face.
There was something impressive about the cunning of yellow demons, and this yellow was something more. He’d stabbed her in the perfect place. Any other attack might have ended up with the boulder still crushing him.
The yellow dragged himself across the ground, then started to saw at the orange’s neck. He was weak, but if one thing could be said for the weakest demons in the realm, they were accustomed to using elbow grease to get the job done.
He collapsed to the ground after completing his task, one hand still clasping the blade. Not that the weapon was any use to him. The demon was done.
For the best. I didn’t want to kill him next week. He would fail to reach the checkpoint, and the guards would kill him when time ran out.
I was a coward sometimes. I didn’t even want to kill the red who’d ambushed me.
I scanned the arena one last time, and my stomach swooped at the lack of players. Only six of us remained, and one of us wouldn’t make the checkpoint.
The dead gathered before me, and I bowed to them.
They dropped to their knees, if they still had them. All except one.
I watched the demon ghost—who was missing his heart—scoop up my favorite yellow. “He is my great-great-grandson,” the ghost told me.
The dead demon strode to the checkpoint and deposited the yellow within.
My shoulders shook as snorts erupted from me. Shit, that guy really was the luckiest demon in existence. I didn’t want to kill him, but part of me wondered if he’d kill me against all odds. The dead, whom I’d filled with murderous intent, had let him live.
I said to the ghost, “I am glad you helped him, though he won’t live much longer.”
“Perhaps,” replied the dead demon. “Perhaps not.”
The demon tipped his head to the sky, then faded along with the others. Back to death beneath the surface and beyond the curtain that shrouded the living.
I scanned the carnage left behind. So much blood. So many body parts.
All in a day’s work.
I turned and entered the checkpoint at last.
Third round, complete.
And this week I’d come closest to losing everything. I couldn’t contemplate the nearness of my near-death while still surrounded by others. Those players who’d lived were leaving through the exit passage I’d never walked through. Back to the Pinnacle.
My power levels were fine, so lust shouldn’t be an issue. I’d portal to the fortress.
“Tiers is complete,” Carmine announced.
His voice froze me to the spot, though he was addressing the crowd. My breath started to come fast.
Carmine spoke again. “In one week, my mate will prove her strength and cunning by winning Tiers, and she will prove her worthiness of becoming your queen. Once Tiers is complete, my mate-intended will join with me to continue our mating ritual.”
The crowd was screaming and clapping, and none of it mattered.
Because fire had swept through me at the sound of his voice. I moaned, sweeping my body with my hands as all my reservations unraveled and dropped to the floor.
I was going to ravage him.
Nothing mattered but the lust consuming me.
The crowd’s laughter jerked me from lust. Just enough.
Just enough for some panic to edge in. The lust was back. Even though my power levels were fine. No.
I abandoned the portal to the fortress. I couldn’t go back there.
“What the fuck is going on?” I whimpered, clenching my legs together. Fuck. I was sweating. Panting. Moaning.
I had to get out of here. And not to my desert shack either.
That left one place.
Nearly bent in half, I staggered down the passageway, back to the Pinnacle.