Chapter 30
Elariya
“The Price of Love”
Erethis gestured with one clawed hand, delight filling in his eyes. "Choose your weapon.”
Blessed Mother. Weapons?
The only reason I’d need a weapon was if I were going to fight. Foolishly, I’d hoped this would be some sort of riddles game. But of course, it wouldn’t be that if Erethis wanted to see what I could do.
Three weapons appeared before me, suspended in the air like offerings.
A bow. Sleek, elegant, and strung with something that gleamed like fire. It pulsed in the air like it was begging me to choose it. As interesting as that would be, I couldn’t. I was a terrible archer.
A set of throwing daggers were my next option. I decided against those, too, although they might have been the best choice for someone like me who didn’t know what the fuck they were doing.
I was sure I could throw a dagger easily enough, but it meant getting close to whatever was about to be unleashed on me. There was also the matter of throwing them and missing the mark. Then I might not get them back.
This place was ginormous. So, no. Daggers weren’t an option.
That left me with on choice.
My gaze drifted to a sword. A heavy, broad-bladed sword with a leather-wrapped hilt. It hung there, waiting.
I reached for it, hoping it would be my salvation.
The moment my fingers closed around the grip, the weight nearly dragged me down. Not a good start, but I held it up, feeling its strength. It felt like something that could protect me, even if I didn't know how to wield it properly. I prayed that was the case.
Erethis cocked his head. "Excellent choice."
The air between us rippled, and a form emerged from the shadows.
It was low to the ground, wide and hulking and covered in chitinous plating that gleamed dully in the dim light. Scaled limbs scraped against stone as it moved, and where its mouth should have been, there was only a gaping maw that exhaled thick, rolling mist.
What the hells was that thing?
I’d seen my fair share of beings in the past week that left me stunned to my core. But this…
The fact that I couldn’t make out what it was terrified me more.
"The rules are simple," Erethis said, leaning forward on his throne of bones. "Try to take down your opponent. If one of you hits the ground for ten seconds, you lose the round. Of course, if you die, it’s game over."
Just fucking great. That sounded very much like I’d be in the fight of my life.
Every nerve inside my body was writhing with panic, and my heart was beating so fast I thought it would explode. I had to focus just to breathe.
Mostly, I wanted to run away. But I summoned courage and tightened my grip on the sword.
The creature surged forward, faster than I expected.
I charged, too.
Stupid. Reckless. But I didn't know what else to do.
I thought it was going to lunge itself into my body, but it froze in the air and blew out a sharp breath of…
Mist?
A gust of it rolled over to me and slammed into my body like I’d hit a wall.
What the…
My skin seared with pain.
Burning.
Not fire—corrosion. I screamed, dropping my sword and falling to my knees on the hard ground.
My skin stung as though acid and lava had been thrown on me. My lungs seized as I tried to breathe through it, but I inhaled the mist, and my insides set aflame.
Oh fuck. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t do…anything.
Merciless Gods, I hadn’t even gotten one strike on that thing, and it sent me to my knees with one breath.
I tried to push myself upright, to fight through the pain, but the thing breathed again. Pain exploded everywhere the mist touched, and blistering boils formed on my skin.
I fell on my back, mist coiling around me, seeping into my lungs.
“Well, well, well,” Erethis cooed. “Not as powerful as she thought she was. Will she get up?”
He started to count.
Get. Up. Elariya, get up.
I couldn't. My body wouldn’t work.
"Ten," Erethis quipped in that amused tone.
I'd failed.
The mist dissipated instantly, pulled back into the creature as if it had never existed. But the incessant burning was a reminder that it happened.
I lay on the cold stone, gasping, shaking.
Erethis held up a small glass vial. With a maddening smile, he muttered some words in a language that sounded evil and closed his fist around the vial.
Something tore inside me.
Not pain. Not exactly. But hollowness. Different from the hollow I spoke of when it came to my feelings. It felt like something essential had been ripped away, leaving me …without. Simply without.
I gasped, clutching at my chest, but there was nothing there to hold on to.
On the dais, the nightmarish demon held the vial higher, and inside it, a light switched on like a candle coming to life. He examined it with clinical interest. "Wow, look at the vitality in one sliver of your soul," he remarked. "I wonder what the rest will look like."
My soul… he was starting to collect pieces of my soul.
“You… bastard,” I choked out.
Erethis tucked the vial into his cloak and sat back comfortably.
"Let trial two begin," he chanted, his voice so loud our surroundings shook.
The creature vanished, and in its place, a knight materialized from thin air.
He was fully armored from head to toe in blackened steel that absorbed the dim light rather than reflecting it. There was no crest on his chest. No sigil. No indication of allegiance or identity.
Just function.
The knight stood perfectly still, weapon already drawn—a longsword. And unlike me, he held with practiced ease.
"Graceless Gods, mage. Are you seriously just going to lie there?" Erethis's voice drifted down to me, hitting home.
He was taunting me for being weak. And I couldn’t even rebut him.
Still, I gave myself credit for trying to reach for my sword.
My fingers merely brushed over the hilt. That was it. The pain that wracked my body just for doing that was indescribable.
And then, the knight began to move. Closing the distance one deliberate step at a time.
Then he struck fast and precise, stabbing his blade right into my stomach.
The scream that tore from my throat was that of the dying. The sound of raw anguish and undiluted suffering.
White-hot, searing pain exploded in my abdomen then cascaded over my body. I looked down to see steel protruding from my stomach, and blood, so, soooo much blood pouring out of me.
The knight pulled the sword free, and I could feel my guts spilling out.
Then he stabbed me again.
The world blurred at the edges. I was slipping away. Soon, I’d be back to the Land of the Dead. And I wouldn’t be able to leave.
"Ten," Erethis said, his tone unchanged. I didn’t know if he’d counted like he did before. I was slipping in and out of awareness.
Soon the knight vanished. In the vial, the glow brightened. It was almost full to the top now with my soul.
Fuller.
I felt smaller. Like I was shrinking inside my own body, becoming less and less with every second.
"You're doing wonderfully," he said softly. Almost affectionately. “What will it be for trial three? I feel I should make this one momentous. Something memorable perhaps.”
Erethis tilted his head, studying me like I was something fascinating under glass.
"What do you fear, my Lady?" he asked, his voice soft and probing.
I didn't answer.
Couldn't. Every breath was agony, and blood was still pouring out of me.
Erethis smiled and tapped the side of his head. "No matter. I know just the thing."
The arena shifted again.
And this time, stepping out of that darkness came—
Thayden.
Thayden. The monster who pushed me to this place with his threats.
As always, he looked sharp. Dressed like a nobleman.
But he wasn't alone.
Behind him, three figures emerged.
Mother. Grandmother. Emabelle.
All bound to stakes. And burning.
A sound ripped from me like that of a wounded animal. But that was nothing in comparison to the screams that tore out of my family as the flames consumed them from the feet up.
The hungry fire devoured their clothes, their skin, their faces. And still, their bodies twisted against their bonds, desperate and futile.
The sound of agony had no end.
I couldn't look away. Couldn't stop seeing the way the fire ate through the people I loved.
That was what was going to happen to them. They’d die just like that. I was sure of it.
Gods above, I desired nothing more than to run over to them and save them, but there was nothing I could do. My body wouldn't obey.
"You absolutely reek of love. And of loss," Erethis murmured, leaning forward. "How exquisite."
I kept my eyes on my family.
"You fear marriage to the wrong man," Erethis continued, his tone clinical.
Dissecting me with words. "You fear losing yourself to someone else's will. Becoming property to someone you don’t love.
A thing to be owned." He paused, his smile widening.
"But more than that, you fear loving someone you can't have. Someone who will destroy you just by existing. How interesting that the man you’re about to marry is not that man. Your heart belongs to the Fae prince."
The words struck me deep. I barely had time to process them when Wolfe materialized across from us, his eyes burning with cold fury.
He wasn’t real. None of this was real. Except the pain. And the truth. A truth I couldn’t remember, but this demon had seen straight through me.
Thayden moved, cutting into the moment.
He drew his sword and turned it toward me. Not toward my family.
Me.
He raised the blade and drove it down to cleave me in two.
This would be it now. The end. The end of all things for me.
But the blade never reached me.
Steel met steel with a deafening crash over my head.
I looked up and saw Wolfe.
It took all of two seconds for me to realize that this was the real Wolfe.
Not some conjured vision. Not another one of Erethis's cruel illusions designed to break me.
Him.
Battle-worn and lethal, his dark hair plastered to his face with sweat and blood.
He wore black leather armor, reinforced with metal plating across his shoulders and chest.
His sword was an extension of him—long, brutal, the blade etched with runes that pulsed faintly with magic. The crossguard curved like talons, and the grip was wrapped in worn leather, molded to his hand from years of use.
It was truly him.
He’d found me.
He’d actually found me.
His sword locked against Thayden's, muscles straining as he held the blow away from me.
For a fraction of a second, his gaze snapped down to me.
Only the real Wolfe could look at me like that. Pissed as fuck and furious that I’d left him but still like I was worth tearing through realms to find. And like losing me would be the end of him.