Chapter 7 #3
When he opened his mouth to say more, he dropped his spear and shouted out, doubling over. Aela moved without thinking and was at his side in an instant.
“Zosma, what’s—”
He gripped her throat with a scarred umber hand and squeezed. The smell of burnt flesh invaded her nostrils. Zosma snarled, tossed her onto her back, and turned away from her to retrieve his spear.
Aela rolled heels over head and ran for her life again—her throat raw from the sawing breaths that clawed out.
Picking a column at random, Aela climbed.
The seed of hope within her grew dimmer, nearly swallowed by the sea of defeat that threatened to pull her under.
She scaled the quartz celestial with practiced ease, the lifelike carving providing hollows for her hands and feet.
As she got to the top, she heaved herself over onto the narrow bridge network suspended over the arena.
She scanned the sandpit below and saw Zosma glaring up at her, pacing back and forth.
A lion indeed. All he’s missing is a lashing tail.
Aela surveyed the bridges before her, but Zosma’s abrupt cry below snapped her gaze back to him. His spear was forgotten at his side as he held his hands upturned in front of him. His body trembled under an invisible strain, and smoke curled up from his wrists, where they were bound in black.
“I will, Primary!” Zosma cried, a foreign pain crippling him.
She had initially assumed that was part of his armor—but seeing how they affected him, even from her high vantage, she knew at once what they were. Disgust and rage blazed to life within her, overwhelming all other thoughts, and she spun around—her new target marked.
Aela sprinted across the narrow pathway high above the stadium floor. The crowd’s endless chanting and leering quieted as her focus became clear. Coolness nipped at the back of her neck, and Aela sensed death looming behind her and hastened her steps to make her final moments count.
Unbeknownst to the citizens of Avarice, an encroaching darkness began its descent.
Something else had called to The Darkness, though the violence of The Games that spilled outside the boundaries of the Taureon coliseum and city was practically an invitation for him to come and play.
He was night incarnate and was only seen or felt when he wished to be.
Soon, the unsuspecting celestials would all be contestants in the game they loved so much.
Though he supposed none stood a chance against him, not as the final death for their kind, The Darkness’ attention snagged on a celestial running, and the thrill of a chase zipped through his non-corporeal form.
The Darkness writhed in anticipation and coalesced above the arena as misty tendrils of night speared down into the stadium, seeping through the wards easily.
Aela’s running along the cracked desert plain had her picking her path with expert veracity.
She did not falter. Each pound of her feet on the quartz walkway echoed with a silent need that vibrated within her.
Even though the Taureons were calling for her death, she would fight for them.
Not as their entertainment. But to see them freed.
Crystal bands that she had noted earlier on the celestials of Avarice flashed before her eyes.
She had seen enough. The Primary of Taurus had somehow weaponized nature in an attempt to control his stars.
All thoughts of self-preservation and her own goals evaporated under the injustice she beheld. It boiled her blood.
Not even the innate nature of keeping her identity a secret and her desperation to reunite with her own Line could keep her from ignoring the surrounding suffering.
She might not be enough to make a difference, but in her final moments, Aela knew her parents would be proud of her.
A greater, collective need impeded her path to get home, and it was one she would gladly take upon herself.
If she never got to see her parent’s shining faces again, she would send herself into the After knowing she had tried her best and would wait for them beyond the stars.
Each pump of her arms and slam of her feet on the bridge brought her closer to her target.
She would set this right. As she neared the primary box seating, a bull of a male clad in white staggered forward, a hungry gleam in his russet eyes, and lifted an arm.
On Aela’s next step, the walkway disappeared beneath her, and she plummeted through the air.
A unified intake of breath from the crowd amplified her cry of rage.
All at once, a storm of light fractured from within her as Aela released a barrage of lightning throughout the arena.
Angry forks of violet light, more lethal than any forged weapon, pierced down toward the box seating from the black heavenly sky.
A deeper blackness enveloped the night that hadn’t been there before—lurking behind the clouds of Aela’s storm.
Aela sighed as her power seared out of her.
The release of magic felt like a homecoming and an awakening.
As her body fell through the air, the crowd’s distant screams sounded at the release of her power.
Her parting gift to her kind seared and stabbed down with justice at the balcony; bits of railing and rubble rained down around her, and her lip trembled as death swept her into its arms.