Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
The Vargothi
ARRIK
Icould barely focus as I watched the Vargothi, and no matter how much I tried to deny it, I knew it was because of the girl at my side.
Nollie was looking out at the projection, actually paying attention to the fighting, unlike everyone else on our balcony. Most Wielders used the tournament as an excuse for a week-long drunk fest, and it pissed me off.
People were dying, and yet, no one batted an eye.
I knew how hypocritical that sounded. It was why Nollie had barely talked to me today. Not that I had ever given her reason to talk to me, but she wasn’t asking as many questions as she did yesterday.
I let that Wielder burn without batting an eye, and she hated me for it. I could feel it—whatever little semblance of humanity she thought I possessed was gone the moment I dragged the girl into the fire to die.
I thought it would scare her away, but she was still fucking here.
I had no idea why it bothered me so much, why she bothered me.
I didn’t care for anything or anyone. People died in front of me all the time, most by my own hands. It was why I learned to dissociate, except I couldn’t with her.
There was something about her that sparked my soul, that ignited me from the inside out and made me feel alive for the first time in the past one hundred and twenty-two years of my life, and despite the answer nagging me in the back of my mind, I refused to believe it.
There was no way—but I had no other reason for why I cared about what happened to her…
It fucking terrified me.
I tried to get her to run last night, tried to warn her, and when I realized she snuck out onto the roofs, I made sure the girl burned slowly, hoping the brutality of it all would be enough to scare her away.
It didn’t make sense. If she wanted a chance at a normal life, she needed to get as far away from this hellhole as she could get.
I had no idea what her life was like in Moriann, but judging from her Token, I guessed she didn’t have a good past. But fuck, I wanted to scream at her until she realized Elion was worse.
He was using her, only keeping her around to sell her right back to the Dead King, and the thought of the devil having her in his hands ate away at my soul.
Fuck. What the hell was wrong with me?
I didn’t care about people. I didn’t worry about anyone but myself.
I didn’t do this.
I tried to focus on the fights, watching a group that had been fighting together all morning disperse.
It was the reason I hated day two the most. This was the first tournament I was a bystander for, but even a century later, I remembered what it was like to be down in the pit fighting.
The switch between friends and enemies hit a nerve as everyone went for vengeance. Friends turned on friends. Family stabbed each other in the back.
There was so much blood, so much death, so many hacked bodies that made it hard to believe that riders were supposed to be civilized.
“What’s the point of killing each other?” Nollie asked, her voice so soft, it was jarring. We were hours into the fighting now, the pit almost completely covered in blood and gore to show for it.
I didn’t answer her, didn’t trust myself to, so I kept staring back at the projection.
“You know you have to humor me now,” she snapped. “You can’t keep ignoring me.”
“What makes you say that?” I asked.
So much for ignoring her.
“Because I’ll tell Elion you let me go last night if you don’t.”
I turned to look at her then, and fuck, I shouldn’t have.
She was so Suns-damn breathtaking. Her eyes were mostly gray save for a thin blue band around her outer irises that made her gaze striking.
But it was in the rest of her features that had my knees weak.
Everything was so perfect, her face molded so seamlessly I couldn’t find any flaws.
It was all soft and delicate, but I swore she was hiding a fierceness under her skin.
“You’ll get yourself in trouble,” I deadpanned, wanting to know what she was trying to pull off right now. Elion would fucking flay me alive if he found out I let her go, but she would suffer too.
She shrugged, keeping her expression neutral as she met my gaze. “I don’t really have a lot to lose,” she said. “And I might just think it’s worth it to watch you go down with me.”
I ground my jaw as I realized she was serious. She didn’t seem to care about the amount of danger she was putting herself in. Last night with the burning, that was nothing compared to what Elion was capable of, and the idea of her being behind his brutality had my gut wrenching.
“What do you want to know?” I asked, knowing I was already folding.
“Why is it so brutal? If everyone survives when the suns sets, wouldn’t they want their friends to live too?”
Her question hit a nerve in me because it was exactly what I thought when I was fighting down there. I couldn’t understand why winning justified killing the people you loved. After I fought, I realized that it was better to have no one in my life.
There was only one rider that I cared about anyway—Jaxs—but I was convinced he was a mutation from the drakin line.
He was too kind, too caring, too damn nice that I was terrified one of these days, it would get him killed.
He was also the only other person I’d known that hadn’t turned on their so-called-friends during the Vargothi.
“Fear changes people,” I finally settled on because it was the truth.
She rolled her eyes. “That’s the shittiest non-answer ever.”
I ran my fingers through my hair, watching as her gaze momentarily snagged on the movement.
“They’re fighting for the champion title,” I clarified.
“So the winner becomes the new leader?” she asked, but I was already shaking my head before she finished her question.
“Elion declares the leader, and he can change who it is at any time, regardless of the tournament.”
I watched her face shift through thoughts as she decided on what to ask me next. She pulled her lip between her teeth, and I couldn’t look away. This was exactly why I didn’t want to talk to her because the more I did, the deeper I was digging my own grave.
The word for what I was feeling was screaming at me, and I knew it was my dragon that was sending it down our bond. She already figured out what Nollie meant to me…
“So they’re scared they won’t get to decide if they can breed or not?” she asked, pulling me back to our conversation.
I shook my head. “There’s probably a few riders who find incentive in that, but most just want sanctuary from the burning tomorrow.”
“Burning?” she repeated, her voice shaking.
I nodded, but didn’t elaborate. If I couldn’t get her to run by tomorrow, she was going to see it anyway.
“The belief is, the better they fight, the more likely a dragon will want to bond with them, and a Moon God will bless them,” Cash said as he came up behind Nollie.
My gaze narrowed, but he didn’t leave, just smirked at me as he came to her other side.
“And they burn if they don’t?” she guessed.
“You’ll see for yourself tomorrow,” I replied, my tone sharp as I looked back toward the projection.
“What do you mean bond?” Nollie asked, instead of taking the hint.
I didn’t respond, just kept staring at the fighting.
“I’d be happy to tell her, Arrik, if you don’t want to,” Cash taunted.
“Go back to your drinks,” I snapped.
Cash looked from me to Nollie, a fucking smile donning his face that made me want to punch it off him.
“You know where to find me, convict, if you get bored of him.”