Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
After that unexpected turn of events, the guards move in to herd us toward the docks.
No more speeches, no more questions asked.
They prod us with their long spears toward a flat barge that is much larger than the ones that transported us here.
It’s black, decorated with gold swirls, a tall pole in its middle carrying a banner with the king’s crest and two more banners I don’t recognize. The temple’s banners, probably, the designs stitched in golden thread depicting serpents and eagles and unfamiliar symbols.
The telchin follows us onboard, going to stand at the stern, two guards taking their places on either side of him to protect him from us.
But the humans don’t make any move toward him. I think we’ve all accepted our fate.
Many stumble and fall on the deck as the barge is pushed off the dock. I help those I can get back on their feet so they don’t get trampled or thrown about. I can’t see Athdara, though he normally towers over the humans.
Then again, I’m surrounded by men and women taller than me. I’m not that short for a human, but let’s just say I wouldn’t win any fruit-gathering contests, either.
At least I can see Lynn on the island, watching us, and I hope Tru and Arkin will help her get back home. I’m not sure why I have such high hopes—they were nice to me, but that doesn’t mean they’re knights in shining armor helping everyone.
Yet I can’t spare any more thoughts for her. Our barge moves toward the arena as if by magic, no oarsmen or sail visible anywhere onboard, and the doubts return to sink their teeth into my gut.
I was supposed to play the role of a robbed lady, use the pearls to prove it and enter the palace, then be the magical weapon to bring down the fae king. Entering the games was only a contingency plan.
But it’s too late now for doubts. There is no going back.
No going back to shore, no going back to safety and sorrow. I’m here to fight, and I won’t back up.
May the best woman win.
The ceremonial barge glides around the islets demarcating the arena, and I finally get a good look at it from up close. It seems to be filled with water, as expected, but the level is much lower than the sea, the walls built between the islets keeping the ocean at bay.
In its center, large objects are floating. Rafts? Pontoons? Hard to see clearly from here.
The arena is huge, resembling a lake, rocks edging it where it abuts the Palace Island, and mist wreathing the islets and walls around it. Even so, I think I see dark shapes moving in the water.
We’re awaited, anticipated. The sea is hungry, demanding its dues, and right now, I’m as vulnerable as these mortal humans while the spell annuls my magic.
I try to see Athdara but fail again. He has no advantage, either, does he? No dragons, no shadows to deploy.
But wait. I’m wrong. He has the advantage of his strength, his experience with fighting and battles. And who’s to say his powers of magic won’t serve him while he’s not submerged in the water?
Why would he join the games?
Why would they let him join? It seems that they really had no choice once he offered himself, like I did.
The barge is heading to the far side of the arena, directly across from the palace, on the exact opposite side of the circle. There isn’t any place to dock there. My guess is that they will throw us into the arena and leave.
I grab the hem of my bedraggled white gown, find the seam, and tear it open. Then I tear a wide swath all around, turning my gown into a short dress. My feet may still burn and my leg muscles feel weak, but that only means one thing: I need any boon I can get, and I’ll need as much freedom of movement as possible once I’m inside that arena.
Some of the humans are dragging their fingers over their brows and noses, praying to the goddess of springs, rivers and death, Persephona. It’s ironic if you think that she was the one who ushered in the last Reversal, although, truth be told, myths say it wasn’t her doing. That the Pillar causes such Reversals every thousand years. That it’s the natural order of things.
Nobody is certain why, or what the real cause of the Reversals is, except that change is the requisite for living, and aside from death, a Reversal is about as big a change as you can get.
“Look,” a woman behind me says, “oh, goddess, look! That looks like a nokke. And that! Isn’t that a group of tritons?”
Tritons are mermen, but of a monstrous type, enormous, green-skinned, and fanged. I glance at the arena and decide she isn’t wrong. I see them now. It wouldn’t surprise me, to be honest.
“They say watersprights are born from eggs. Eldritch, they are,” the woman goes on. “And half-mad.”
“Not all merfolk creatures are born,” another replies, voice hushed. “Some are made.”
I bow my head, busying myself with braiding my long hair and tying it back with the strip of fabric I got off my dress.
“They say the Great Dara were men once, too,” a man says. “That the Eosphors and the dara are akin, dead souls returning for revenge.”
“I don’t believe that shit,” the first woman snaps. “And not even the Great Dara can help us now.”
She’s right about that, at least. I glance up at the sky but only spot riderless, wild draks circling together with sea fowl and a lone hawk. Besides, the great dragons never showed any real interest in humanfolk or faefolk, so why would they start now?
“I believe dara activity trumps patrolling, Commander, and since the dara respond to great surges of power…” Wasn’t that what the drak rider had told Athdara? That the dara had never seemed to care about what happened on the ground before?
Now isn’t the time to start. I glare up at the firmament. Unbelievable. After all this time, they are interested ?
Keep your fire-breathing nose out of my business , I think, then look resolutely back at the arena. I have enough on my plate as it is, without worrying about huge flying lizards giving me away.
We’re slowing down, the invisible power that has been moving the barge receding. It looks like this telchin isn’t all for show, after all, when he has this kind of magic.
Speaking of whom… As we slow down more, the barge swaying on the waves, the telchin crosses the deck, holding a dragonbone relic aloft.
Time to scan us for any magic we may have been hiding, any edge that might let us win, and by that, I mean survive to fight another day. Imagine that. Can’t have just anyone entering the palace to dance and mingle with the fae nobility, before being thrown back into the sea and down the monsters’ gullets.
The end result is always death.
The telchin flicks his fingers at the guards, and we’re prodded and manhandled into a rough, loose line, so that he can use the relic on us.
Meanwhile, out of the corner of my eye, I catch other guards preparing a plank for us to walk.
Like the one pirates employ when they want to get rid of people.
How else were they going to throw us into the arena? It makes sense. Hysterical laughter shouldn’t be bubbling up my throat. Here, away from the ornate temple and palace, where the highborn fae guests can’t see, things will get rough and dirty.
Getting down to business. No more rituals and prayers, no more light shows.
A plank and the walk of death.
“Come forth!” the telchin calls out, lifting the relic into the air. It’s shaped into a circle with carved symbols all over it. His hands… are painted crimson. It’s as if he dipped them in blood. “Come forth and enter the three-hundredth trials since the last Reversal. Dive into the arena and make it across to the palace if you want to win. Today is a day of redemption and celebration, so come forth and let us begin!”
“We’ll perish here, in the Central Sea,” a woman whispers, thumping her forehead as if in penitence. “Like revered Katri and Aethre who jumped into the sea to save us all.”
That story is all wrong, and I open my mouth to say so, but I’m jostled forward by the humans behind me.
We shuffle forward as the telchin waves the relic over us, one by one, and… something happens. Not because of the relic. The humans around me suddenly seem to stand… straighter. Stronger. Stalwart and ready to face this challenge.
I glance around. A few still look hunched over and weak, trembling with cold and exhaustion, but most of the men and women around me look ready to fight.
Good. Let’s show them how we battle.
I seize on that thought, that positive feeling, while it lasts, and cling to it as the line advances. Some people yell or scream as they are pushed off the plank. Others walk it and jump voluntarily, in eerie silence.
Somewhere to the left of the barge, Athdara approaches in a small skiff. Where was he? Climbing a ladder onto the barge, Athdara approaches the telchin. I see him now, the breadth of his shoulders, the dark head. His face is pale, so pale it’s almost white, and he stumbles, barely catching himself, as if he’s sick or wounded.
When he steps forward, the relic vibrates and screeches. The humans recoil and stumble backward, only to be brought short by the spears prodding at their backs.
“Shadow magic,” they whisper. “Fire elemental. Ha, good luck with that in the water.”
For some reason, my jaw is grinding so hard it aches.
The telchin glowers at Athdara. “Well, son, we’ve drained you enough to ensure your power is at its lowest, and no draks are allowed to fly over the arena. This is your choice.”
That dark head bows in acceptance.
Did they drain him of blood? Is that how they keep him contained?
“You’re almost as weak as these poor humans,” the telchin continues, “and yet… if any one of them can make it out alive, it’s you. Let’s see you try.”
And he’s waved on toward the plank, because he may have magic but it will be useless in the arena, and… because he chose to jump.
Why? Why?
“Are you seriously asking?”
His magic will be rendered null, or close, drained and drowned, whereas mine will be amplified. I will have the advantage in the trials.
It’s why I’m here. Why I was chosen. Because my magic can get through the king’s defenses. And in case it came to this.
But the line is moving, and soon enough it’s my turn. I watch the woman in front of me lurch off toward the plank, her face pale. She jumps, her arms flailing.
Vanishing.
The telchin is gazing down at me from his considerable height—he’s almost as tall as Athdara—with a frown on his craggy face. His eyes are a deep brown like upturned soil, his cheeks hollow, his beard spilling over his barrel chest like a dark river. The golden robes do little to hide the powerful physique so typical of telchins. They are physical phenomena, like storms and hurricanes. Unstoppable. Uncontrollable.
Always running their own program, independently from the rest of the world.
So why is this one dancing to the tune of the fae king? It must somehow align with his own plans. What has he seen in the future? And why is he gazing at me as if he can see right through me?
He lifts the relic in his large hand, and I hold my breath, waiting for it to vibrate, to shake and screech and disqualify me.
But when it doesn’t, the telchin’s gaze darkens and narrows more.
“You…” he whispers, just like Athdara had done when he’d first laid eyes on me.
But a guard prods me with his spear, and I move past the telchin and his piercing gaze, crossing the last of the deck and stepping onto the creaking, swaying plank.
The wind buffets me. My bare feet slip a little, and I struggle to catch my balance.
Below me is the void. The distance from up here to the water in the half-filled arena is huge and dizzying, making my stomach lurch.
Focus.
The platforms I’d noticed on our way here float in the middle, and all kinds of monsters are probably lurking, waiting to eviscerate us, tear us apart, and feast on us before we make it there.
I take a deep breath and make myself move. I walk down the plank to stand at the end, my toes curling against the wood.
Here we go. Taking a breath, I take another step, and I’m falling through the rushing air… falling endlessly.
Until I hit the deep dark waters of the arena and go under.
At last.