Chapter 37 #2
The giant loomed at the center. He’d let go of that weapon he’d carried by a chain into the arena, like he didn’t feel he had a need for it at all.
His skin was the color of weathered stone, his eyes like pits of darkness, two massive heads twisting on separate necks as he scanned the players coming from all sides.
He broke the smaller obsidian shards with ease with those monstrous feet as he went, and with each step the ground trembled .
The first to die was a fae dressed in golden armor, with a large sword in his hand, another strapped to his back. He jumped impossibly fast over the obsidian shards and threw himself in the air like he thought he had wings to carry him, his blade raised high, aiming for the giant’s face.
But the giant's left hand moved so fast it blurred. It grabbed the player mid-air, crushed his body with a sickening crunch before hurling him against the Hollow wall.
That’s all it took—a single moment, and a man was dead.
The crowd shrieked in delight, a rain of golden coins following the impact.
My heart all but broke my ribcage, but I didn’t scream. Couldn’t if I tried.
Two others flanked the giant—both wearing armor, too, the woman silver, the man gold. They darted in opposite directions as if they’d trained to attack the giant together, and they, too, were fast as lightning, their synchronized attacks aimed at the giant’s knees instead of his face.
The giant roared with both heads, though it could have also been laughter. I was too focused on the players to tell the difference.
When he moved, I did see him with perfect clarity, though.
He slammed his fists down, cracking obsidian shards in the process, and a shockwave rippled through the arena.
The man with the golden armor lost balance and fell.
The woman lunged forward—but the giant's foot came down faster, crushing her into the ground.
My God, this was madness . I could not look away for a second even though the view made me sick.
The other fae woman was next, holding two knives that Lyall called daggers as she circled the giant in search for an opening.
She had a small frame so when she ran through the rubble while the giant fought against a player with a large hammer in his hand, she was almost invisible.
She did manage to slash the back of the giant’s leg before he turned and swatted her into the wall like she was a fucking bug.
That’s all he did, just swatted her into the wall. Just like that, and she was gone.
But then the guy with the hammer, a brute of a man taller and bigger than Rune, struck the giant on the side of his left head.
Right before my eyes, the giant moved back, lost his footing, and fell on one knee on the shards. One particularly big and sharp shard that he couldn’t break.
Instead, the obsidian went through his thigh.
The way he wailed at the darkening sky. The way the magic that came from the remaining fae who attacked him all at once almost made him fall all the way to the ground.
My eyes moved to Rune—I couldn’t watch. Too much blood. Too many bodies already. Far too much death while the people cheered for more.
I thought now was the time. While the giant was vulnerable, I thought now was the time for Rune to strike, to win, but instead he stayed back, and shadows spun around his legs, shielding them from us. No weapons on him, no nothing.
A moment passed, and the guy with the hammer jumped over a shard with a loud shout and aimed for the top of the giant’s left head.
My eyes closed when the giant moved his arm, and I didn’t see how the fae with the hammer died, only heard the cheering of the crowd when he did. Only found his body a few feet away with a large shard sticking out of his chest. Dead .
Four bodies lay broken in the Hollow. The crowd was still screaming in glee. Raw energy buzzed like a live wire, and still Rune didn’t move.
The giant made it to his feet again, roaring, both in pain and in triumph. One of the heads let out a booming laugh, while the other snarled.
The other two remaining players wore silver armor and helmets and swords and chains that weren’t going to help them any, but they screamed as they charged for the giant anyway, like they really thought they might stand a chance.
Golden magic attacked the two heads, slamming against them, pushing them back, but it was useless. The players were either not very powerful or the giant was a lot more than I had thought.
Rune still wasn’t moving.
He stood at the edge of the arena, wrapped in shadows, so still he almost didn’t look real. It wasn’t fear that had locked his body so tightly—it was focus. I’d bet a limb on it. I’d seen him in the face of danger before.
But even so I tried to fucking stick my nails into the stone of the railing as I watched.
“He’s not moving,” I whispered to myself. “Why the hell isn’t he moving?”
Move, Rune! The other two were attacking the giant left and right with magic and with weapons—now was the time!
Except Lyall spoke, and when he did, it almost surprised me that he was still there. “Because he’s planning, Nilah. That’s what he does. ”
Spoken like a man who knew another from the inside out.
Except one of the fae was already dead, his body caught on the roots that covered the stone edge of the arena, and the other was lunging forward, aiming for the giant’s side.
The giant who wasn’t smiling anymore, or laughing, or roaring in triumph.
The magic had worked, even if only a little, and he looked tired, too.
Pissed off. His movements weren’t as fast so the fae actually managed to stab him with two knives on the side of his waist when he raised an arm to try to stop him, and the crowd lost their fucking minds.
Until the giant roared in pain, then grabbed the fae in his large fist, and slammed him against the obsidian shards.
Some broke. Some broke the fae.
All six players were already dead.
My insides hurt. The pain came from the heat and the cold that fought each other inside me as I watched, holding myself back, knowing that I couldn’t do anything to stop this, that if I jumped off this fucking box right now and fell down there, I’d just make matters worse by dying.
Rune wouldn’t stand a chance then. And if I tried to do the magic that vibrated inside me like I did at the mermaid cavern, everybody would see. Everybody would know.
I don’t care.
The thought echoed in my head over and over—I couldn’t care less if somebody saw me or what they made of it. I only cared that Rune survived.
The giant shook his fists in the air for the audience before he turned to Rune, both heads grinning—one in mockery, the other in bloodlust.
“And the last little faeling come to die,” the left head said, and he sounded… wrong. I couldn’t really put my finger on it, but he sounded fucking wrong when he spoke. Not robotic, not animalistic—something in between.
Rune didn’t answer, though.
Instead, he reached into the darkness spinning about his legs and pulled out a single sword that shone silver. He was too far away so I couldn’t see if it was the same one he’d fought the fae in the tunnel with, but I wished it was.
And the memory calmed down my racing heart a bit, too.
The way Rune had moved. The way he’d killed those incubi in the basement. The way he’d been sparring with the moving trees by his forge that night I found him.
He will be okay.
All that energy that was buzzing inside me calmed down a bit, too.
It was ready—I felt it rushing down my arms, and my hands didn’t look like they were glowing right now, but again, I didn’t care.
My eyes were on Rune, and the moment he needed it, I was going to make everything I could in this fucking place rise in the air, then fall.
Just like at the cavern.
“He will make it,” Lyall whispered at my side, arms crossed in front of his chest as he moved back and forth, nervous.
“He will,” I thought I said.
Finally, Rune moved.
My heart paused as he charged forward, swift as the fucking wind, dodging and jumping and ducking to get away from the obsidian shards sticking out of the bloody floor of the arena.
His sword was raised, and I expected him to charge at the giant by jumping on the pieces of obsidian like the other players had done, but instead when the giant’s heads roared, Rune fell on his knee and etched a line into the Hollow floor.
A whisper—I swear I heard it. I heard Rune’s voice as he whispered four words I’d never heard before.
The audience gasped.
Shadows came alive all around the arena, as if he’d called them, and they were responding. Tendrils of darkness peeled themselves from the cracked floor—the shadows of the obsidian shards—like vipers, and they charged at the giant’s legs as he ran, shaking the entire arena with each step.
By some miracle, they stopped him.
The roar shook me to my very core—and even the Hollow rebelled against it. Because the cracks that had been empty and dry until a second ago were now pulsating orange with a light coming from underneath them. Rising fast toward the floor.
My eyes didn’t dare blink. The fucking lava bubbled as it came onto the surface slowly, almost lazily, as if hungry for bodies to swallow.
My instincts took over. The heat won over the cold for a moment, and it rushed down my hands lightning fast. I looked at my skin, expecting it to start glowing, expecting gasps and questions, and Lyall to demand I tell him what the hell I was doing, and instead I got…
Nothing.
The energy, the heat, the cold— everything remained inside me, and no matter how hard I focused to let it all out, it didn’t come. My hands didn’t light up. The pressure didn’t release from me the way it did before.
I was locked inside my own fucking self.
I looked at Lyall, the question at the tip of my tongue, but he didn’t notice me.
He was focused on the arena, no hint of a smile on him, no hint of the usual spark in his eyes.
Whether he had anything to do with this or not didn’t matter—I really was stuck here, and I couldn’t do anything to help Rune.
Whatever magic wrapped around this fucking box, it was stopping me.
It was locking every ounce of that light and that energy in.
And I was about to scream at the top of my lungs.
But Rune was moving.
He’d climbed on the obsidian shards which seemed to withhold the heat of the lava that was slowly rising up from the cracks. His shadows had a good grip on the giant’s legs, and once the giant’s attention was fully on them, and both heads were looking down, Rune did jump.
With his sword in both his hands he jumped from one piece of broken obsidian to the next, then leaped in the air and drove his sword right into the shoulder of the giant before any of the heads noticed.
The one on the right snapped to the side, trying to bite him, but Rune was already gone, already climbing on his back, as silent and as graceful as a fucking shadow.
At the back of the giant’s neck, he raised an arm over his head and darkness blinked into existence. From it, he pulled out another sword, this one much shorter.
For a moment, the entire continent held their breath.
The giant moved too fast for anyone to see it coming, even Rune.
My hands closed around my mouth, my body both locked in place and burning where I stood from this energy that grew inside me.
The giant shook Rune off his back, and Rune fell on the ground, arms around his head, rolling.
I must have passed out for a second there, standing like I was, because the next moment I was aware again, Rune was standing atop a shiny obsidian shard, unbroken, sword raised in one hand, the other holding the tip of the shard for support as he looked up at the giant trying to stomp his shadows away.
They kept coming, though, kept trying to pull him down, though they were weaker. They were see-through now.
Rune was tired, and I had no idea for how much longer he could keep fighting.
That was the first time I prayed to the stars of Verenthia with all my heart.