Chapter 33
Huntyr
Rhen doesn’t say a word to me as he walks me to the arena. It’s good that he’s the one walking me in. Over these past few weeks, training for the trials, he’s become somewhat of a… friend.
As much as I can befriend a Fae, at least.
I’ve become somewhat comfortable in his presence.
In the training yard, he’s the one who’s spent hours taking the time to teach me the proper way to handle weapons and take down enemies.
I hadn’t necessarily needed the lessons, but I appreciated his patience nonetheless.
And outside of the yard, at dinners or in the halls of the fortress, his smiles have always come easily, almost constantly joined with a teasing greeting.
Which makes his silence now all the more uncomfortable.
“What?” I goad, sending him a grin I don’t feel. “No heartfelt goodbyes?”
I can’t let myself think about what’s about to happen.
In these final moments before I step into the arena and face what awaits me inside, I need the distraction. I need someone to engage in a sparring match of wits with me.
The kind of push and pull I have with Derian.
I don’t have the Fae prince with me now, though. I have Rhen.
And Rhen doesn’t seem to want to play along.
He just looks at me with a small smile that looks uncomfortably like a grimace. “It’s been a pleasure getting to know you, Huntyr. You have fought well.”
Such finality.
My gut clenches unhappily.
He doesn’t believe I’m going to live.
No one thinks I’m going to live.
Not even Derian.
He’d looked me right in the eyes last night, gave me every bit of advice he had to give, and still walked away with what seemed to be dread in his eyes. He’d walked away with his shoulders slumped, and the thunder had echoed on for hours afterwards.
I know my odds. I’m smart enough to realize when the outcome of a situation doesn't look promising. Still though, it would be nice for at least one person to have a little faith in me.
“Do you think I’m going to die?” I ask Kaia. She’s already gone ahead to the arena after announcing she wanted to be sure she was close enough to strike Mara or Seraphina if they attacked before the start of the trial.
“I think it would be a terrible shame to have waited hundreds of years to bond again just for you to die so quickly.”
“That’s not a vote of confidence.”
“My confidence in you is meaningless. It is you who must believe in your own capabilities.”
Right.
I could do that.
Kristona taught me dozens of ways to kill. He’d taught me every pain point in the body. He’d trained me to withstand any injury.
I’ve made it this far. The least I can promise myself, after all these years of pain and darkness, is to not surrender without a fight. I will not allow myself to bleed without taking a piece of flesh myself.
The roar of the crowd reaches us even before we reach the arena. As we pass under the stone archway that leads onto the competition floor, I almost see it shaking above us.
My blood echoes that tremor, sparking to life in anticipation as I prepare to step through to the killing field.
Rhen grabs hold of my wrist, pulling me back.
“Prepare yourself,” he warns me, looking over my shoulder into the arena. “Once you step inside, the trial begins. You will not be able to leave until only one of you remains.”
“It was a pleasure knowing you, too,” I say to him with the smallest of smiles that I manage to muster. “Do me a favor and don’t bet against me.”
There are obviously wagers happening on this trial.
And yet I pause, tilting my head as I think. “Or if you do, just do me a favor and don’t bet on me being the first to die. I suppose you deserve to get a little money out of it.”
He gives me one of those easy grins. “Get in there, smart ass.”
He takes a few steps back, and I know he’s been instructed not to leave until he sees me step forward. I wonder if anyone else has stood at this threshold, regretting their choices before trying to make a break for it.
“You do not run,” Kaia purrs in my mind. “You are the Huntress of Velia, the noble-born assassin that strikes fear in the hearts of Mortals across the kingdoms. You do not run. You do not cower. You will look your fear in the eyes and not tremble before it, just as you did the day I chose you.”
I’d done that the day I jumped from the window of my childhood bedroom into the dark of night.
Done it when I stared up at Kristona and asked him to make me a killer.
Done it when I’d faced the Fae prince and agreed to come here without a fight.
And yes, I’d done it when I had met Kaia.
I can do it again now.
I breathe deeply, pull the twin daggers from my belt, roll my neck, and take two steps forward, walking through that stone archway into the arena for one final time.
The sun is blinding when I step inside, and I raise my hand instinctively to shield my eyes as they adjust. It’s swelteringly hot, the air pressing against the leather on my skin oppressively.
This world, through whatever Fae magic inhabits the space, is an entirely different climate than the one I’d been in just a few steps before.
I look around me, taking in my surroundings, doing everything I can to ignore the chants and jeers from the crowd. I don’t even bother looking up at them. I can’t afford to be distracted.
The arena is filled with uneven stones, tiny mountain peaks of dark stone covering the entire space. Between the rocks, red liquid flows, steam rising slowly from it. Along the ground under the mountainous boulders, large obsidian spikes stick up at jagged angles.
It would only take one bad fall from those rocks and the spikes would kill me without Seraphina and Mara even having to lift a finger.
Wait—
Lava rolling down the rock.
And metal rising from the ground.
In an arena where a fire-wielder and a metal-wielder are to fight to the death.
The arena is devised after the powers of the remaining Fae.
And here I am.
Just a Mortal girl with my daggers.
Not even deemed important enough for any of this arena to reflect me.
Well that’s… rude.
I strip off my leather jacket, not wanting it to impede my movements if it sticks to my slick, sweat-covered body. Then I adjust the sword on my back, and leave the jacket at my feet. The feeling of the weapons strapped to my body, their weight, is a precious familiarity.
I’m Huntyr Lachlan, the noble-born assassin, I remind myself over and over.
I have lived through far worse monstrosities than the two spoiled Fae, who have relied on their magic more than their brains.
I invite that frozen iciness into me. Let it spread through my body, hardening everything it touches. I let the cold spirit of death fill me just as I have a million times before, and I welcome its embrace like that of an old friend.
I become a shadow, a ghost, a killer.
I become the Huntress.
And then I go hunting.
The plan had come to me in the middle of the night. After spending hours tossing and turning, puzzling over the advice Derian had left me with, it came to me in a sudden flash of awareness.
Kaia had purred her approval, proclaiming that it was one of the few moments since we’d bonded that she felt impressed with me.
Which was… a backhanded compliment, but I took it anyway.
I spent the entirety of the morning planning every single minute detail, thinking through every contingency and possibility. Calculating. Scheming. Planning.
That was what I was good at.
I start walking, inspecting the rocks for small purchases that I can tuck my hands and feet into. And I climb. Higher and higher, ignoring the moments I slip and have to claw into the stone to steady myself, and the moments when the impossibly hot stones burn or tear my skin.
Kristona’s lessons echo in my mind. Pain is nothing. Pain is manageable. Pain’s only purpose is to spur you on.
I climb up and up, impossibly high. Until I’m high enough that I have to blink rapidly in the bright sunlight. Until I’m panting and my biceps are straining. Until I can look out and see everything.
And finally, I allow myself to take it all in.
The stands are filled to the brim with Fae, packed so tightly that they’re nearly falling over the railings into the arena themselves. The roar of their shouting is almost deafening, nearly impossible to parse out their words amidst the ring of it all.
I hear enough, though.
I hear the laughter. The mocking.
Die, Mortal.
Run, little Mortal.
Burn, bitch.
When my eyes finally lock onto their target, I know without question that the sudden brush of cool air against me is no accident. His eyes are wide, his lips pinched tightly. He leans forward, clutching onto the railing like his life depends on it. Like my life depends on it.
Die, Mortal.
Run, little Mortal.
Burn, bitch.
I let every single insult fuel the beast inside of me.
And without breaking eye contact with Derian, I rest the palm of my left hand on the pommel of my dagger and lift my right hand high into the air, giving the entirety of the arena my middle finger.
Even at this distance, I can see him crack the smallest of smiles, and the heaviness in my chest lightens marginally.
The crowd fades out then, my attention shifting to the ground of the arena, tracking over the space quickly.
Seraphina is several leagues away from me, trying to pick her way through what appears to be a net made of chain mail. Mara, on the other hand, is only a few boulders down to my left, searching carefully.
If I overshoot her path, I can land right in front of her.
Time to test out this reckless little plan of mine.