16. Lira
16
LIRA
E ach breath burned my lungs, and my legs quivered like Jell-O. The same tightening sensation I had during my nightmares dominated my body.
I needed to get out of here. If the gas was causing this reaction, it would get worse the longer I stayed in it.
Gritting my teeth, I forced my legs to move, and I could’ve sworn I was treading in water with the air resisting like waves and holding me back. But this wasn’t comforting like water. This was me struggling to control my own body.
When my right foot touched the ground and I put weight on it, I crumpled. I landed with a thud, dropping the quiver of arrows as pieces of rock and dirt flew into my eyes.
I sucked in a breath, trying to get my bearings, and my lungs caught fire. The pain intensified so that even shallow breaths hurt. Images of dark shadows crept into my mind.
My body tensed, and my heart rate skyrocketed. I searched for signs of Eldrin hiding in the shadows. I didn’t doubt he’d use the gas to blend in and attack me, even in front of an audience. With the ruthlessness of the Unseelie fae, I suspected the others would urge him on .
The gas thickened, and I couldn’t see my hands in front of me. My lungs stopped expanding, and everything inside felt as if it were on fire. This was worse than any nightmare I’d ever had. If Eldrin wanted to attack me, I’d never see him coming.
Remaining here wasn’t an option. I could die if I didn’t find a way out of the gas.
Not wanting to leave empty-handed, I clutched the slingshot and felt around for the quiver of arrows. My hand touched only rock and dirt until something pricked my finger.
The tip of an arrow.
My finger stung, but I followed the neck to the smooth quiver. Securing the shoulder strap, I slowly pulled it around my shoulder. I had to go.
My head pounded, and nausea added itself to my ever-growing list of problems. I was running out of time.
With darkness engulfing me, I closed my eyes. There was no point in keeping them open. Each time I blinked, they throbbed worse.
I concentrated on moving my hands and feet forward. The gas was coming from behind me and blowing toward the platform. I needed to head back past the icy rock and the axe gauntlet … the very things I’d been trying to avoid.
Despite moving at a crawl, I felt like I’d run a fucking marathon. All I wanted was to wake up from this horrible nightmare and find myself back home.
The urge to lie down and never move again surged through me. Maybe that was the point of the gas—to see if we’d give up and die. But I’d never been a quitter, and I sure as hell wouldn’t start now with all these people eager for me to do just that.
My irritated eyes watered, tears dripping down my face. Any other time, I’d hate looking weak, but the tears would clear my eyes so if I did get out of the gas fog, I’d see the threats coming.
The fire ebbed slightly with each breath. I opened my eyes and saw the outlines of my hands.
My chest expanded with hope. The gas had thinned.
Keeping a steady pace so I didn’t tire out, I moved inch by inch, focusing on small tasks while my chest heaved. It hurt to breathe, but it also hurt when I held my breath. The pain was the same, so I chose the lesser evil and kept breathing, hoping like hell I would find a way out of this mess.
After what felt like hours, the gas thinned further, and I could make out the frozen rock on my right. I raised my head to look forward and saw the blue-haired man and the dusky-haired woman standing several feet ahead of me, with five others, facing the axe gauntlet.
Behind the group, the dark-green-haired man raised a sword in one hand and a dagger in the other, readying for an attack, while the woman I suspected was his sister stood with her arrow nocked on her bow.
Two of the seven-member group were facing my direction, keeping an eye on the gas.
I’d be free of it soon if I kept moving, but I wasn’t sure that would be better. I’d be facing nine fae, any of whom could attack me, but at least I’d go out fighting and not die because I’d given up or was too scared to face the real threat.
I crawled toward the frozen rock, hoping they wouldn’t expect someone to willingly get close to the spikes protruding from it.
As the pain in my lungs lessened, I heard screams and the sounds of fighting. Blades clashed. More people had gotten weapons and weren’t afraid to use them on each other.
Exhaustion crept into my bones. Confident I couldn’t handle a physical fight, I had to come up with another plan.
When the edges of the spikes brushed my arm, I realized I’d made it to the ice rock. I paused, trying to take slow breaths. Though my lungs still burned, at least they weren’t on fire.
Carefully, I gripped the tip of one spike and removed an arrow from the quiver. Using the sharp edge, I hit the spike, breaking it off in my hand. I continued to hammer more free, hoping to use them as weapons if needed. The ice froze my hand, but I ignored that pain and broke off ten more pieces. My wrist and hand cramped from the strain, but I focused on one spike at a time. I needed ammunition for the sling.
My lungs burned worse, causing me to blink and focus back on the world around me.
Shit. I gritted my teeth in frustration. I’d stayed too long in one spot, and the gas had thickened around me again. The handful of ice spikes would have to do; besides, I didn’t want to keep them in my hand too long because they’d start melting. Not only that, but the arrow tip had been destroyed.
I tossed the dull arrow on the ground and moved slowly again. I crawled another ten feet before the gas thinned. Only one man was watching the gas; the rest had vanished. I kept the thicker part of the gas to my back, following the fuzzy line of where it receded so that no one would risk coming up behind me.
The last thing I wanted to do was come out of the gas crawling, so I stood up slowly. My muscles screamed, and my body ached, but I straightened my shoulders. If anyone saw that I was weak, they would be inclined to hit me hard and fast.
The man glanced at me, and his eyes locked with mine.
“The sunscorched—” he started. I placed one ice spike in the sling, but my hands moved slowly, and I dropped the rest as he finished, “—is still alive!”
He charged toward me, so I bent down to snatch up the ice spikes and stuffed them into my pants pockets. I didn’t have enough time to get the sling working before he reached me.
Fortunately, he didn’t have a weapon, which must have been why he’d alerted the others to my presence, and he ran full speed at me. I tried to pivot out of the way, but my legs moved too slowly, and he grabbed me and turned me so my back was pressed to his chest. His hands wrapped around my neck.
“The rumor is you enjoy inflicting pain on a man’s tender region, and I won’t make the mistake of giving you access,” he whispered into my ear and squeezed my neck tighter.
The prick was choking me. My heart quickened, and I let all my self-defense training kick in. I shifted my hips to the left and elbowed him in the side. Pain shot down my arm into my hand as if I’d hit a wall, telling me how strong this prick was.
He grunted, his hold on my neck loosening, so I grabbed his arms and jerked forward. He sailed over my shoulder and landed hard on his back, deeper into the gas.
Before I could recover, someone slammed into my back.
I landed face forward with a thud as the man straddled me from behind. He forced my arms to my sides, and I used the opportunity to swing my head back. I hit something solid and heard a sickening crack. Warm liquid dripped onto me, and I tried not to think about what it was. I flipped over, knocking him off, and kicked him in the side, thrusting him farther away.
He whimpered and rolled to his feet then ran back to the spot where he’d been. “I need help killing her!” he cried nasally, turning toward me again. “Someone with a weapon!”
This time, I pulled an ice spike from my pocket and fit it into the sling. I swung the sling over my head. My wrist ached while my legs began to quiver again from the effects of the gas and physical exhaustion. I couldn’t stand much longer.
Out of the corner of my eye, the gas resembled fog as it hovered over my shoulders. I snapped the sling forward, aiming for the guy’s neck because the last two times, the stones had landed slightly lower than what I’d aimed for.
The guy jerked his head back, and the ice hit its actual target. It lodged into his neck, and blood squirted out. His eyes widened, his hand reaching for his throat.
My stomach dropped. I’d gone from not ever killing to being a murderer in the blink of an eye. My vision tunneled, but the sound of a scream kept me in the present. I watched the dusky-haired woman drop to her knees beside the man who’d fallen while I’d been freaking out.
I swallowed. It was time to face the consequences and hope like hell I figured out a way to survive. Though I had no clue how much longer we had to stay in this nightmare.
As I jogged away from the gas, I noted the sight before me. The dark-green-haired man and woman fought with their backs to one another. She readied to fire an arrow but held off, possibly because she had only two more in her quiver.
We were all running low.
Of the fifty who’d entered the arena, there were about fifteen survivors, and the gas filled everywhere but this corner, like they’d driven us here to fight one another.
“You!” the dusky-haired woman spat, her eyes shining like gunmetal. “Your kind always brings death to us.” She barreled toward me, and I swung my sling, aiming for her shoulder, not wanting to risk killing yet another person. I’d caused enough death for one day, and unlike them, I didn’t relish it.
Luckily, I hit my mark exactly as intended.
Her right shoulder jerked back, and she stumbled a few steps. “Someone help me kill the wildling!”
The pale-blue-haired man sneered, turning away from the green-haired duo and stalking toward me. “I get to kill her. No one else.”
As he closed the distance between us and raised a sword, I put another sharp piece of ice into my sling and swung it. This time, my wrist moved much slower, and my legs wobbled.
Between the gas, emotional trauma, and the entire fucking nightmare, I was losing what little strength I’d gained. I released it, and the ice hit his right leg. He stumbled onto a dark-colored rock—the kind that exploded.
A boom echoed in my ears, and part of his boot and calf blew off. He blanched and hissed, but he hopped on one foot, still moving toward me. Blood gushed from his leg, and my chest heaved. This couldn’t be happening again. My goal in life had been to become an environmentalist, but that dream seemed so far away now that I had blood on my hands. All I wanted to do was go back to when things were simple.
“It’s receding!” the dark-green-haired woman shouted. “We can surround her. She can’t make it to the next round. ”
I glanced over my shoulder to confirm what she’d said. Holy shit. This was the end for me. There was no other way around it.
I backed up to the edge of the gas so the others couldn’t get behind me yet. All thirteen of them converged on me with one clear goal.
Kill the sunscorched bitch.
Well, they’d probably call me a bitch if they knew what the term meant.
My heart hammered, and I looked at Tavish. If this was going to be the end, I wanted to see the handsome jackass one last time.
He remained seated, but he was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. I could see how tense his muscles were from here. His jaw was clenched, and he mouthed the word won for some reason.
Of course, the jackass was gloating that he had won. Why had I wanted to look at him? Still, something inside me didn’t want to look away. My eyes took in every inch of his face, his full lips, his everything.
“Ahh, it seems she’s taking a liking to the Unseelie king after all.” The pale-blue-haired man cackled, but his malice fell flat under the strain of his injuries. Sweat dripped down his face, and more blood gushed from his leg.
The gas drew back farther, allowing the edge of the frozen rock to appear behind me, opening my entire right side to an attack. I noted every sword, dagger, and short sword they had.
The pale-blue-haired man charged, limping on his right foot as he lunged toward me, sword held overhead. His hands shook, and then he swung it at me.
I spun left, and the blade whooshed past me, coming closer than I ever wanted to know. I straightened, waiting for the next attack, and noticed black rocks slightly to my right. I didn’t want to kill someone, but I also didn’t want to die. I’d use those as a weapon only if forced.
“You’re about to die, Lorne, so I’m going to kill her instead.” The green-haired woman drew an arrow in her bow, the tip aimed at my chest. “I’m ending this.”
I swallowed, watching as her hand twitched.
Then the horn blew, but she didn’t stop. She loosed the arrow, and it hurtled toward me.