Chapter 32 #2
An arena. White and gold, ringed by terraces filled with elves.
On the ground level, there are even more of the lower classes, cheering once we come into view.
Vann and I are handed rusted swords. Mine in my dominant hand, but I can’t help but notice he is given one in the opposite hand he fights with.
He tugs the chain as he brings up his arm to hold on to the sword with both hands.
I, who know only the very basics, move to do the same, though I don’t see any immediate threat yet. Are we to kill the five elven men around us?
They don’t move with aggression, so I turn back to the roaring sound of shouts from the arena. I am turned around violently, and that’s when I see Arion, above the terraces, seated on a raised dais. His crown burns with some magical light.
He sits upon the Throne of Living Wood. It seems to burn beneath him, as if it’s pulsing with its divine connection to his god.
I wonder if the marriage ceremony was fully completed.
I can’t help but look at Vann, and I realize that his Fuegorra is shining bright in his chest as he looks back at me. A bitterness flows up my throat. Does he hear the mating song? Something I only experienced briefly?
Then I see the two shining white dots on the side of his neck again. Mating marks.
A bitter rage settles in my belly, and look away.
I think of Mrath, though I don’t see her on display anywhere. I wonder if she’s dead for real this time.
She is conniving, ruthless, and brutal, but she was good to me. I liked her quite a bit. She had once made me feel powerful when I felt consumed by the curse.
I was only following instructions… Cursed One reminds me.
The king rises. “We have spent hundreds of years building to the golden age of the Elven Dominion. That hard work will not be wasted. In all my wisdom, we tried to use the gifts the gods had given us to improve our future for our children, and the gods have clearly shown us, in all their wisdom, that this is not meant to be. The crown will not be mocked,” he says, his voice carrying over the din.
“Let all who doubted my mercy witness its cost.”
The crowd roars.
The guards retreat, leaving us in the sand. Vann flexes his wrists against the chain and murmurs, “Stay behind me.”
“You can’t protect me as well as you think,” I bite back. The last time I relied on him, I woke up in a dungeon.
“Arlet, now isn’t the time for anger,” he mutters. “I don’t plan to die with you angry at me, and I doubly refuse to watch you die.”
I almost laugh, but it comes out bitter. “How does it feel to be so pious, even now? After we ruined everything?”
Before he can answer, the far gates creak open.
A first wolf bursts through, and I yelp, staggering back. The sight of its massive ribs showing under gray fur, its eyes glowing faintly blue, causes me to do exactly as Vann asked. My heart races as another emerges. And another. Four in total, muzzles foaming.
The crowd cheers louder.
Vann readies the sword, but his movements are mechanical. He glances back at me once. “It’s going to be all right, Firelocks.”
A part of me softens at the use of the nickname. The wolves prowl closer, and my heart leaps to my throat. They don’t attack straight off, which somehow makes the whole display worse. When the first wolf lunges, I scream.
Vann, however, meets it midair, the chain jerking me forward as his blade cuts across its snout. It yelps and reels away.
Come on, you can do better than that, Cursed One whispers in my mind.
Another charges me from the side. I swing too late. It knocks me flat, teeth tearing through leather and into my arm. I scream and roll, the chain yanking tight as Vann hauls me upright.
I feel Cursed One’s exasperation. In fact, I feel the exact moment that her strength lends itself to my limbs. It’s not what it was when she possessed me fully, but it is something.
“Move!” he snaps.
“I’m trying!”
We stumble, adjust, and fall into rhythm.
Another wolf leaps. He ducks, drags me down with him. Together we thrust upward—two blades, one motion—and the wolf impales itself on steel.
The crowd gasps. Then cheers.
When the other wolf lunges toward me again, the heightened instincts take over, despite the weakness of my body. I feel when the sword passes through fur and crunches against bone, sliding over sinew.
The yelp is sad.
I pull the sword free, noting how much extra resistance there is when the blade is dull.
Something prickles at the corner of my vision as I stare at the fallen creature. Something dark builds up inside of me. It burns the edges of the shapes in front of me, and I swear I see bits of smoke singeing the fur of the wolf.
Vann attacks the fourth and final wolf, yanking me forward and out of my reverie. The hot-dark tingles fade as quickly as they started, and I am forced to move with him as he fells our final foe.
When it’s over, the sand is streaked red. I press my hand against my arm, blood seeping between my fingers.
Vann looks at me, breathing hard. “You’re hurt.”
“Not enough to die.”
“But you don’t have the Fuegorra to heal you,” he points out flatly, and none too tamely.
I look up at him, seeing the way his silver eyes burn. Of course he would’ve noticed. I don’t have anything to say to him. I can’t tell him how much it hurt, or how scary it was to go through the procedure.
No, instead the gates open again.
The thing that emerges should not be alive. Once, maybe, it was a bear. Now its ribs are carved with runes, eyes molten gold, fur blackened with dried blood. Just by looking at it, I can feel the magic coming off it in droves.
“Hostia puta,” I breathe out.
Vann exhales. “Fuck, indeed.”
It charges.
Vann shoves me aside, and the chain jostles me violently, causing more pain to well up from the wound in my arm.
The ground trembles as claws strike where I was just standing.
The chain whips tight again, jerking my wrist. I swing at the bear’s flank as it comes close to me, but I miss.
Vann cuts its foreleg, but the wound only enrages it.
It hits him square across the chest. He goes down hard, rolling through the sand.
The crowd roars.
“Vann!” I cry out
“I’m fine!” he shouts back, spitting out dirt.
Use me, I implore my dark companion.
The bear rears, blotting out the sun. I lift my sword, angling it right into the ribs of the creature.
But Vann, yet again taking matters into his own hands, pulls the chain, dragging me sideways just as it slams down. The sand explodes around us.
My body screams. When I blink up, the bear still looms over me, jaws wide.
I stab upward. The sword sinks deep into its neck. It bellows, stumbles. Vann rises, swings once—clean and perfect—across its throat. Blackened blood spurts out and streams down over me and the sand. Just a bit away from us, the beast falls.
The crowd erupts. Louder than ever before. I wish I could block out the awful, high-pitched noise.
But Arion doesn’t smile. He stands from his throne, serene, then descends the steps with his crown burning brighter.
My whole life I had followed my own obsession with being nothing but good—or at least with not causing harm. It didn’t keep me safe, as I thought it would.
The king tried to kill me. Despite all my hard work—he still tried to bury me. I snap. I don’t feel like cowering as I have in the past.
I will try. I will give Arion a good show.
“Three trials, I promised,” he says. “Do you all not enjoy a spectacle?!”
More?
You can take it, Red.
Something inside of me hardens and steels me against reality. I’m tired of being weak and underestimated.
Cursed One is right.
I grit my teeth as the crowd roars in response. Arion smiles, ever the brilliant king. My body hurts, and I feel sticky.
That black-hot energy builds in me again.
“Arlet—”
I can barely breathe. “Don’t touch me.”
“You are losing a lot of blood,” Vann says roughly. “I didn’t fight half a kingdom just to watch you bleed out.”
I can’t make out Arion’s expression from here, but I know he watches us closely. He watches how Vann moves to me, how he holds me up.
When Arion speaks again, I can almost feel his rage. It is the only thing that keeps me from yanking away from Vann.
“Tomorrow, we shall have to make the trials that much harder, no?”
The crowd agrees.
Vann presses harder on my wound, his hand shaking. I notice his fear in that moment. I’m starting to feel cold.
The heat from before drains out of me. Tomorrow…How am I even supposed to last the night?
“You can hate me later,” Vann says. “Just stay alive for now.”
Then everything tilts, and the world goes dark.