Chapter 39 #2
A rippling gasp cuts through the stands as her large claws drop an entire boulder from the sky. It sinks through the air, crashing into the wooden seats. Screams fill the arena moments before a shadow begins to billow out from the gaping hole. It moves across the seating, and people begin to run.
“The fires,” Vann calls to me. “I told her to come when she saw fire from the city!”
They scramble like ants in the rain. The guards on the dais shout warnings. A few even jump down into the arena to run toward us, but Vann is ready.
“What is this?” I hear Arion’s amplified voice call, and the collar at my throat burns. I feel a drain as he uses Cursed One’s magic through me.
I fall to my knees.
“Arlet!”
That bright black-and-white magic shoots out into the sky after Seraph. He’s trying to kill her, too.
“No!” I scream.
It’s just her and us. No one else comes for us.
Mrath was supposed to arrive—was supposed to kill Arion before this. And yet…we are alone.
Seraph crosses overhead once more, bringing another boulder to drop on another section of the stands.
“Go! Hide!” I shout after her as the first wave of arrows flies into the sky. The guards who had run into the arena now come after us.
“Arlet—” Vann begins, but the chaos swallows his words.
Those who were armed knock back more arrows, and they fly at us. Without protection, I am left to nothing but Vann.
And Vann… That stupid, self-righteous bastard throws me to the ground and covers my body with his. I feel the exact moment the first arrow hits his chest, piercing his flesh. And then the second.
I feel his lips against my hair.
“So…beautiful…Firelocks.”
I scream. I try to push him off so I can fix this somehow. He groans in pain. Our story is messy, but this can’t be the end. Even if I had considered it, this cannot be the end.
I don’t even know exactly what our future would look like, but every part of me yearns to find out. I want to have the life I dreamed of. I can’t let that go now, not when we’re so close.
Help, I beg the spirit within me. Cursed One, please.
I summon the shadowflame, trying to stop the guards, but it is meager. Too small. A candle before a storm. I can’t save him with this.
Please, I beg again.
Castien told me there would come a time when she would share her name with me, and that our magic could be bound. If I wish to make such a deal, then there will be no retracting it.
But now I know who she is. I know her character—she is my friend.
Please.
And then the world slows. The roar fades. Everything around me dims until all I see is shadow and the faint shimmer of blood on the sand.
In that silence, a voice rises—not from without, but within. Cold. Endless.
Do you truly seek my power, Arlet?
“I told you—you are my friend. You are powerful. I see you for who you are. I know your pain. I wish, from time to time, that I could have some of that power as well,” I whisper. “I’ll do anything.”
Anything?
The voice curls through me like smoke. I can feel it pressing against my ribs, touching my pulse.
Once I give you my name, we are bound. I wish to be free from the awful pits from which I came. I wish to see the world. To visit. To roam through you.
“All right.” My voice breaks. “Just—please—don’t let him die.”
A long pause. Then, softer: So be it. But understand this, Arlet of no house: A name is a chain. When you speak mine, you invite the fire to remember you. Forever. The gods may fight over your soul once you die.
“Just…tell me.”
My name, the voice whispers, and the shadows coil tight, is Nehvaris.
“Nehvaris,” I repeat. “Lend me some of your fire.”
The world shatters open, filled with larger, billowing versions of the black flames. They fold inward until nothing remains of the amphitheater. There is no screaming crowd, no walls of stone, not even the open sky above.
It’s as though Vann and I have been swallowed whole, sealed inside a sphere of living fire that breathes with me, contracting and expanding in time with the frantic rhythm of my heart.
Yet the fire doesn’t burn. It presses close, warm but not searing, a shroud that hums in my veins like something alive and waiting. It feels as though I am suspended between threads of matter, stretched to my max, just straddling the line between pleasure and pain.
At last.
Nehvaris’s power curls through me, low and resonant, vibrating in my hollow chest where the Fuegorra stone once lived, an absence I have missed for quite some time now. No more chains. No more tethers.
You are more than their spectacle now.
My non-tethered hand flies to my ribs as if I can hold myself together. The fire shivers in response, a ripple that rolls across the sphere like a tide.
I want what you want, Red. To live. To rise. To never bow again. If the only way for me to live is through you, then so be it.
The promise tastes like ash and honey on my tongue. I should recoil, and yet part of me leans into it, desperate for the strength it offers after days of being torn open for the crowd.
We are kindred spirits. Two brides of the same monster.
I push away from Vann’s body and finally force myself to look.
And there he lies. I count two arrows in his back. I know how the Fuegorra works. I know that he would heal faster with a mate.
So I grab onto the first arrow and pull. It comes free easily, as if the magic is already pushing the shaft from his flesh. He groans. The wound is shallower than I thought, thank the gods. I make quick work of the other, but I feel a new type of pressure squeezing against me from the magic.
It hurts. The magic is starting to stab at my mind and make me falter.
With the last one out, I collapse next to him and let the fire go. It holds strong.
Through the shifting dark, Vann somehow pushes himself up. His silver hair clings to his temples, and blood slides down his shoulders, over his arms and his heaving chest. But still he comes, refusing to stop until his hands grip my shoulders.
“Arlet,” he says, voice raw and fraying, his gaze holding mine. “We need to leave.”
My legs buckle, exhaustion stealing the strength I thought I had left, and for a moment, I think I’ll collapse into the fire itself.
But Vann is there before I let the fire descend over us, scooping me up as though I weigh nothing.
As though he was not covered in his own wounds.
His arms wrap around me, solid and unyielding, and then he lifts me into his embrace with a suddenness that makes the flames roar.
“I want to see what happens to the king,” I bite out.
The sphere protests, shrieking in a pitch that rattles through my bones, but it doesn’t strike him down. Instead, the walls fracture, fissures of light tearing open, until the fire peels back just enough to reveal the entrance to the arena.
The crowd is still concealed from me, but I swear I feel screams tearing through the silence as Vann carries me forward, step by deliberate step, while the shadows curl away from him like retreating waves. The screams grow distant again, muffled by the thrum of blood in my ears.
When this is gone, we will be left to Arion’s will. I pray that he will not kill us.
As soon as the fire breaks and the arena is once again revealed, the space is stained with blood. The fallen in the stands. The humans who attacked us. The beasts. They lie in wasteful piles as casualties of some false war.
Thorne has disappeared.
However, while we were concealed, it opened the way for a new arrival.
Mrath. She rides a lion, bounding through the stands, as her mount, knocking all those who stand in her way to the ground.
She finally came.
Hundreds of the Sisterhood also swarm the place, wearing their darkest leathers as they spread across the arena and kill every guard in sight.
Mrath looks regal in a way I’ve never seen, with a burgundy cloak floating behind her and a crown of thorns atop her head. Her silvery hair matches his perfectly, and the smile on her face is more feral than triumphant.
Arion stands at his throne, shooting bursts of light at anyone in his sight. That magic doesn’t belong to him. I need to stop him.
I do not like her either, Nehvaris says.
She was the one who sent her to Arion like a lamb to slaughter.
I know, but she’s the better option.
If you say so. You’ll need to take that collar off for him to stop using you for my magic.
My eyes go wide. How did I not realize this before?
“We need to get the collar off,” I tell Vann, clawing at my throat. His chest heaves.
“You’ve already tried. It didn’t go well—” he starts but I cut him off.
“Try again.”
I remember the pain and the burning. But this time, I will bear it better. Arion must die.
Tenderly, Vann grasps at the collar and begins to gently pry. Fire flames through my body, and I cry out. Shaking. I feel Nehvaris’s power shoot through me.
I need this to come off if Arion is to die.
“Keep…going…” I grit out through cries.
“Arlet, please.”
“We need to get it off.”
Pain sears and wracks my body, as if my bones are breaking and splintering.
Breathe, Red. We just are getting to know each other. You can’t crumble now.
A red-hot haze covers my vision, and then, finally, the collar breaks. It falls from my person and to the ground. Without warning, Nehvaris takes control of my body and blasts the collar with her magic.
I watch it burn and melt into the sand.
No warning?
Next time.
“Come with me,” Vann says, and he guides me closer to the stands where Arion is trying and failing to use the magic again.
“Arlet!” he screams.
Both Nehvaris and I like the desperation in his voice.
Mrath realizes that something has changed. She drops from her mount, running to her brother.
“Where is your power now?” she shouts, just as she holds up her hand to reveal a short sword glowing blue.
“Mrath—” the Elf King starts, backing up and stumbling. The blade drives through Arion’s back and out through his chest. If I were to wager, the weapon enters at the exact spot of his Living Wood, the one that should have connected him to his heritage had he not sworn allegiance to another god.
Everything turns quiet. One by one, all the smaller fights fade away.
Arion sputters, and sprays blood from his mouth.
Vann and I stand just under the dais, maybe twenty paces away from the action. His voice is no longer amplified, but he still speaks loud enough for those around to hear.
“The throne…no longer belongs to Doros. The elves will never see you as their leader if you cannot sit upon it…”
Mrath twists the blade, picking him up by the weapon. It cuts a line further up his body and he turns his eyes to the heavens, more blood spilling from him like coins.
For a single frozen moment, the world holds its breath. I am tired and dizzy from the collar and magic use. I lean against Vann, trying to absorb every second.
I look up to the dais, to where Arion was just moments before, and see Mrath wearing his crown.
“The king is dead!” she calls. “And a new one rises!” She thrusts her hand into the sky, declaring her divine right.
New worries open before me. It all compounds and compacts. Is this still a win if Mrath cannot even sit on the throne she claims? She does not even try, as those around them cry and clash weapons.
What comes next falls away from me. Darkness presses at the edges of my vision, heavy and unrelenting, and before I can warn Vann, the world tips and slips away.