Chapter 39
Chapter Thirty-Nine
~ Shade ~
Knox and Thane are pulled away shortly after that.
I can’t be sure if being with Knox has removed the last remnants of the curse, but for the rest of the night my dreams are filled with memories.
I still can’t remember what happened to me after Knox left all those years ago and I was turned into a crow, but I remember parts of my life before that.
Flashes of my past overwhelm my mind, filling my head like I’m watching the highlights of different black and white movies.
I remember being raised in group homes because my parents abandoned me when I was young.
I remember the stray cat I called Patches, whom I’d found down an alleyway when I was ten.
I used to share what little food I had with him until one day I couldn’t find him, and I found his lifeless body a short distance down the road.
He’d been hit by a car, and I’d cried for hours until my foster parents decided some tough love would shut me up.
In fact, there were many times they thought they’d show me this tough love of theirs.
I see now that neither of them even knew what the word ‘love’ meant.
Thankfully, the local library had become my safe haven as a teen.
The librarian, Mrs Williams, was a strict lady, but she was one of the first people to show me real kindness.
I held onto books like they were a lifeline.
They were my only escape from reality, and as I got older, romance books became my best friends, and you know, I started collecting book boyfriends.
I would spend hours at the library, devouring everything I could get my hands on, and sketching different versions of how I viewed the characters in my head.
When I finally graduated from the local public school, it felt like a miracle when I got my first job at a fast-food restaurant, washing dishes in the back. But I never stopped visiting the library.
These memories all come back to me in bits and pieces, fragmented and not always crystal clear, but slowly I piece my life back together.
My story. I think of the tombstone I’d seen in my dreams some time ago with the name, Alina Moore, etched into the stone.
I wait for that memory to return. For everything to finally all make sense, but it doesn’t come.
“Shade.” I wake to someone tugging on my arm. “You need to get up.”
Groaning, I try not to think about my pounding head, and I blink bleary-eyed at Kenzie. “Five more minutes?” I grumble. How long had I slept? Minutes? Hours? The memories continue flowing back to me as I fight against the bone-deep exhaustion that’s dragging at me.
Weak sunlight shines down through the trees, and there’s a murky gray sky high above us. Already I can hear the shouting from the warriors in the stands, and I jerk my gaze to Kenzie. “You were supposed to wake me for my watch,” I tell her.
She shrugs like it’s no big deal. “You looked like you could use the rest, and I may have dozed off there for an hour or two.” She gives me a look like she’s worried I’ll be mad she left us exposed, but honestly, I’m just grateful she let me rest. Even if it does feel like I haven’t slept at all.
I stretch out my limbs, still smiling because I got to spend the night with Knox and Thane.
I have four mates. Four. Blake is never going to believe this.
I take a moment to think about my bestie in the demon realm.
If I die during these games, I’ll never get a chance to see her again, and I don’t know if she would ever figure out what happened to me.
I tell myself that no matter what she’d eventually find out the truth, and it’s a small comfort knowing she’d make someone pay.
“The students are starting to gather,” Kenzie tells me. “A few have already passed us, moving through the forest.” She unbinds herself from the tree and grabs hold of a long vine, testing that it’s not going to fall before she begins climbing down.
Sighing, I unbind myself and follow after her. By the time my boots hit the forest floor, the ground starts to tremble, the vibration traveling up my legs. “Uh, Kenzie what is that?” I say, my eyes shooting wide.
A tearing, ripping sound travels through the jungle, and two students I don’t recognize race past us, tripping and stumbling as they weave between the trees. “Run!” they shout at us, and we don’t hesitate.
Kenzie and I sprint after them as the ground shifts under our feet, and the tearing sound gets louder.
“Don’t look back!” Kenzie yells, using her shadows to move a large branch that had fallen in front of us.
We spot Ian, Satine, Paiton, and the rest of their group running ahead of us, and we follow them, jumping away from the trees and sprawling onto the sand of the arena, as a wall of dirt and shadows tears up the jungle behind us.
Kenzie grabs me, pulling us further away from the jungle as the earth churns, and the lush greenery of the forest turns to sand.
Across the arena, students rush from the pine forest as the trees topple, the vegetation replaced with sand as well, and the same thing happens to the coconut trees and the large lake.
The taseral is nowhere to be found, and considering students run from between the sand hills, I guess they must have managed to defeat the creature after all.
I try not to think of the confusing way that makes my chest pang, and instead, I turn my attention to the present.
As we crowd in the middle of the arena, instinctively, my gaze goes to the ceremonial box.
The queen is sitting on her throne, and she beams as she watches the students crying out as they clamber to escape the churning trees as the dirt tears up behind them.
One student doesn’t escape the pine forest fast enough, and he’s tossed into the air before he’s rolled under the ground, swallowed by sand and shadows.
I look away, not wanting to see him getting buried alive. Truthfully, I’m guessing the impact of the sand would have killed him almost instantly, so I guess that’s a small mercy, but I shudder.
The churning stops, and the students all press together as we wait to see what today’s challenge will be. My mates are all seated close to the queen, and my stomach tightens as I stare at them.
“Remember what I said,” Knox uses his power to whisper in my ear. “You must fight, my love. Do whatever it takes.”
I nod, though I’m not so sure we’re on the same page. I’m pretty sure what Knox really means is that I should kill whoever it takes, and I don’t think I can do that.
The ground stops trembling, and I force myself to conjure up a granola bar and work hard to chew and swallow.
The last thing I feel like doing is eating, but tackling this day on an empty stomach and with low blood sugar seems like a terrible idea.
Many of the students do the same, everyone looking like they’re struggling to get their food down, and Kenzie’s face is all business as she eats a peanut butter sandwich.
I’m about to finish my granola bar and swallow the last mouthful, when shadows explode from the ground on the outer edges of the arena.
A chunk of granola wedges in my throat, and I wheeze, grabbing at my neck.
Great going, Shade. Your tomb will read: Self-inflicted death in the arena by choking on a granola bar.
I’m still coughing and wheezing when Kenzie whacks me hard on the back, and the chunk of granola dislodges from my throat. It goes flying from my mouth and smacks straight onto the side of Satine’s face. She shrieks, swatting it away, and she narrows her eyes, glaring at me.
Oops.
“Are you trying to die?” Kenzie hisses, rubbing my back as I cough and splutter.
“Watch it!” Satine snaps, looking even more irritable than usual.
I give her a sheepish smile.
She takes two steps toward me, but another rumbling sound crackles through the amphitheater, and we’re all distracted as the shadows along the outer edges of the arena form together, and massive structures slowly rise from the ground. No, not just structures…obstacles.
My stomach flips as I watch the obstacle course form in the outer circle around us, but unlike the course I’d practiced in the academy, these obstacles are all impossibly large.
“Guess you weren’t kidding when you said the obstacle in the practice course was only a baby wall,” I whisper to my mates.
Raith’s answering chuckle fills my ears. “Nothin’ you can’t handle, sunshine.”
I frown. “Are we looking at the same obstacle course? Because I swear this one has been made for giants.” I’m not kidding either.
Everything is huge. The climbing wall for this course is at least three times taller than the one I’d practiced on, with sharp metal spikes jutting out from the climbing face.
The spikes move from side-to-side at intervals, like the wall is specifically designed to make you fail. No sabotage needed here. Great.
Every time the ground stops trembling, I think all the obstacles have been revealed, but then the sand churns again and more rise into the air.
I can’t even count them all, there’s that many.
They look as though they run in two circular loops side-by-side around the arena, and I’m guessing you have to complete the inner circle first, before even making it to the obstacles in the outer circle. Just kill me now, I drone in my head.
“How do you feel, mate?” Thane’s voice whispers into my ear.
“Ready for anything,” I lie, bouncing on the spot with an energy I’m definitely faking.
Truthfully, I feel like my head is being crushed in the claws of a giant crab, and my stomach is a few seconds away from making me throw up the granola bar I choked on, but I don’t say that.
Telling my mates that won’t help anything.
“And your magic?” Knox asks. “Has the curse been removed?”