First, the Rules #3
The nobles shifted in their seats as Isobel slid her gaze to them. She wore such an assured smirk. She must have done some scheming of her own to turn them to her side. Esme scratched the skin off her lip. This would be a test of their influence—not just Bal versus Janos but Esme versus Isobel.
“Now, the betters shall vote on which group shall go up against each beast. First, the horse!” Isobel waved a hand and a servant rushed over to the nobles’ box.
Each voter had a scrap of paper, but they were slow to fill it in.
Instead, one of those servants in orange stood in a far corner with her back turned to the crowd and her hand hidden in front of her body.
Every noble watched her. Then, just as soon as Isobel caught on, the girl grabbed a carafe of wine and refilled a round of glasses as if nothing had happened.
The nobles scribbled their votes and shoved them into a red bag passed around by a servant.
Isobel’s face dropped inch after inch as the servant counted the votes.
Esme could say for the first time that she and Isobel shared something: their utter shock.
Judging by Isobel’s expression, she hadn’t planted that girl.
Then again, maybe this was Karin and Kiren’s strategy for making sure Janos got the deadliest animal.
The girl was from the Den. Esme nodded to herself, as if that would prove her theory true.
The servant returned the results to Isobel. If Esme’s plan worked, that would be Bal’s group. If Isobel’s worked, it would be Janos’s. She waited with bated breath as Isobel raised the projection horn to her quivering mouth. East. It had to be, with her face screwed up like that—
“The men in the west will battle the horse.”
Esme’s mouth dropped. The west? As the crowd cheered, she leaned over the railing to look deeper into the group. Neither Bal nor Janos were in that direction; all of the contestants were immigrants. Her eyes passed from man to man until she found the last one staring directly at her.
Her stomach clenched. Her chest ached. She had to blink just to right her vision, felt like her soul had stepped right out of her body.
The last man at the west was… incredible.
He was taller than tall, with broad shoulders and a strong body wrapped in a layer of muscle, then a layer of softness, with golden skin stretched atop it all.
The other men had been sheared, but this man had a knot of black hair thick as velvet pulled back from his face.
And he wore a gag. The iron mask obstructed the bottom of his face, and he worked his jaw from side to side like he might saw through the metal with his teeth. Large as he was, Esme was sure he’d do it.
“He’s not from here,” Tagas said breathlessly from beside her. “As in, from past the Void.”
Esme nodded numbly, still unable to unhook her eyes from him. She didn’t recognize him, but her chest squeezed like it did. Her stomach knotted with the fluttery warmth of a teenager setting eyes on the first person they’d ever loved.
“Are you sick?” Tagas asked, setting a hand on her leg.
“I think so,” Esme muttered. The man in the west kept staring at her, almost unblinkingly. A fan of warmth spread out across her face, and she knew it must be his magic. She fought against leaning into it.
“N-next, the rat!” Isobel announced with a quivering voice.
Esme barely tore her attention from the man at the west entrance, and even then a waft of heat blew through her hair when she turned her head.
Nobles dropped in their votes quickly, without the girl from before directing them.
That would mean she’d directed them against both Esme and Isobel’s orders.
Who in Ojalla’s name had outdone both of them?
She bit her nail as the servant delivered the votes back to Isobel. The queen’s face darkened again, but Esme didn’t let that give her faith.
“The men in the east shall battle the rat.” The words slipped from Isobel’s mouth. She whipped over to glare at the nobles, only to find all of them staring blankly down at the sand.
Esme slapped a hand over her mouth to hide her smile. Bal was in the east. He would have the rat. She breathed a sigh of relief as Tagas gave her a pat on the leg. Beside them, Urias’s eyes grew large.
“I’ll get you another redhead,” Esme told him. Before Urias could ask what Esme had done, Isobel spoke again.
“Next, the lion,” Isobel called out as the nobles yielded another quick vote. The servant raced back to Isobel with the result, and the queen shuddered before raising the shaking projection horn to her face.
“The men in the south shall race the lion.”
A knot unraveled in Esme’s stomach. She’d done it.
That meant Janos would be eagle food. Esme had only been able to kill it by dying. A human had no chance. She closed her eyes as Tagas sent a burst of congratulations to her with his mind.
“Thank Ojalla,” she whispered. She hoped her goddess heard.
“Well!” Esme flinched at Isobel’s shrill voice. The queen was grinning, but panic leaked from the gaps of her teeth. Then again, her boy was about to get eaten by a bigass bird. She’d better be scared. “I’ve decided to add another twist to the competition.”
No. Not again.
Isobel gritted her jaw before speaking again. “The animals will all be shifted one place. The horse shall now be at the north, the lion at the west, the rat at the south, and the eagle at the east.”
“Motherfucker!” Esme stumbled to her feet, rushing to the far edge of her observation box, only for the Bond to yank her back by the scalp. The box of nobles stirred. Isobel gave them a short, infuriated look before speaking again.
“Not only that, but I shall double the winning family’s bet.”
With that, they shut up.
Gold. Esme could outthink Isobel. She could outplan her. She could leverage her resources better.
But Isobel would always have gold. Esme could be as smart and prepared as she wanted to be; Isobel would always buy her out of it. Her throat stung, but not because of the Bond.
Isobel knew.
The two of them locked eyes right at the moment a servant rushed up to the royal observation box and told her that the nobles accepted her deal.
Once again, she’d won. Isobel reveled in it, her assured grin bright and blinding.
But Isobel would always win. For as long as she held Esme’s leash, she would always win.
Esme touched the will’s words carved deep in her neck. They’d scar over after this, be a part of her forever. Omniel’s fucking handwriting on her throat for all time. Just like his brand on her back and Janos’s teeth shredding down her arms. All over, artifacts of their dominion.
Esme would leave them scarred too.
She grabbed the railing in front of her and reached out to her shadows. Every slithering tendril, every black clot. She whispered her rage to them, outlined her revenge, and when they joined up with her, she spread her message further.
Her jaw ached from her grinding it as she stretched her power far past the arena. She’d need time—long enough to grab hold of everything she could—so when Isobel and that fucking grin full of teeth turned to her again, Esme blew shadow out of her nose like smoke and let her laugh.
Not yet. Not fucking yet.
She steamed as roars ripped through the bowels of the arena.
The animals were being dragged to their posts.
The men in the maze flinched at every sound, clumping together only to jump apart again at the next noise.
Bal tripped back against the maze wall as a cawing that sounded like death clawed closer to the gate beside him.
At first there was just a shroud of shadow, and then a massive beak snapped on one of the gate bars and tore it clean out.
Magic oozed into the arena through the gates. Esme felt it pick at her fury, offering her more. This time, she didn’t lock it out, instead taking a big gulp into her burning lungs like a drowning breath.
Magic’s black embrace squeezed the humans tight, ratcheting their bloodlust higher until they were baying for the sick and brutal death of every single person in that arena. The wetter, the better.
“Because I am kind, the men will have a one-minute lead,” Isobel said, unkindly.
The men at each maze entrance darted into the winding terror ahead of them.
Bal raced through the spirals without sense, fear no doubt powering his legs.
Janos ran in the middle of his group, looking back every few seconds like he expected his aunt to renege on her promise of an early start.
The men in the south scrambled from the claws curling out from their gate, but in the west, the man with the gag didn’t seem to care about the massacre waiting to happen.
He rolled his shoulders with a half-exhausted huff and started through the maze with the pace one might employ when hunting down a runaway cat.
Isobel made a sour face down at him and grabbed her voice projector. “I’ve changed my mind. Release the beasts!”
The gates lifted, and hell leapt out.