Chapter 50 Astrid
It’s frightening, how quickly Skylar transforms now they’re inside the vast cage.
As if she’s been possessed by that terrible power.
The way she starts to stalk Astrid, to circle her, pin in hand and face now devoid of any emotion; it reminds Astrid of that day in the temple when Kaida hatched.
When Skylar seemed to lose all her humanity.
Skylar whips out with the pale tendrils of her power, snapping at Astrid’s feet, and she yelps, not expecting the move. Bastet roars next to her and rears as if to pounce, but Astrid flings an arm out. “No,” she hisses to her familiar, and he stalls.
The crowd is hollering, baying for blood. She glances up, unable to help herself. The stands in the arena rise so high they block out most of the sun. But it’s still abominably hot, and the sweat is already starting to seep through her silver suit.
Another lash of power strikes at her shins and she jumps back, hissing. Another lash, another hiss from Astrid. She only needs to glance at Bastet to stop him reacting.
Astrid can feel her temper rising, and welcomes it as it pushes out the nervous anxiety, the nausea. She vomited her guts up before they walked down to the arena, sick with what was about to happen, sick because her mum hadn’t been able to control her own terror and it had leaked into Astrid.
She glances at her mum and Bjorn now, realizing her mum is gesturing something. She wants Astrid to get on Bastet’s back and fly, but Astrid can’t do it. It doesn’t feel fair, not with Kaida here. The distraction costs her.
There’s a flash of silver, pain lancing across her face.
She cries out, stumbling backward, clutching her face where blood now gushes along her forehead and cheek.
She hears the witch queen’s yell before it’s drowned out by the great roar from the crowd as their heir draws the first blood.
She wipes it away, a few dull-looking droplets splattering onto the sun-beaten ground, then draws her claws.
It’s not Bastet who leaps to Astrid’s defense, though, but the dragon.
Kaida is huffing smoke and whining, as if she doesn’t understand.
A glimmer of something changes Skylar’s empty face briefly, but it’s gone just as quick.
She must say something, because Kaida gets behind Skylar and lowers herself to the ground, eyes wide, like a child reprimanded.
Skylar whirls her pin, carrying on as if there was no interruption, and points it at her. “Fight me, Astrid.”
Her heart climbs up her throat. Skylar never calls her Astrid.
Has never looked at her like she is now, not even at the Blood Binding.
Something’s happened. Why isn’t Mjolnir here?
Has Zryan taken him somewhere? To give Astrid a chance?
She knows it’s possible—probable even after what he told her this morning, but he also said he’d be here with her.
The fact that he isn’t has her worried. Does Skylar know that Zryan chose Astrid?
Goddess, does Skylar think they conspired against her?
The choking scent of ash and fire engulfs her and she gasps, dropping to her knees and clutching at her chest, when she realizes Skylar has her in the grips of her power. It’s over before it started, and Astrid gulps down air.
“Get up. Now.” Skylar’s gaze flicks over Astrid in her suit. Astrid feels ridiculous all of a sudden, a doll that’s been dressed up to die. “Your lover isn’t here, I noticed,” she says with a sneer. It’s the first sign of emotion she’s gotten from Skylar since the cage closed.
“I’m sure he’s with Mjolnir,” Astrid snaps back, Bastet growling next to her, but Skylar doesn’t even react.
Already her face is blank again. Astrid takes a deep breath, trying to figure this out, figure Skylar out right now.
This is a version of Skylar she’d been afraid of encountering, the version of Skylar who cares for no one and nothing, only retribution.
“Why don’t you just end this, Little Dragon?” Astrid hates how her voice shakes. Hates the betrayal she’s feeling. “You could have finished this already.”
Skylar trains her full focus on Astrid, and the usual fire in her amber eyes is gone. Astrid’s temples start to throb.
“I’m sorry, but you have to die,” Skylar says, then slashes out again, but this time Bastet lunges for her before Astrid can stop him.
The dragon heir is fast, diving out of his way, dust clinging to her black tank top where she rolls. Then she blasts Bastet with her magic, sending him flying across the cage.
Astrid’s scream mingles with Kaida’s high-pitched roar as the dragon bounds over to the familiar, who is slumped on the ground at the other end of the arena. He gets to his feet, unharmed, but Astrid doesn’t care. Skylar went for her soul-bonded. And that is unforgivable.
She goes on the offensive this time, swiping for Skylar with her claws, but the dragon heir dodges, responds with a strike from her deadly pin.
Astrid is ready for her, and Skylar’s pin glances off one of her claws while the other tears through the leg of Skylar’s shorts.
Skylar hisses as blood wells along her thigh.
Astrid leaps back and aims a claw at Skylar. “Have you lost your mind? Bastet is out of bounds. I don’t even know you right now.”
A snarl rips from Skylar’s mouth and she flies at Astrid. “You don’t know me at all.” She aims a jab at Astrid’s stomach, Astrid only just deflecting the punch. “You never knew me, or anything about me. You were nothing to me.”
The words strike her as hard as the blows.
The dragon heir gets her once, twice, three times in the ribs.
Astrid stumbles back, bent double, reeling more from Skylar’s indifference than her fists.
Skylar lashes out with her power again, and Astrid knows it’s to stop the animals getting to them.
She can hear Kaida’s panicked cries, Bastet’s frustrated, terrified roar.
“Dever,” she whispers, finally having the sense to put her shields up. They snap into place and she sidesteps Skylar so she can get Bastet back in her eyeline. She ignores the crowd.
“No. You are my friend, Skylar, so just stop it. This is already awful enough without you trying to what, goad me?” Astrid manages to choke out as she struggles to breathe.
She thinks Skylar might have broken a rib.
Skylar whips out at Astrid’s feet again, causing her to dance backward.
She’s toying with her. In the distance another animal snarls.
Bjorn. She doesn’t look for him—she can’t risk taking her eyes off Skylar.
Can’t bear to see the look on her mother’s face.
“We are friends,” Astrid repeats, and she hates the way it sounds more like a question.
The cold facade finally breaks and Skylar laughs, the sound high and unnatural.
“We”—she hits Astrid with her Exhauster power and Astrid staggers sideways—“Were. Never. Friends.” She pelts Astrid, again and again and again.
Astrid skips to avoid the blows, throwing a spell of her own that Skylar sucks dry with a flick of her hand.
Then Skylar’s in her face, fist raised, but the defensive spell blocks her. Astrid feints right, then kicks out to sweep Skylar’s legs from beneath her, but she jumps and is already on Astrid, giving her barely a second to draw breath.
She meets the dragon heir blow for blow, grateful she doesn’t seem to be using her enhanced speed.
Skylar lands a kick to Astrid’s gut and the air is forced out of her, her spell having worn off, but before Skylar can land the second, Astrid is loosing a claw, forcing Skylar to dodge, the claw skimming harmlessly past her throat and bouncing off the magicked cage beyond.
Shit, she shouldn’t have thrown it. She needs both if she’s going to beat Skylar. No, not beat.
Kill Skylar.
The other heir seems to realize she’s getting to Astrid—something flares in her eyes and she cocks her head, studying her. “You know, befriending you was so easy. You stank of desperation. A lonely little witch, especially—” Skylar pauses, then says, “Especially after Jessa died.”
Every thought in Astrid’s head eddies, the blood in her ears pounds, and a keening fills her skull, her very soul.
Every kernel of warmth or love or compassion, her very goodness, is crushed and smothered, and replaced with a cold, dark power, hungry for flesh.
Astrid welcomes it as she stares at the woman she thought was her friend.
“Did you kill her?” Her voice is hers and not hers at the same time. It sounds like a note held too long. It sounds… off. Skylar hesitates and Astrid sees a flicker of doubt there, until the dragon heir’s face hardens again.
“I didn’t need to kill her; enough people wanted her dead.”
Skylar lashes out toward Bastet, and a scream erupts from Astrid, one of rage and grief, and she’s lunging for Skylar, casting to knock Skylar off her feet and throwing an immobilizing elixir before Skylar can suck the magic from her spell.
Skylar hits the ground hard, wheezing as she tries to move but finds herself paralyzed.
The crowd is howling with displeasure, booing and hissing at Astrid, but she doesn’t care.
She races for Skylar, already smashing another potion against her, and Skylar screams as it takes hold of her mind, as it makes her believe she’s in excruciating pain.
Astrid glances to her right to see Bastet keeping Kaida at bay, the dragon trying to get past him to her bonded. She almost breaks at that, but this way, Kaida and Bastet both get to live. Bastet will live.
A calm settles over her as she kneels on top of Skylar, pinning the woman’s arms beneath her and relieving Skylar of the pin.
It warms under her palm, a strange tingling sensation running along her skin.
She tosses it across the cage and stares down at Skylar, writhing under her, eyes rolling into the back of her head as the potion continues to wreak havoc on her mind: it’ll wear off soon, but then Skylar will be dead before it does.
A small part of her wonders why Skylar doesn’t just use her power now. Perhaps she planned to and has been blindsided by the spell, by the potions? No matter, Astrid has won. An involuntary sob bursts out of her at what she has to do, and she chokes it back—the doubt, the grief, the loss.
Inhaling deeply, she closes her eyes and weighs the claw in her hand. The words Bastet spoke to her before they left the room this morning rattle through her, drowning out the noise of the bloodthirsty crowd and Skylar’s moans of pain.
Our souls are one and the same, Astrid. Where you go, I go also. I will be with you, in this life and the next.
For Bastet, she thinks, as she raises her claw. For my soul, for my queendom, for my people, I can do this.
She looks down at Skylar, who is calmer now, the power of the potion already receding. It’s now or never. She whispers a prayer to Sqa?i to forgive her, for she’ll never be able to forgive herself.
The blade comes down just as Skylar closes her eyes, looking more peaceful than Astrid has ever seen her.