CHAPTER FIFTEEN
There was no remorse in the horned man’s eyes as he escorted me up the seemingly endless flight of steps, until sweat beaded on my brow and slithered down my back and I had to pause to catch my breath in the stairwell. Above, the murmuring of an unseen crowd thundered toward us, muffled but overwhelming all the same. How many citizens had walked from the city and waited here for hours? How many truly thought I was headed toward victory, and not my slaughter?
“Nearly there, Your Majesty,” the man said, startling me from my thoughts.
“If you truly think I am a Silverfrost,” I panted, “why lead me to my death? This is a spectacle! A horrifying show.”
Though his silver eyes were kind, his brow furrowed with confusion. “It is an honor to show your courage and power to your people, Your Majesty. A time-honored tradition among your ancestors.”
I had a wild desire to tear back down the staircase and rush from the fortress, to take my chances in the cold among the monsters that lurked within Brytwilde. As if sensing my thoughts, the man went on, “Come, there’s no reason to resist. If you run, the guards will kill you. At least in the arena, you’ll have an opportunity to defend and prove yourself.”
Swallowing back the urge to cry or scream, I gritted my teeth and forced my legs to move. One step. Another. The pulsing of applause and shouts and pounding footsteps rattled my chest the higher the horned fae and I rose, until I could hardly hear my own breaths.
“Here,” the man announced as we stopped at a landing. The steps stretched onward above us, but to our left, a narrow hall led into shadows.
Like the entrance to the arena in the castle, this hall stopped at another heavy door, guarded by two fae who watched me impassively. But unlike at the castle, I could sense wrongness clinging to the air. It was the sickly-sweet stench of rot mingled with a sensation that made me feel as if the air was slithering across my skin. Like the shadows were alive and moving—and toying with me. An icy chill snaked through my veins, but no power accompanied it. This wasn’t the cold of my winter magic. It was the cold of sheer terror in the presence of something evil and awful.
“I hope, for all our sakes, that you pass this test,” my escort muttered, and then without formality, shoved me toward the guards. A tall, curly-haired woman seized my wrist.
“Quick!” her companion shouted, unbolting the door.
The woman practically threw me inside, and the door slammed behind me.
Darkness.
Eerie silence.
Flickering torchlight filtered through barred openings at least two levels above, where fae were seated in rows of rising stone benches encircling the arena. The acrid tang of smoke mingled with the odors of death and earth and iron. It gave me the feeling of being trapped in a dungeon cell, with the bars overhead casting eerie shadows and the distant flames casting red light that didn’t fill the dark corners of this new arena.
I swallowed, trying to summon magic or some scrap of courage. My audience had gone so silent and still that my ears began to ring from the sudden lack of roaring sound. And no matter how I scoured the shadowy room, I couldn’t find my opponent.
Welcome. The voice seemed old and deep, and I couldn’t tell if it rumbled from everywhere or nowhere at all. If it spoke aloud or only echoed in my head. It gave me the prickling feeling of steel scraping over stone. Of a discordant note. I’ve waited years for this.
Stomach clenching, I stepped forward, my boots scraping along the floor. There was no movement—no sign of any other living thing in this enormous cage. Above, the countless eyes boring into me only exacerbated the feeling of being trapped.
Though I knew the citizens hoped I would be their salvation, I was, in this moment, little more than entertainment to them. I was putting on a show that would either grant them hope and joy, or would satisfy them by bringing a supposedly lying human to justice.
Movement flashed in the corner of my eye, but when I turned, I saw nothing. The sound of sniffing filled the air, making gooseflesh rise on my arms. Instinctively, I reached for the knife tucked inside my bodice.
A human. How interesting. I haven’t yet had the pleasure of encountering prey so...fragile.
I ground my teeth as something finally emerged from the shadowy corner of the arena. It was a tall, willowy figure shrouded in darkness, slipping forward on silent feet. In place of a head was a skull bearing two curving antlers, and where its eyes should have been, there was nothing but gaping holes.
Every muscle in my body went rigid. As the creature stalked forward, its fanged maw never moved, but the voice in my head grew louder.
As a human, you are so aware of your mortal state. Death trails you everywhere.
Sweat slithered down the back of my neck. My mind screamed at me to run, to fight back, to do anything. This being was unnatural, its very presence sending off every sort of instinctual alarm in my body. It was wrong. Terrible. Something created by the gods at the dawn of time to punish the evil souls not worthy of a peaceful rest in the afterlife—not something meant to creep through the veil and attack the living.
The air turned stale and the orange and red shades cast by the torchlight seemed to dull, turning to greys and blacks. Everything faded and altered, like the world could scarcely stand this creature’s presence.
And I still couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. Could barely even breathe.
My lungs burned with the effort to suck in air that tasted of ash and despair, and my body, though still locked in place, turned heavy.
But my art is not in death, poor little mortal, the creature went on, pausing before me. Those empty eye sockets gave me the impression of something staring into my soul, searching out my every fear and doubt and weakness and flaw. Weighing my worth and finding me wanting. It is in pain.
At his words, crushing agony, like my heart was being carved from my chest, slammed into me. It was the bone-deep ache of every heartbreak I’d ever experienced. It was the searing hopelessness of knowing I would never feel peace or joy again. It was the soul-shredding torment of loneliness.
Every loss I’d ever borne weighed me down until I could scarcely breathe. My stepfather was dying all over again. Charles was shoving me across the border, condemning me. Garrick was betraying me and watching me with a stony expression. My freedom was being ripped away forever.
I couldn’t think, couldn’t move. My knees buckled beneath me, slamming into the stone floor, but the ache of impact was lost to me. All the pain swiftly transformed into numbness, emptiness, so all-consuming I wasn’t sure I’d ever find strength again.
You have endured much loss and rejection, the demon taunted, cutting through my haze.
Alarm crashed into my heart, throbbing through my veins. But it was terror as I’d never experienced it before, raw and full of despair.
Vaguely, I was aware of shouting above me. The fae, cheering for my death, relishing the way I was being brought low.
Strange they sent a human to me. Are you a sacrifice to appease me at long last?
When I managed to lift my head, I found the creature towering over me, its empty sockets boring into my soul. The chains of its shackles clinking together, it lifted a skeletal hand ending in fiercely sharp claws that glinted red in the torchlight, as if they were already stained with blood. An animal moan filled my ears, and it took me a moment to realize it was mine. The sound of utter hopelessness, of resignation as I faced not just my death, but my annihilation. This demon was going to destroy me, piece by piece, and I was helpless to stop it.
Starlight!
Physical anguish replaced my emotional suffering as the creature’s claws sliced into my arm—no, through my arm. I screamed as blood and pain became my entire world. I would lose the limb. I would bleed out, left here forever reliving every terrible feeling I’d ever endured. The tang of copper permeated the air while the taste of blood filled my mouth. As the demon yanked its claws free, fierce heat burned through my veins. Something was horribly, irredeemably wrong with my left arm.
Aeveld. You carry that light and power, Starlight.
I couldn’t tell if I was remembering what Garrick had told me earlier, or if he was saying those words again, screaming down at me. My ears rang, and everything was foggy.
Fight, I thought, recalling the knife in my corset. If I’d lived these crushing emotions before and survived, I could do it again. Even if this time, they were all consuming me simultaneously. Gritting my teeth, I used my good arm to drag myself out of the demon’s shadow. My body slid across the floor painfully slowly, but the creature didn’t pursue. It seemed to relish my pathetic attempt to move away, to struggle back onto my shaking legs.
My mind struggled to grasp at my magic. Surely if my emotions channeled it, all the feelings this creature was forcing upon me would draw it out. And yet, not a shred of power flowed through my veins. Instead of that familiar cold that accompanied my magic, I was overwhelmed with heat. It was like I was burning, endlessly consumed by relentless flame. Blood dripped from my arm, a crimson stream trailing across the floor. As if I could stop the flow, I pressed my good hand to my shredded flesh, hissing when fresh agony surged through my arm from the force.
The demon approached again, raising its claws, aiming for my heart.
Desperate, I shoved my now-bloodied fingers into my corset and withdrew Garrick’s knife. As the creature swiped, I ducked, slamming the blade into its torso with the remaining strength I could muster. I scrambled backward before the demon could strike again, slipping in my own blood and collapsing. My pulse pounded in my temples as I blinked up at the advancing creature, staring at the place where the blade was lodged in its body. There was no blood, no sign of injury or weakness or pain from the monster at all. Only a knife trapped harmlessly in its flesh—if the creature was even made of real flesh.
Foolish human. You can’t kill me, and you can’t injure me with a mere piece of metal either. I am eternal, crafted of darkness to defy death and wreak havoc.
The demon hovered over me, and this time, I could almost imagine a grin stretching across its face—if its skull had anything but an empty maw. A scream clawed up my throat as it attacked. I was going to die. Despite Garrick’s confidence, despite my magic.
I lifted my hand and shoved at its arm as hard as I could, my final feeble attempt to deflect its attack.
And then—the demon jerked away, a strange, agonized cry piercing my thoughts, like it was crying out wordlessly in a way only I could hear. I stared as it squirmed and crumpled to the floor like it was being burned. I glanced from the bloody hand I’d lifted to try to stop it, to the blood on its skeletal arm. My blood.
It’s in your blood, Garrick had said. Of course. My power lived in my veins.
Staggering to my feet, I charged for the flailing demon, slapping my bloody palm onto its chest. It unleashed another horrifying cry in my head, and then went still.
Blackness swooped in from the edges of my vision, and the shaking in my limbs increased, combining with overwhelming exhaustion. I collapsed, and the darkness devoured me.