Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Blood and Drinks
MAGNOLIA
The Dome rose ahead, rivaling Elion’s castle.
Thousands of stairs split the various sections, creating walkways between the stands, and the crush of people flooding into them was staggering.
I hadn’t realized there were this many Vivenians before, and this was only a fraction of the people, only select civilians from Soffikane and the Grigg—the First and Second Provinces—something I just found out at breakfast.
I tried to steady my breathing, praying my Token wouldn’t manifest as we were ushered inside.
Cash lingered by my side as I followed Arrik, staying close enough that my skin was prickling.
Mercifully, he didn’t try to touch me like he did during our training, but it didn’t matter.
I was hemmed in on all sides, shoulder to shoulder with the mass of Vivenians all surging forward, trying to find their seats.
Arrik, on the other hand, walked like he’d be happy to lose me in the crowd.
It was infuriating and made keeping pace with him near impossible.
The long, winding stairway through the mountain pass ended just outside the Dome, forcing us to walk under an archway carved into the center of one of the curved walls, and I realized the entire thing was built into the ground, making the structure so much larger on the inside.
The exterior was the darkest shade of black I’d ever seen with its edges expanding in an outward oval, exposing what would have been a ceiling to the elements. The inside spanned downward with thousands of seats all facing a large arena at the bottom.
“That’s the pit,” Cash whispered over my shoulder, and I realized I’d stopped walking.
I was about to follow the crowd down—the archway spitting us out in the middle of the entire thing—when Cash spoke again, pointing toward Arrik who was walking up the steps instead. “This way, convict.”
“Convict?” The word halted me.
“You didn’t seem to like my first nickname for you, so I gave you a new one.” Cash smirked. “Besides, convict seems more fitting than little Wielder anyway since you can’t master your Token and you’re a fugitive from the Dead King.”
“Right.” I swallowed. I’d been trying not to think about Dahes in general, but it wasn’t working.
It was intoxicating not having him inside my head, but then it only deepened my dread.
When would he go to the sinking islands?
Would I feel his presence before he’d read my thoughts? Would I know the moment it happened?
I turned to follow Arrik, trying to brush off Cash who wouldn’t leave my side.
Despite how crammed it was, it looked comfortable—velvet cushioned seats, polished onyx stairs, trays of food and drinks drifting past. But I couldn’t focus on the vast amount of wealth and luxuries being flaunted.
I kept glancing upward, wondering how high we were going to climb, terrified we weren’t going to get a good view.
And Arrik didn’t stop until we reached the top.
He turned away from the stands, taking a left into a half-shaded balcony.
Tables were already set with drinks and appetizers, and instead of the ebony tiered seating, there were deep, plush sofas.
The place could have easily fit thirty people, but we were the only ones here.
“Where is everyone?” I asked, praying to the Suns it wasn’t just going to be the three of us the entire tournament. The food alone made me think the balcony was going to be packed, but if breakfast was any indication, Elion didn’t seem to care about wasting resources.
Arrik didn’t answer. Of course he freaking didn’t. Besides giving me a once over, his eyes raking in the gems on my dress, he hadn’t paid attention to me the entire walk over here—which was long.
I tried to brush it off, but he was getting under my skin, which made no sense at all. I didn’t like attention. I liked blending in. So why was I so bothered by him ignoring me?
I turned in a circle, away from Arrik, and tried focusing on taking in my surroundings. Even inside the Dome I could understand why people called it the Egg. The entire thing was more oval than circular with the two shorter sides slightly more curved.
The balcony we were standing on stuck out a couple of feet in every direction, leaving us hovering over the stands. We were on one of the longer sides, the back wall curving over us, creating a small shadowed canopy that reached the food tables.
Cash stepped toward one of the tables, grabbing a drink, before coming over to stand next to me.
“You can see better standing,” he said. My head was still tilted up, taking in the view of the curved top. “But the Vargothi is long, so I’d pace yourself.”
I looked down again. Arrik was leaning against the railing with his back toward the stands below.
But even with him facing our direction, he was still completely ignoring me.
His eyes were closed as he tilted his head up toward the suns.
His arms braced the railing, making the muscles in his bicep bulge…
I walked toward the railing, at the opposite end of where Arrik stood, and peered down.
I counted twenty-three levels from us to the archway we came through, but the structure continued downward, almost doubling how far it extended into the ground.
I looked around and realized there were dozens of balconies similar to ours, all with glass railings hovering over the stands.
They were evenly spaced between three sides of the Dome with the fourth side—the one directly across from us—stretching into a singular large balcony spanning the entire length of the wall.
King Elion was sitting on a throne directly at the center of it.
I expected his to be crowded, but there was no one else on it besides servants tending to the wine and food.
I looked back down at the pit again. I imagined the place dragons trained would be packed with mud and dirt and splatters of blood everywhere, but it wasn’t.
I squinted, trying to get a better look.
Specks of black moved in the pit below. I had fairly good eyesight, but this high up made it hard to make out any details.
“Is that who’s competing?” I asked, pointing toward the bottom of the Dome.
I was asking Arrik, but Cash answered instead. “Yeah. Those are all the initiates.”
I honestly wanted nothing to do with Cash, but Arrik acted like I didn’t exist, and I needed someone to answer me. Besides, he wasn’t trying to touch me like he did during training. Not that I’d let my guard down, but I could keep him at a distance and use his candor.
Cash stepped toward me as he peered over the railing. The rest of the stands were filling out below us, and loud excited chatter started echoing across the Dome.
“How are we supposed to see anything?” I asked.
I doubted we’d miss a dragon—if they even came to the tournament—but there wasn’t a single one in sight.
I couldn’t even hear one roaring in the distance, which was unusual.
Ever since I came here, their bellows echoed multiple times an hour.
Now, besides the rushed gossip below us, the skies were silent.
I turned around, looking back up toward the castle. From down here, I could see exactly how it was built into the mountain pass with the expanse of the Drakin Mountains stretching further north. The stairs we descended spiraled as we went lower, wrapping around the curves of some of the peaks.
But still, there wasn’t a single dragon flying in the distance.
I looked back down at the specks of drakins standing in the pit below, but they were impossible to tell apart.
If I was only going to be able to glimpse Hael from this distance, I was screwed.
I’d take the crowded stands at the bottom levels over this.
Cash smirked, probably noting the frustration plastered across my face as I leaned over the railing more, and on cue a projection of the pit materialized directly in front of us. I stumbled backward, nearly losing my balance, as it spanned across the open space in the air between the balconies.
“See that guy over there?” Cash asked, gesturing toward a lone terrace close to the first level. I could just make out the silhouette of a person sitting in a singular chair.
I nodded, stepping back toward the railing.
“His Token is sight projection. He airs the entire tournament, so you don’t need to bend over the railing.”
I was relieved and surprised. I’d heard about the Token before.
There were projection Tokens for almost all the senses, and sight projection was a fairly common one in Viven, stemming from desire.
Because to have the gift meant a one-way ticket into Soffikane, the First Province.
Entertainment and pleasures were something that Morianns were envious of, mainly because it was foreign in a world of fighting for scraps to survive.
I still remember eavesdropping on hushed conversations about what a Vivenian play was like—how the streets would be packed for miles, but everyone could see just as easily as the next because of the projections.
It honestly sounded like a myth. The only entertainment in Moriann was watching people get in fights or seeing if a newly exiled Vivenian became desperate enough to eat the berries around the river.
I stared at the projection, completely foregoing looking down now. It was so clear that I swore I was seeing everything better than if I was sitting in the first stand hundreds of feet below.
I started scanning all the drakins through the projection and was surprised to find just as many female riders as male. I had no idea why that shocked me. I knew drakin females existed, I just didn’t think they’d be so common.
I was studying the faces of the men before my gaze snagged on something red. A rider was standing off to the side, away from everyone else inside the pit, with blood staining his crotch at an alarming rate.
“What happened to him?” I asked.