Chapter 19
Aryana
Aryana walked up the flat stone slab and into another chamber, its walls cold and bare. A heavy door stood behind her, closed and undoubtedly locked. Ahead, iron bars framed her view of the space beyond. She moved closer, drawing in a sharp breath.
A vast underground arena stretched before her, carved directly from the earth. The ground was flat and open, save for eleven raised stone platforms scattered throughout.
She wrapped her fingers around the bars and pressed her face to the cool iron, trying to steady her nerves. Whatever was about to happen, it wouldn’t be good.
“The Demon Trials are almost upon us! Are we ready to see carnage, death, and destruction?” A voice rasped out, echoing across the arena, amplified by magic so all could hear.
The crowds sat above the field in stadium seating. A thunder of cheers bellowed from the stands.
“First up is the champion from Kingdom Misophae, Dravek, the Ravager.”
Other barred entrances lined the edge of the arena in a wide, circular pattern, mirroring the layout of the dungeons below. The door of the farthest one creaked open with a grating screech.
A werewolf stepped out.
A murmur rippled through the crowd. There was no full moon. He must have found a way to hold his transformation.
He stalked into the arena, dragging a bobcat headed demon—a felyrix—by the neck behind him.
Both of these demons were from Kingdom Misophae, but once, they had called Kingdom Nocturne home. They’d been ruthlessly driven out when the vampires chose to sever ties with the demons alliance and form their own nation, casting the other night demons into Misophae as exiles.
Aryana’s heart sank.
The felyrix’s limbs were bound, leaving him unable to move. Yet, he did not try to struggle. Perhaps he knew what awaited him. As the werewolf reached the platform, he hurled the demon forward, dropping him at his clawed feet. The felyrix hit the ground on hands and knees.
With a single swift movement, the werewolf gripped the felyrix’s throat and lunged.
A cry tore from him as the werewolf bit into his arm, slowly pulling away, ripping his flesh. Crimson spattered in all directions.
Aryana’s stomach twisted. The spectators snarled and cheered. The werewolf raised his arms, gore running from his face as he chewed on the felyrix’s flesh. He swallowed and leaned in again, tearing the skin, causing a cry of anguish as he tore off the tissue between his neck and shoulder.
When the werewolf finished, he dropped his pain riddled kalator, trembling, into the dirt.
“Savage. Brutal. Just the way we want it,” the demon announcer’s voice crackled through the arena, thick with excitement. “Next Champion is from Kingdom Inferna, Noctyssa, the Hollow Mouth.”
The bars to the next waiting area along the arena’s side swung open, and Aryana’s stomach soured at the sight.
A woman with horns and flowing midnight hair stepped out.
She held a long lacerated whip in her hand.
Aryana flinched as the demon from Inferna cracked the lash against her kalator’s flesh.
What was happening? These were their kalators. They were meant to fight for the champions in the arena. A part of her recognized Zarathos had warned her that he needed to debase her, but… this? Why wound those who were supposed to protect them?
Aryana couldn’t tear her eyes away.
She wanted to. Gods, she wanted to. But something, some morbid fascination, fear, or duty, kept her rooted in place, watching.
More champions and their kalators entered the arena.
Her stomach churned with every grotesque act of violence.
The bile burned her throat, and still she watched, as if blinking would somehow make it worse.
The announcer reveled in the brutality, his voice gleeful as he narrated each new spectacle of agony as if it were a prized performance.
With each champion that emerged alongside their kalator, Aryana’s stomach clenched further. Every act of cruelty twisted the knot inside her.
Shit.
If this was what the others had to endure, what was awaiting her?
Next, a gargoyle named Balafur from Kingdom Aeria arrived, accompanied by his kalator—a man-sized owl whose limbs twitched unnaturally, as if poisoned. Aryana’s grasp tightened on her own arms as she tried not to cringe.
Then Prince Kaelroch, the first champion of Terra Monstrum, marched into the arena gripping a half-human, half-burrow creature by the throat. He hurled it to the ground with a sneer before snapping the creature’s arm.
Aryana’s breath hitched. Her heart pounded hard enough to hurt. Each horrible deed chipped at something inside her, left her weaker, her spirit thinner.
And still she couldn’t avert her gaze.
“Next on our list, we have Valkotha the Harrower from Spiritu Malignos,” the announcer said.
A formicidra entered the arena, his eyes glowing, a clear sign a spectral had claimed his body.
Upright, humanoid features fused with his spindly, ant-like form, but his sharp, unnatural movements mirrored the jagged black cracks splitting his borrowed flesh. After claiming his spot on his podium, without a word, he glanced behind him and motioned for his kalator to follow.
Jesir stepped out cautiously, glancing around. The crowd broke out in cheers and boos at the same time. Noctyssa and a female who looked like her twin both snarled in rage. Imps were from Kingdom Inferna. This champion had taken a kalator from another nation.
Valkotha beckoned Jesir forward, then set him up beside the platform, almost gently, and Jesir gazed up at him in confusion. The formicidra patted him on the head and the booing in the crowd increased.
How dare gentleness be shown in this arena of death.
And then Valkotha latched onto Jesir’s right horn, and with a vicious yank, tore it off.
Jesir howled, and blood erupted from his scalp.
The champion for Spiritu Malignos licked the blood from the horn and then hooked it into his belt before turning back.
Jesir, whimpering, crawled away in the dirt and a cruel laugh erupted from the demon who stepped forward and gripped his second horn before tearing it, too, from his head.
The crowd was now overwhelmed with shouts and cries of delight. Who cared what kingdom one was from when there was violence and suffering to be seen?
Jesir cried out, his hands came up to his wounds, horror reflected in his gaze as the scarlet dribbled down the other side of his face. He collapsed, his body trembling.
“And now we have the great and formidable Tigon Shatterhand of Kingdom Terra Monstrum.”
An enormous creature stomped forward. Muscles filled his frame, and the half-giant stood twice as high as any other demon in the arena.
Aryana had only seen a full sized giant once before and it hadn’t been a pleasant occasion.
He marched out with Neri following. Her hands were bound, her head held low as if she hoped he’d forget about her.
Aryana’s heart twisted. Neri was only a human.
She had nobody to protect her. Her body wasn’t as sturdy, nor as enduring as a demon’s. What would be done to her?
Fear leaked off of the human, her scent more potent than the demon fear that radiated around the arena.
Aryana hated how her instincts roused. Her mouth began to water and her incisors dropped out.
She was a monster just as much as any of these others.
She wanted Neri to be okay, but she also wanted her blood.
Tigon set Neri in front of him and drew a knife.
Aryana’s hands squeezed the bars. Gods, what did he have planned?
She trembled but had to see. The demon reached down and ran the blade softly over Neri’s cheek.
Neri shook, and a tear leaked out of her eye, landing on the knife’s tip.
Tigon lifted the knife and licked it clean.
A satisfied grin spread across his lips, and then he lowered his hand and dug the end of his blade into the corner of Neri’s eye.
And pried it up.
The screams that followed rattled the arena and went straight to Aryana’s bones.
Oh gods, oh gods. Someone had to stop this. Someone needed to stop this now.
The crowd surged with wild energy unlike anything before.
When the eye pulled free, Neri crumpled to the ground, her hands covering her bloodied face, her cries mixing with the roar of the spectators.
The half-giant held up her eyeball, blood running down his arm and gave a roar of triumph. “Tigon will be your king!”
He popped Neri’s eyeball into his mouth. And swallowed.
As if the arena hadn’t seen enough terror and agony, the cage next to Aryana swung open.
“Going to be hard to top that! Let’s see what our next champion, Xaphoron, the Weightless Dagger has in store for us!”
Out stepped an abaddon demon, the second contestant from house Aeria, with Pohan. The sirin’s wings were tied behind him, so that they were touching. It looked painful. Shackles bound his hands and feet, in the same manner as Aryana’s.
Xaphoron raised his arms, then put a finger to his lips.
The crowd actually quieted. He walked over to the formicidra and bowed, holding out a hand.
“May I?” he asked, nodding to Jesir’s horns on his belt.
Valkotha lifted an eyebrow, but even Aryana saw the curiosity in his posture.
He nodded and lifted one horn from where he wore it, handing it over.
Xaphoron stepped up to his kalator and rammed the appendage into his wings.
Pohan roared, but the abaddon was ruthless, ramming his wings again and again, tearing it through the sensitive flesh.
The onlookers went wild, and the formicidra clapped his hands in glee.
“Xaphoron always knows how to put on a show.”