Chapter 49 Izzy
IZZY
I flew backward through the air, landing hard and rolling, sending up a cloud of dirt from the arena floor.
It was a good thing I was tougher now. The collar around my neck didn’t seem to have diminished my natural durability as an elf, at least not much.
I’d taken several full-strength hits from Saldrea, which would have killed me before my mother’s binding had been removed.
Still, I wasn’t in good shape. Cuts marred most of my skin, though few of them were serious. No, it was the massive welts from where Saldrea had hit me which really hurt. They seemed to be everywhere, radiating a throbbing pain.
I’d taken several hits while distracted, focused on breaking the binding on my collar.
Having had a decent sleep last night, thanks to my grandmother healing me, I’d woken early this morning, before Saldrea had come to get me, and worked on freeing myself.
But I had no idea how close I might be to breaking the binding.
There was no lessening of resistance, the collar was an all or nothing thing, full strength until broken.
But that meant I had no gauge to mark my progress.
I hoped I was close. Every moment since I’d woken — through being moved, then held in the prisons below the arena, then finally dragged by my hair out to fight — I’d kept working on the collar.
Even as the fight had started, I’d focused on breaking the binding on me instead of defense.
I’d thought I’d been close. But it had cost me… in the form of these welts.
Then I’d figured something out, after Saldrea had hit me so hard I’d flown into the wall of the arena and crumpled to the ground.
As the insane princess had sauntered leisurely over to me, I’d remembered the trick Grandma Oli had taught me, about how to lock my form when changing shapes as a nymph.
I’d initially assumed it only worked on shape-changing, but perhaps it didn’t.
Maybe I could “lock in” my work on the collar, so I didn’t have to focus on it constantly and it would continue on its own.
It had taken a couple tries, but it had worked!
That had left my mind free to focus on this fight.
Since then, I’d led Saldrea on a merry little dance around the arena, evading her strikes, mostly…
It helped that she was toying with me. And if it meant prolonging this fight, then I was happy to play into her superiority fantasy. Every time I groaned louder, got up a little slower, she smiled all the wider, getting off on my suffering.
As an elf, she could have enhanced her speed, been much faster, nearly impossible for me to avoid without greater enhancements myself, but she’d only done that a few times, when she’d gotten frustrated at not hitting me.
That’s how I knew she was playing with me.
Which I found odd, given that she’d rushed into this fight.
She’d dragged me out here, saying, “I don’t know who your friends freed from my secret prison, or what they hoped to gain by it, but it means you’ll die all the sooner.”
I’d assumed that meant she’d end things quickly… but she hadn’t.
She reached me again, launching a quick series of attacks, which I managed to avoid, taking only a glancing blow to my arm and leg before she finally sped herself up and hit me square in the chest, sending me flying once more.
I was pretty sure a rib cracked. It hadn’t been the first time she’d hit that spot. My chest felt like I was half-run over, with the car still sitting on top of me, getting harder to breathe.
The crowd cheered. Saldrea raised her hands and turned slowly as I got up once more.
That was when I understood. She’d taken her time with me, to wait for more of an audience.
There had been hardly anyone in the stands when we’d started, but they’d been filling in quickly and were about a third full now.
But if that was her only reason for stalling… how much longer did I have? Would this be enough of a gallery for her to start fighting in earnest? Maybe half-full? I could only hope she was waiting for the stands to be packed, but I didn’t think I’d be that lucky.
I didn’t waste any energy trying to check on how the collar was coming. It wouldn’t do me any good. I needed to focus all my attention on Saldrea and surviving as long as I could. The collar would come off when it came off, I had to survive until then.
The cheers of the crowd died down, and Saldrea turned to me again.
And this time, she enhanced herself, zipping to me faster than I could see. She grabbed my neck in one hand and lifted me, not stopping till I slammed into a wall. The air whooshed out of me and I was stunned for a second as Saldrea pinned me there.
“I don’t know how you’ve survived this long, but I’m glad we finally have a decent crowd to see you die.”
Fuck. We’d apparently reached enough people for her to fight for real.
“I’m an elf,” I gasped in response to her first question. “We’re tough.”
Saldrea’s brow furrowed. “The collar should suppress your elven nature, make you weak.”
Oh…
Huh.
So, I was that much stronger than this collar? Not only did I have a modicum of magic to work with, attempting to break the collar, but my body was nearly as strong and tough as normal.
Saldrea caught on quickly.
“You’re stronger than the collar,” she hissed. “That was the strongest collar we had! It would have suppressed…” I could guess the end of that sentence: my powers.
I couldn’t help it. I shouldn’t have smiled, shouldn’t have pushed her over the edge, but my damned fight-the-power nature decided to rear its ugly head, and I gave her a little grin.
“You little shit,” she sneered, wrath twisting her face. This was the real Saldrea, her ugly inside coming to the surface. “You may be stronger than that collar, but it’s slowing you enough. Time to end this!”
I can’t say exactly what happened next, except that Saldrea beat the shit out of me. The hits came too fast, too hard. She used only one hand, with the other still around my neck, but that one hand was more than enough. Bones broke, skin tore, blood flowed.
Since I couldn’t fight back, I retreated inward.
I tried sapping power from my body to aid in my attempt to break the collar.
It meant my wounds piled on all the quicker.
The pain was like nothing I’d ever felt before.
No, that wasn’t true. The pain yesterday — after she’d lost her shit and gone all out on me — had been this bad.
And nothing would ever compare to the agony of Myel’s torture, then death.
And when she was done, she threw me toward the center of the ring.
I landed in a heap, unable to do anything other than bleed on the dirt.
My body was broken, useless. I clung to life by sheer force of will and spirit.
Vyns had told me stories of how seraphim could push past physical limits with spirit alone.
I understood that now. My very life essence suffused me with enough strength to keep taking one more breath.
Come on, you damned collar, break!
Though even if it did, it may be too late now. Even with my power back, what could I do? It might take all the power I had just to heal myself.
Even so, I fought with every shred of spirit that remained.
“You’re still alive aren’t you?” Saldrea said as she reached me.
I expected her to be furious, but instead she chuckled. “Fine. If you insist on living, I’ll break your spirit too. This should be fun. Wait here… not like you have a choice.”
She sauntered off.
Where was she going?
What did she have planned?
How would she break my spirit?
But then I knew.
Dread filled me as I sensed Myel’s fear spike through our bond. Saldrea had gone to get him.
No, no, no, no, no!
Feeling Myel die the first time had been anguish beyond anything I’d ever endured. Nothing could be worse… or so I’d thought. Yet lying here, knowing I’d feel that epic agony again, so close but unable to stop it, that filled me with a dread horror, which shredded my soul and eviscerated my mind.
I wasn’t strong enough to survive Myel dying again.
This time, if he was killed…
I’d die with him.