Chapter 47
Chapter
Forty-Seven
TATE
The moment the mist solidifies, Ara becomes as tense as the stone wall surrounding us. I step closer, but she doesn’t react.
What is she hiding that she lies about having more secrets? What is so bad that she would rather risk our lives than reveal it?
There are voices, and then the dragon steps out of the white fog around us. Trepidation settles in my chest, and my mind flashes back to the way he cornered her that night in Platoria. Her grip on my hand is so tight her knuckles turn white.
The dragon reaches for her, and jealousy rushes through me, hot and vicious. The implication that she let him touch her… Is that why she tried to push me away, even after I cleared up the misunderstanding? Is that why she said I couldn’t fix it? Had she already moved on?
I take a step back, but that jerks her out of her stupor. She whirls around, releasing my hand and grabs my face, holding on like her life depends on it.
“It’s not like that. I haven’t been with him, I swear.” Truth . “I… I got the information he owed me.” Truth . “I barely know him.” Lie.
Information always comes at a price. My heart sinks when I remember the promise on her skin.
“What did you give him?”
She pales. “Nothing important.” Lie.
I ask her more questions to understand why she is lying to me, but it gets worse and worse. She lies at every fucking turn. And every single one of her lies hits like a thrown knife, splitting me open. She doesn’t trust me.
“You’re hiding things from me.” It’s a statement, not a question. But she answers anyway, shaking her head in denial.
“No.” Lie .
“You still don’t trust me.” When she opens her mouth to answer, I hold up my hand. “Stop fucking lying to me,” I snap.
“I’m not.”
I laugh, but it’s hollow and dead. “Oh, how I wish that were true.” I shake my head at her. “I’m a truth-teller.”
The illusions and the flames disappear. I turn and head to the exit. When I look over my shoulder, Ara is still standing in the exact spot I left her, her eyes huge, her face pale.
“I hope your secrets are worth what you’re willing to pay.”
I step into a circular room with twelve doors, and in the middle of it is a stone block with a shining golden ball resting on it.
We are the first to arrive, but I feel defeated.
ARA
Tate walks away from me, and my chest feels frozen to the point where it’s hard to breathe. Everything inside me aches, calls out for him to turn around, to come back, to look at me, to hold me. But he doesn’t.
Truth-telling.
My mind stumbles over everything I said. I was so desperate to hold on to him that I barely remember what I said. But I know I lied … a lot. I flinch.
Isn’t that what I always do—hide, lie, and keep secrets?
I look down at my hands, flexing them, as if being cared for and loved is something physical I could hold on to. My knuckles turn white, and still it slips through my fingers, leaving my chest empty.
I don’t know how to make it right. The harder I try, the worse it gets.
But I have to try.
“I’m bound by promises, too,” I call after Tate, and he stops but doesn’t turn around.
“I’m used to your fucking secrets, Ara.” He pauses. “But not to you lying to me.”
“But—”
“I can’t do this right now,” he rasps, the sound so defeated my throat closes up. My body grows numb while he keeps walking away from me.
His hand reaches out and closes around the golden globe, securing us the win. Yet defeat is all that registers with me.
The ground shifts, nearly sending me to my knees.
My body is heavy, and all I want is to bury myself in the sand, hide, shut out the world, but we are bathed in greyish sunlight and free of the walls, hundreds of eyes trained on us.
Our flight waits off to the side, their faces lighting up the moment they see us.
The sand beneath my feet feels like mud as I make my way over to them. Every step is dragging me down while I keep my head high and my spine ramrod straight.
“You did it!” Calix throws his arm around my shoulder, pulling me next to him. I nod numbly. Behind me, Jared congratulates Tate.
I force air through the tightness in my throat and stare straight ahead, unblinking, until the world becomes a whirl of colors. But my cheeks stay dry.
I knew I couldn’t keep him and still … I had hoped for a little more time.
And he doesn’t even know about Tynan or his brother yet.
I allow myself to lean into Calix. His gaze rests on me, questioning, but I ignore it.
“Are you hurt?” he whispers, and I shake my head, lying yet again.
No matter what I do, my thoughts come back to the man standing a few steps away. Four steps to my left and one step back, to be exact—that’s how pathetically aware I am of his presence.
I have no idea how long it takes, but finally, a rumble starts up and the walls sink into the ground, revealing too many dead contestants.
I hope your secrets are worth what you’re willing to pay.
Tate’s words circle through my mind, and I’m afraid to consider the cost.
Of the ten flights entering this round, two have been reduced to eight members, and only three remain complete.
The powerful twang of a bowstring makes me flinch. The dull impact of something heavy hitting the ground draws my eyes to the two heaps of bodies where the competing flights, with the fewest members, stood before. All of them felled by an arrow through the heart. My stomach heaves.
Iza places her bow next to herself, still dangling her feet like she is unconcerned, that she just killed sixteen warriors at a whim.
Outraged shrieks and roars sound above us as the slain riders’ mounts turn on the goddess.
But she only smiles, and with a wave of her hands, the sound and the creatures are gone.
“Another addition to my eternal hunting grounds.” She smiles.
My shock switches over to anger. If Tate and I had failed, she would have murdered my flight, my friends. Was that the cost Tate had been speaking of?
“Why did you do that?” My accusing words carry in the shocked silence, and all eyes whip to me. There are groans around me, but my whole flight steps closer.
The goddess’s eyes rest on me as if she can’t believe I dare to question her.
“I had no use for them.” She shrugs. “Humans are incredibly boring to hunt.”
She would have killed my friends because they weren’t fun to hunt?
“So you kill them? That’s wrong,” I tell her. Calix’s arm around my shoulder tightens in warning, but I step out of his grip, my skin heating.
Iza laughs, a cruel, haunting sound.
“You dare to lecture me on wrong and right?” There is a clear warning in her tone.
“Clearly, someone has to.” I glare at her. “Being a god doesn’t give you the right to do whatever you want,” I challenge, and there is a collective intake of breath, which leaves the air in the arena too thin, too tense to breathe.
“Lucky for you, I decided to see the games through to the end.” There is no way to miss the threat in her posture and voice this time.
“I would have thought you one of my most loyal worshippers. You value your secrets, do you not?” Her smile is calculating and cold.
She disappears in a flare of light and a thunderclap so loud my ears ring.
“You think angering the goddess who oversees the games was a smart move?” Mariel hisses.
“But calling her out like that was pretty badass,” Calix throws in.
“Let’s hope we’ll survive it,” Zaza adds glumly from behind us.
There I go again, making things worse. The initial high mood after our win has morphed into something darker, and I don’t even dare to look in Tate’s direction.
“Are you okay?” Joel sidles up to me while we leave the arena and head back to the house.
I give him an overbright smile. “I’m splendid.”
He shakes his head at me. “My offer still stands. My ear and my shoulder are all yours.”
I give him a tired smile. “Thanks.” And even though I crave physical comfort, it’s not his arms or shoulders I want.
TATE
Jared and Calix do their best to brighten the mood, and soon, laughter and joking hum in the air around us while we head back. And why shouldn’t they celebrate? Only one trial is left, and with the token, we have a clear head start. Our odds stand better than ever.
Ara and I are like the silent eyes of a storm between them, the tension growing, and the trust between us unraveling. The fragile net frayed by the words that stay unspoken.
My eyes wander over her. How can it be that she has no problem calling out a goddess, but can’t bring herself to tell me what is going on in that pretty head of hers?
Her eyes are downcast, her answers monosyllabic, while she looks like the weight of the world drags her down. I can’t take it any longer.
I grab her arm and hold her back, waving her friends on, until we are at the end of the group.
“No matter what you would have told me, I would never have given up your secrets,” I whisper. “Do you still not trust me even that much?”
“It’s not about trust,” she huffs out. She opens her mouth again, but closes it, saying nothing, and marches off, following the others.
“It is,” I call after her, the words a challenge. She whirls around and comes back.
“No.” She shoves against my chest. “It isn’t.” She shoves again, then huffs out a breath and continues much softer, “I will only say the wrong things…” She pauses. “And you’ll walk away again.”
“You don’t trust—”
“This is not about trust!” she yells. “I just don’t have the right words to make you want to stay.”
“I don’t need the right words, just what is going on inside you,” I demand, and step up, erasing the space between us.