Chapter 52
Chapter
Fifty-Two
TATE
We are led to the arena like cattle. Fifty of my brother’s men surround and herd us through small alleys. They go through significant efforts to avoid the crowds congesting the streets, chanting in anticipation of the games. Our birds follow, but they have no way to reach us in the small space.
The arena is crowded like never before. Many carry torches, their chanted words muddled by too many voices and our guards’ relentless requests to hurry. We are hustled along with no chance to observe what is going on around us.
We step into the arena and are immediately ushered down into its intestines, full of corridors and rooms. The air is cool, smelling of stone dust, and the faint echo of sweat and fear.
A dull pounding rises in volume, and the corridor slowly lightens from black to gray the closer we get to the fighting ground. A glaring white square awaits us at the end of the tunnel, and when we step onto the sand, the sunlight momentarily blinds us.
The mass around us is stomping, cheering, and the ground vibrates with the sound. The other two teams are already here. Whispers start, and the cheering dies down once they realize we are missing our Phoenix rider. Ara’s name ricochets off the walls, and I pray she can’t hear it.
Kystis’s flight is openly gloating, while the one from Muntos looks confused. No sign from Ara so far, which gives me hope.
My brother sits perched on his throne, his eyes sweeping our group repeatedly. My mother is absent today. Maybe she doesn’t agree with the spectacle Frederick plans to make out of her best friend’s daughter.
Frederick rises and steps forward—watching, waiting. The crowd hushes, but he stalls, still waiting for Ara. Finally, he nods to the guards lining the arena’s perimeter, and they file out.
The gates close with a finality that echoes through the space around us.
Ara isn’t here. A relieved breath leaves me while Jared stiffens next to me. And when I shoot him a questioning look, he sports a broad grin.
Frederick steps up to the balustrade of the royal terrace.
“Welcome to the finale of the flight games. We have three teams left fighting for the title of victor of the current flight games. But…” His eyes come to us.
“Since one flight has only nine members…” One gate opens, drawing everyone’s attention.
I whip around, but it stays empty, the black mouth gaping, waiting.
A tense silence hangs over the arena, making it hard to breathe.
“Well, good that at least some of us can count, isn’t it?” A collective gasp follows the drawled words. And there she is, sitting cross-legged in the center of the arena, sending a dagger tumbling up in the air before catching it again as if she doesn’t have a care in the world.
Jared and Calix are the first to chuckle, and it spreads like wildfire.
Her eyes are fixed on me with a wide grin on her face.
Mists, that woman is something. I shake my head at her, too relieved to see her unharmed to even attempt fighting my smile.
She rises, dusting herself off, and mockingly bows to my brother.
“I didn’t want to interrupt your speech. Go on, Your Majesty.” She gestures for him to go ahead before sauntering over to me. She stops right in front of me.
“Hi,” she breathes. “I give you two seconds to object,” she says before deliberately stepping into my personal space. Her hands land on my chest, slowly sliding up to my neck. “I’m done hiding,” she whispers before our lips meet. The kiss is slow, sweet—a declaration.
“No matter what happens today, I choose you. I’ll always choose you, and if it ends today, I only regret that we didn’t have more time.”
“If you get yourself killed saving me, I won’t forgive you,” I warn.
“I know.” She kisses me. “But that’s a worry for another life.” Her fingers trace my jaw, her eyes are serious. “And I will find you again.”
“Guards, seize her!” my brother shouts. I clasp her hand, and our flight surrounds us, all of us drawing our swords. Only Zaza, Joel, and Tanner have arrows notched and ready to fly instead.
If they want her, they’ll have to fight us. Their advance slows down.
A flare of light. “No one interrupts my games. Call your dogs back, king.” The goddess’s voice booms, while her eyes lazily run over our clustered formation. “I still have a bone to pick with her.” Her smile is cold.
“Three rounds of fights, and the last man—or woman—standing is the winner,” she announces.
“Every flight will face one of my creatures. If more than one team is victorious, I’ll pick a champion from each to battle the other.
The order is: Kystis, Muntos, Belarra.” Her gaze swings to my brother.
“No one touches my competitors before I’ve had my games,” she growls.
“Once done, you can do with her whatever you wish.” She pauses, a slow smile curling her lips. “If there is anything left.”
Guards lead us into a room under the arena. It’s small and bare, apart from one table with two chairs. It has no windows since we are underground. The air is stale and cool, stone dust tickling my nose.
As soon as the door closes, everyone clusters around Ara and me.
“Where were you?” Calix asks.
“That was a damn epic entrance.” Jared laughs. “I’m glad you asked me for help.” The last comment earns him narrowed eyes from me while I wrap my arms around Ara’s waist from behind. She leans into me.
“I think neither our king nor Iza is a fan of you,” Tanner cautions.
“Whatever is coming won’t be easy,” Zaza predicts.
“Guys, slow down.” Ara laughs. “I was with friends,” she answers Calix’s question first.
“You shouldn’t have come,” I murmur, and she turns in my arms.
“Tell me, how could I have lived with myself if I hadn’t shown up today?
We all know how Iza has disqualified most flights so far.
” She huffs out a breath and settles her hands on my shoulders.
“Yes, I remember the part about you going out of your mind when I’m in danger.
But you have to trust me, too,” she whispers. “Trust me to hold my own.”
I know she's right. “But what if—”
She lifts on her tiptoes, placing a kiss on my lips, silencing me.
“Whatever happens, happens. All I’m asking for is your trust. And I’m way too stubborn to die,” she jokes, resting her hand on my cheek. I trap it with mine, holding it there just a little longer.
“I trust you to hold your own,” I tell her.
“Okay then,” she breathes. “Now I have a little confession to make.”
“Are you sure?”
She nods and turns back to our friends. She tells them about her curse, that it’s another name for a gift that controls magic as an element. That she is still learning to handle it, and that my brother found out when he tried to compel her to kiss him at the palace.
“So basically, his plans for me changed from marriage to execution.”
There is stunned silence, interrupted only by the faraway roar of a beast.
“So cursed people don’t suck out their fellow humans and destroy villages? Damn, you ruin all my favorite childhood stories,” Calix complains, earning him a jab from Mariel and a relieved laugh from Ara.
“I don’t.” She winks at him. “I’m too busy sacrificing myself for my friends.” Earning more laughter. “So we are okay?” Her eyes wander over our friends.
“You came back for us, knowing there is an execution waiting for you. Well, and pretty boy, of course.” Jared dodges my punch, laughing. “Shit yes, we are okay.”
The sentiment is echoed all around.
“One last thing,” Ara says. “If I say go, you’ll leave, all of you.”
And we’re back to arguing.
ARA
The beast that greets us once we are back in the arena looks like an unfortunate mix between a wyrm, a medusa, and a sphinx.
A long, scaly green body ends in a woman’s head, crowned by wriggling snakes of the same green.
Two black feathered wings, four furry paws, and a tail with a tip that would make any scorpion proud complete the ensemble.
It whirls around with a hiss as soon as we enter.
And it seems she has been snacking on whoever was unfortunate enough to die in one of the previous fights.
Her teeth are too sharp, too pointy to belong to a human, and what at first looks like smudged lipstick turns out to be blood, which she licks off leisurely.
“Oh shit, it’s an Ophisyx,” Mariel breathes next to me. “Their gazes turn living—”
Miller has the bad luck to meet its gaze first and turns to stone, cutting off Mariel’s explanation.
“Close your eyes,” Tate shouts, and we all obey, switching to our birds’ view, who are circling above.
It’s disorienting, and curses are flying all over the place, while we adjust to navigating without getting bitten, stung, or sliced up.
Remains of temple ruins sit throughout the arena, the rubble making the ground more treacherous, especially if limited to a bird’s view from above.
“She is truly not making it easy for us,” Mariel mutters.
“Spread out.” This time, Tate’s command comes via our birds, easily reaching everyone without alerting the Ophisyx.
“What else do you know about this, whatever-it-is-called?” I ask Mariel while we creep along the walls until we surround the beast.
Tate is on my right, Calix on my left, with Mariel and Joel next to him. Joel is the only one not impaired by the creature’s gaze, as it only affects the living. With his connection to Asta severed, he wouldn’t have a bird to rely on anyway.
“Its sting paralyzes, while the victim stays fully conscious.”
“Lovely,” I mutter, nearly stumbling over a shattered pillar, since a crumbling wall hid it from Solaris’s view. Our birds have to stay in motion and can’t hover unless they catch a favorable air current.
I curse audibly since I stubbed my toe, but freeze when the Ophisyx’s head swings around to me.
“Hey, pretty girl,” Calix calls out, drawing its attention before hiding behind a wall.
“Really? Now you’re flirting with monsters, too?” Mariel grumbles.
“What? Calling it ugly seemed unfair.” Calix shrugs. “Who knows what her beauty standards are?”
“Maybe I’ll keep you around, human,” the creature whispers, showing off good hearing and a split tongue, while slinking in our direction.
I groan. “He can’t help but sweet-talk every female around.”
“Holy mists. You three are worse than Jared,” Tate grumbles, making me chuckle and Jared protest. “Could you shut up already?”
A volley of hailstones draws the creature’s attention to the other side of the arena, and she turns.
“Just because she is the most obvious doesn’t mean she is the only threat in here,” Solaris relays Tate’s warning. “So, keep your eyes open, and let’s collect everything we know about Ophisyx.”
Our collective knowledge is rather sobering.
Ophisyx are Iza’s preferred hunting companions.
Next to turning living things into stone with their gaze and paralyzing victims with their poison, no matter if a sting or a bite of their “hair,” their aura triggers nightmare-like hallucinations if they come too close, and their teeth and claws are sharp enough to shred us to ribbons.
Safe to say, not a creature I want to get to know more intimately. Oh, and then there is the teeny detail that the scales are too thick to be penetrated by a blade or arrows, leaving only the throat, where the scales run out into skin.
We have to get close to her to kill her. Awesome.
“It’ll have to be me,” I state the obvious.
“No,” Tate cuts me off before I even finish my thought.
“I’ll do it,” he offers. Jared says nothing but shakes his head, and I'm reminded of the nightmares he mentioned.
“Tate,” I say, but he clenches his jaw.
“Let's make it a group effort,” Jared suggests. “With all of us going in, she'll have it harder to concentrate on one target.”
Tate nods, my next breath coming easier.
On Tate's command, we move in, doubling and tripling in numbers as Jared uses his gift. His illusion mirrors our movements.
Zaza and I throw flames at the Ophisyx, while Tanner batters her with ice. Mariel is using Joel to get closer to her, hoping the aura won’t affect him either.
We are nearly close enough to strike when everything happens at once.
Jared's illusions drop, and Joel freezes when the creature pounces, landing too close to Mariel and Jared. Tate rushes in to pull Jared back, only for whatever hits him to make him stagger.
The gasp of the crowd registers as a missed beat of my heart.
I rush forward, focused on getting to Tate before the creature does.
But Daeva is faster. She swoops down, gripping Jared and Tate with her talons, and dives out of the Ophisyx path.
The creature’s sting misses her only barely, and then the beast unfurls its wings as if it wants to go after Daeva.
But I step into her line of sight. Taking Calix’s cue from earlier, I address her to draw her attention.
“You have very thick hair … and so wriggly.”
“Aren’t you scared, human?” She stalks toward me. “No nightmares terrorizing you?”
“Oh, plenty,” I tell her. “But I'm not good at giving in.”
“I can still shred you, paralyze you, eat you.”
I wrinkle my nose. “No, thanks. I’m not a fan of that either. And I’ve heard I’m more of an acquired taste.”
In my periphery, the others advance again while I do my best to keep the Ophisyx’s attention on me.
And I'm relieved to see Jared and Tate back on their feet.
While my friends close in, ice and fire bounce off the creature without doing damage.
And I realize there's only one way to end this, only one way to get all of them out of here alive.