Chapter 59
W ith every step she took, Alora's heart pounded as she escaped the hole that the abyss had expelled her from. The frigid and earthy air tousled her braids, while she stumbled on dew-covered stones, venturing deeper and deeper into the ancient ruins.
That collar hadn’t stopped burning. The further she ran from Silas, the more the call back to him damned her. But she imagined they wouldn’t be parted for long. Not with the labyrinth of walkways overhead. Not with how small the arena seemed to be.
Ladomyr’s arena may as well have been the first camp outside Telldaira. Given how close the stadium walls were—there was little room to run. And with the ruins mixed within the small forests, it didn’t seem the object of this game was a drawn-out chase. More a spectacle of throwing a dagger into a barrel and seeing which fish would bleed.
Alora didn’t doubt the barbarity would be over before morning.
Perhaps sooner.
She gambled the real possibility of sharpened claws and forest-forged weapons and hurtled around a crumbling wall. Alora slammed her back against the stones, heaving in breaths, tempted to fall to her knees, but a sonic shriek in the near distance and a blood-curdling scream kept her standing. Ready to run.
The screaming—it sounded as if some poor faerie was being torn apart. Probably was, from the sound of her.
A tear slipped down Alora’s cheek, refusing to think of it—the blood—what would be left of her.
What if … what if it was… No. She refused that, too. Refused to think of …
Jade. She needed to find Jade.
Another cry, far to the west. Then a guttural roar from the walkway as the crowd’s cheering went deafening. One of the royals hastened across the crystal, his cheeks stained as red as the blood she imagined was left pooled on the dirt from the beast feeding on its kill.
Alora steadied a breath. Two. Then three.
She wouldn’t die there. She would see her family again. Safe. Healed. Free.
Risking a glance around the ruins, Alora peered through the trees to the balcony. To Garrik hanging there as he had when the Hunt began.
Erissa circled him, wineglass in hand, dragging her finger along his tunic and scowling when his blood stained her finger.
How dare she touch him? How dare she touch her husband, her mate, her Garrik?
Alora imagined starfire burning in her palms. Imagined Erissa tied to that stake as her flames languidly climbed the princess’s dress, drawing out the torture, until she was engulfed in an inferno only the likes of Firekeeper had seen.
She knew he couldn’t hear her, but even so, if there was any chance, any bit of magic that could cleave through the poison in their veins, Alora threw across that empty tether, I’m coming, Garrik. Hold on ? —
Sputtering clicks bounced around the stones. A purring-like sound of a creature entered the ruins.
Close— too close.
Tiny stones crumbled from the wall as Alora pushed from it, veering to the right toward a slender opening harboring a dense forest beyond. Perhaps she could climb a tree, anchor herself in the canopy, scan the arena, and find Jade and?—
More clicks. More sputtering purrs. Closer—much closer.
It seemed the entire arena had quieted the moment two faeries slipped between the trees in front of her. The freckled sunlight glistened against their stained-glass-like wings, glittering pearlescent dots dusted from their amethyst fingertips to their necks. One limped, and blue blood ran from a wound in her thigh while the other held her close, terrified at the sight of Alora.
The same terror Alora had seen in the High City when that female was forced on her knees atop shattered glass. It was her. And … a sister? Alora wondered how the other ended up here. Did she attempt to free the female only to be seized and suffer the same fate?
She’d never find out.
Alora raised her hands in surrender and called out, “You need to run?—”
The female’s heads snapped upward at the same time Alora’s did.
One blink—one starsdamned blink—and the leathery streak of dark wings soared above her with imperceivable speed. Then the crunch. The bloodcurdling crunch of bone and blood and glassy wings. Bile burned her throat as the females were squelched and snapped into pieces feet away.
A nightdiver. A male faerie turned into a flying creature made of night. Of leathery wings and scales, two legs, and a vicious barbed tail with even more lethal rows of teeth.
She didn’t dare whimper for fear she’d be its next feast.
Alora whirled to those ruins and kept running, not slowing until she flew from them and out to the arena to find Jade.
It turned out the little faith Alora had in seeing the Hunt past nightfall was wrong.
Somehow, through the never-ending sounds of death and dying, dusk crested outside the glass dome.
She’d managed to conceal herself in brush. Lying low, tightening her fists around sharp stones or makeshift spears, slowing her breathing with every snap of a branch and low growl. The safety of a dam was enough to hide in the waters, washing most of Jade’s mud-crusted runes away, while collections of footsteps raced by hour after hour.
Silas’s bored stare had followed her every step. Never too near to expose her position, but always searching for her like a creature haunting the night. Calling to his collar with every twist of the ring.
And now, lingering at the edge of a barren field and concealed in shadows, Alora clung to a tree as she had when Garrik had sought Kerimkhar, unsure if she should step out. The blood of five crow-picked faeries was enough of a warning. Perhaps any creature thinking of scouring the meadow would see that something else had made a meal and nothing more was of interest.
Perhaps she could pile the bodies and hide underneath—no. She’d leave the dead in their resting place.
Hope fluttered the more she scanned. In the distance, a crumbling tower broke through the trees. If she could barricade herself inside, make some sort of signal, something only Jade would understand …
It would work. It had to.
Alora broke the barrier of darkness, sharpened branch in hand.
Scanning the field gleaming with blood-drenched bodies carefully— so carefully —while watching, listening. But it wasn’t until shivers thrummed down her spine that she glanced over her shoulder and stopped dead in the middle of the carnage.
Fingers and arms and wings. Blood so heavy she tasted iron.
Nothing else was there. Nothing in the trees or in the field.
Just those bodies. Food for the predators. Limbs for entertainment.
Alora raked over one of them. A faeling, perhaps no less than a century old, clung to another. That poor faeling’s eyes were open, staring into the glass dome above.
A faeling— a faeling . What would they have done to have warranted this ?
She grabbed her twisting gut and retched. Cursing Ladomyr as she’d done a thousand times that day and a million more for every day they were in Kadamar. When the retching and the tears ceased, Alora gathered clothing scraps and draped them over the faeling, then with an ache in her spine, walked away.
In the forest, the scorching burn of her collar dropped her to her knees.
Alora panted, clasping her hands around the metal, and dropped onto her back seconds before glowing torches silhouetted the trees.
Then voices—snickering. Laughing.
Alive, but for how long until they fed an ally to a beast?
She’d been extremely lucky. A creature or a mutual understanding of survival had thwarted any encounter with a faerie so far. One look in a fellow female’s eyes, one quick nod, and a hasty step backward had been enough to show she wasn’t hostile. The few she’d met near a stream or crumbling corner of ruins were likewise motivated to not meet their end by each other’s fist or sharpened branch.
But she wasn’t foolish enough to imagine this group would be the same.
Not with the blood staining their arms.
Or the conniving to weed out who remained.
The burning pain of her collar stopped. For a fleeting moment, Alora thanked Silas, no matter the bastard he was. That collar had saved her life and allowed her to remain unharmed as they passed by.
When the glow of torchlights succumbed to darkness, Alora stood, clinging to her spear. The thrum of the crowd had fractured enough she didn’t need to peek through the trees to know spectators had filtered from their seats to find solace in their beds. Only the few that thrived in darkness remained, hoping for more bloodshed under the night sky.
She was halfway to the tower when those glowing torches flickered again, far in the distance, far enough away she wouldn’t be seen. Then a voice like drinking lifeblood drawled from above, “Most endeavor to thank me when I save their life.”
Alora warded off rolling her eyes and tightened her grip on the spear. Grinding her teeth, she spat, “Saved my life? You threw me in here.” Possibly everyone in there.
Silas leaned a lavishly ornate hip and elbow against the railing as the chattering of two royals passed him by. Alora scanned their immaculate, clean attire, imagining what a sight she was with mud and sweat and grime as he flicked a speck from his jacket and deepened a sigh. “Release your claw yet, Dragon?” Ignoring her outburst.
I will. And when I do, it’ll go right through your eye. Then again …
Why wait?
Before Silas could stop her, Alora reeled back and launched the spear. Whistling through the air as it careened toward the spymaster’s face. His eyes narrowed slightly, but he didn’t move.
She tried not to look too thrilled the closer it flew. But when the wooden tip simply faded through Silas’s face as if he were a mirage, Alora tensed. Her spear plummeted to the other side, stabbing into the dirt.
What the hell?
Silas sighed. The crimson in his eyes tapered with unnerving focus before he said, “If that will be all, Your Highness. I do believe that tower is vacant and most of Ladomyr’s beasts have sought slumber.” Was he helping her? “Do not disappoint me tomorrow.”
As if she cared about disappointing Silas.
Alora wanted to say it but clenched her jaw to keep the snide retort from slipping from her tongue when Silas disappeared. Leaving her alone in the shadows that she missed terribly, which danced around her, pleaded for her to draw them near, to find their master.
Hitching a half-sobbing breath, Alora brushed her fingers through the darkness, catching a glimpse of whorling shadows in her ring, allowing liquid to line her eyes as she looked over her shoulder through the trees to the balcony. To her bloody mate on the wooden stake. And forced her feet forward while her heart remained behind.
“Wake up, clever girl.”
The cold chill of an icy finger brushed hair from her face. Garrik’s lips coaxed her back to Airatheldra’s hillside, back to the blanket stretched beneath them and the stars glittering above.
He placed a kiss on her forehead. Perfect and gentle and everything the rest of their lives were meant to be. “Open your eyes, my love. We should return to the house if you wish to sleep,” he murmured, squeezing her against his solid body.
And she arched into the greedy, long stroke along her spine.
“But I’m not done stargazing,” she answered, yawning. Nestling further into his chest.
Garrik softly laughed, and she didn’t have to open her eyes to see his smile. “Hard to do so when sleeping.”
Alora grinned at that. Slapping him on his bare chest and pulling an amused grunt from his throat. The pads of her fingertips lingered. Brushing along the defined muscles to the beginning of the scars marring his abdomen.
Garrik contently sighed into her touch.
She could lay there forever in his arms. In his safety. Under the stars. Telling tales of their faelinghoods while imagining stars clustered as unicorns, dragons, butterflies. This perfect peace they had created. How nothing in the world ever felt like his touch. How nothing ever felt so safe.
“Wake up, clever girl,” he said it again, a harsh bite in his tone. She turned to face him, but he was looking off in the distance. Face hardened, critical. “Alora! Wake u ? —”
Alora struggled to breathe.
The pressure around her neck wasn’t the collar draining the last breath from her lungs.
Choking.
Alora opened her eyes and came face-to-face with a half-breed feline face, her fist clenched around Alora’s throat so terribly it would bruise. It was an effort to stay awake, to war off the darkness bordering her vision as the female with scarlet stripes and bone-white skin lifted her until her boots dangled. Alora could hardly kick her feet, each thump echoing off the gray-blue stones of the tower she’d slept in overnight as she was pressed into the wall.
Alora, barely able to see over the woman’s shoulder, watched as her assailant extended her hand to the three others behind her. And even with Alora clinging to her forearm and scratching over the scarlet markings, she managed to curl her fingers around a glass syringe.
No—no!
She hadn’t thought about her magic. Hadn’t harbored hope for its return until now—this moment—with that needle sinking into her death mark. Only now it occurred to her that if she had woken seconds before … maybe she could’ve run and hid until the poison burned off.
An open palm slapped her face when she drew blood, throwing her to the floor, and releasing the unused needle. Alora choked, slipping to her hands and knees as darkness tried to claim her.
It wouldn’t get the chance.
A green faerie with waves of brown braids spilling over her shoulders and tattoos stepped forward. Slamming a boot into Alora’s ribs.
She heard the fine crack, the resounding snap, and fell flat to the floor with a shriek.
The faerie fisted her hair, pulling on Alora’s braids, and moved her inches from her foul breath, snickering, “She looks better off than the other Dragon. Bitch was practically dead this morning.”
Jade. Her stomach turned.
Alora didn’t care about the sharp pain in her side. She shot forward, running for the door?—
Warm hands clamped around her ankle, dropping her hard on her knee. Then another, strong and unrelenting, grabbed her before they pulled her back.
Alora dug her nails into the sun-soaked aged wood that splintered so easily it was more like dirt. Scratching claw marks the further they pulled her back.
Pure panic and rage rippled through her the moment the females reeled, twisting enough that Alora slid through broken glass from the window and slammed her shoulder into the stones of the tower wall.
Cloaked in dark purple fabric and teal skin, another faerie walked forward, scuffing through dirt and leaves and glass before she crouched low, offering her knee to Alora’s face. “Let’s get this over with.”
Feline-face lifted the needle, pressing the plunger until the same inky black liquid that stole her powers the day before dripped out. “Ladomyr sends his regards,” she drawled before her companions grabbed Alora by the shoulders, holding her down as the needle plunged through Alora’s leathers, straight through her death mark.
Alora thrashed—so terribly she thrashed against them. Against the searing thrum of poison that left her body feeling colder than before. Enough that Feline-face lost her hold.
The syringe slipped out again. Glass shattered as a tendril of sizzling smoke coiled into the air when the liquid singed the floor.
“Fuck,” Purple-cloak cursed. “The king said she had to drink the whole thing. Maybe she can lick it from the floor?”
Spitting blood, Alora snapped, “So Ladomyr is calling your collar?” She didn’t give them time to respond and snarled, “Whatever he promised you, the only thing waiting is death.”
Laughter undulated from the doorway. The females holding her to the ground snickered before Green-skin’s fist cracked into her gut.
If Alora had eaten anything since Airatheldra, she would have vomited.
The pressure on her aching shoulders released. Someone fisted her hair and turned her onto her stomach, face pressed into the cold damp wood.
“Finish it,” a female snarled, but Alora was too nauseous to determine who.
Instead of licking it up, she countered, “Why null me at all? Why not end me here?” The fools.
Another snicker. A boot pressed into the back of her neck. “Because hunting you will be much sweeter, and the king wants to watch while you lose your wits. But that doesn’t mean we can’t play with our trinket before we break it.” In emphasis, another boot slammed into Alora’s wrist.
She cried out and wrenched her wrist into her neck, cradling it through the throbbing pain.
That was enough . She’d had enough.
Despite the pain, Alora smiled. A cruel laugh bubbled from her throat. No matter how much it hurt, she couldn’t stop it. The simpering filth thought they could break her? She cut her teeth on faeries like them.
And you can’t collar a damned lioness with starfire in her veins.
She didn’t give them time to consider her next move.
Alora rolled, scrambling from underneath the female before the flat of her boot slammed into a chest.
Before they could grab her, she was moving, skidding across the glass and dirt before those in the doorway blinked.
If they wanted to make her bleed … then they would have to follow.
Because Alora didn’t turn back, didn’t balk, or hesitate.
She threw herself to the window and in one leap …
Fell over the ledge.