Chapter 42 #2
My gaze lifts, unwilling, from the press of bodies below.
In the audience sit rows of commoners, silent and watchful.
Above them, tiers of provincial nobles, eyes glittering with a kind of hunger.
And highest of all: the imperial balcony.
Draped in red and gold, heavy with the weight of power.
Waiting. Watching. Hypocrisy gilded in sunlight.
I almost wish I could see the emperor’s face now, just so I could glare at him.
Imagine spitting on that pale, cruel mask.
My mother would’ve slapped me for the thought. But that fear didn’t save her.
A horn blast tears the air in two. The crowd rises as one, and from the high balcony, the voice of the arena master thunders:
“Behold the enemies of Thalyris! Traitors, lawbreakers, mongrels who dared to defy the peace you all bleed to protect. Today, they are unmasked. Today, they are cleansed!”
The crowd answers in a roar. “Cleanse them! Cleanse them!”
My stomach twists.
My eyes drop frantically back to the mass of people below, at Lira and the others preparing to fight for their lives amidst overwhelming numbers. The scale of what's about to happen crashes over me.
“I can't,” I hiss to Zeriel, my voice breaking. “I can't just sit here and watch this. There has to be something—”
Zeriel finds my arm, his fingers forming an inescapable grip. "Don't," he says, his voice barely audible. "You can't help them."
I open my mouth to argue, but the words die in my throat as a terrible groaning sound echoes across the arena. The ground below suddenly fractures along hidden seams, and metal vents rise from the forest floor, their mechanisms clicking into place.
“What is—”
The answer comes before I can finish the question. The vents roar to life, spewing columns of brilliant green-blue flame that shoot twenty feet into the air. The heat reaches even our platform, a scorching wave that makes my skin sting.
Below, chaos erupts. People scatter like startled birds, colliding with each other in blind panic. The flames aren't constant. They surge and die in unpredictable patterns, cutting off escape routes, herding the recruits into tighter clusters.
“They're driving them,” I whisper, horror dawning as I recognize the pattern. “Like beasts to slaughter.”
The arena master’s voice bellows again, triumphant:
“Run, traitors! Fight, traitors! Burn, and show your true selves!”
Lira and the other Ironhold recruits have managed to stay together, but they're being pushed steadily toward a central clearing. The green-clad prisoners fare worse, many already sporting angry burns, their screams barely audible over the roar of the province’s native fire.
I lean forward, hands gripping the railing so tight my knuckles blanch white.
The iron bands around the recruits' wrists and necks gleam in the firelight, and I notice something I missed before.
They're not just restraints. As the flames drive the crowd tighter, the bands begin to pulse with a sickly orange glow.
“The iron,” I rasp. “It's active. Suppression collars.”
I've heard whispers of such things. Devices designed to target and cripple fae blood specifically, through supposedly non-magical means. But whispers don’t prepare me for this.
The effect is sickening to watch: recruits staggering as their strength bleeds out, shoulders caving, breath clawing shallow.
Some buckle to their knees, gasping like fish on dry land.
Vex stumbles hard, barely caught by Nyx, though Nyx herself looks half-collapsed, her jaw clenched against the weight pressing her down. Lira moves as if through tar, every step dragging.
“They’re being suffocated,” I choke, the words tearing out raw. Physically and magically.
Zeriel doesn’t answer. But his hand grips his blade, knuckles bone-white on the hilt. Not a move to draw. Just that instinct, that urge to cut through what neither of us can touch.
He of all people must know what it’s like to lose part of yourself. Lose what you are. He appears so lost to his cause I don’t know if he’ll ever find himself again. Or let me find him.
A deep, grinding creak sounds, of ancient mechanisms turning. At the far end of the arena, a massive gate begins to rise, darkness yawning behind it.
The crowd falls silent, anticipation thick in the air.
From the shadows emerges a gloamwyrm. Not like the docile mounts that carried us here, but something wilder, hungrier.
Its indigo scales gleam with that uncanny mirror-sheen, but its eyes are different: bottomless black pools that reflect only terror.
It pauses at the threshold, head swaying as it tastes the air.
Another follows. And another. Until seven of the massive creatures stand at the arena's edge, their bodies sliding forward with the unnerving grace of predators accustomed to the dark.
I can see the chains now. Heavy links binding their necks and flanks, leading up to shadowed galleries where handlers wait. But the creatures don't need direction. The scent of fear and blood has already awakened something primal in them.
The crowd roars its approval, a sound so bloodthirsty it makes my skin crawl. Every cheer feels like a personal blow. Were it not for my detour with the ashblood, I’d be down there too.
Do they even know what they’re cheering?
What they’re begging to happen? Are they so lost in the empire’s lies they can’t tell slaughter from justice?
They don’t see fellow subjects. They don’t see fae.
They see what they’re told to see—enemies of Thalyris—and I can feel the hatred of it slice at my skin.
The recruits scatter again, but there's nowhere to run. The vents continue their deadly dance, herding them back toward the center while the wyrms advance from the perimeter. It's a perfect killing field.
I spot Talyra diving beneath a fallen log as a gloamwyrm passes, its tail whipping just inches from her hiding place. Lira and Nyx have backed against a luminescent tree, wielding broken branches as makeshift weapons.
“These prelims aren’t a competition,” I whisper. They don’t even try to be. They’re a simple execution.
Zeriel's face is carved from marble, but I see a muscle jump in his jaw. “At least they cut the fanfare.”
A change in strategy, perhaps due to the severity of the green-clad fae’s perceived crimes. And the crowd is lapping up every second of it.
What did they do? Did they broadcast their magic louder than any other?
The wyrms don't charge—they don't need to. They stalk with patience, each step calculated. When they strike, it's with devastating speed: a snap of jaws, a lash of tail. A green-clad man screams as claws tear through his chest, the sound cutting off abruptly as his body crumples.
I can't look away, even as bile rises in my throat. My eyes frantically search for my friends, relief flooding through me when I spot Vex sliding between two trees, narrowly avoiding a burst of flame.
Then it finally happens.
A woman in green, cornered between a wyrm and a roaring vent, throws up her hands in desperation. The air around her shimmers, then solidifies into a shield of translucent blue. Magic, raw and instinctive, surging past the iron's suppression in one desperate burst.
The crowd inhales as one, leaning forward.
I barely see the movement—just a flash from a hidden alcove in the wall. The woman's body jerks, an iron-tipped bolt protruding suddenly from her throat. Her shield shatters like glass as she falls.
The nearest wyrm descends on the body, jaws clamping down with a sickening crunch.
“No,” I breathe, but my voice is drowned out by the vents’ roar.
Flames drive the survivors into new configurations. Panic breeds panic. Another prisoner breaks, his hands thrust toward the sky as wind whips around him, a cyclone of desperate power.
Another bolt. Another body collapses into the mud. Another gift—rare, fragile, beautiful—snuffed out like it was nothing.
The crowd roars, louder with every death, bloodlust feeding on itself. They aren’t just spectators, they’re part of it, their hunger pushing the slaughter onward. Magic leads to destruction. That’s the lesson carved into us, drilled for generations. And here it is, performed as truth.
I force my eyes back to the chaos below, searching frantically. A flash of gray—Dren. The scar over his ruined eye makes him unmistakable. He’s limping badly, dragging one leg as he staggers toward the trunk of a tree, desperate for cover. My chest clenches.
Then another movement. Nyx, darting behind a boulder, Vex clutched at her side. Both alive, barely. Talyra and four others have somehow clawed their way into the branches above, higher ground giving them a moment’s reprieve.
But—Lira.
My pulse spikes. I scan again, frantic, the crowd’s roar in my ears. Where is she?
My heart hammers against my ribs. I lean further over the railing, eyes straining.
Finally, I spot her, separated from the others, backing slowly away from a wyrm that's fixed those terrible mirror-eyes on her. She holds a jagged branch like a spear, but her arms tremble with the effort of just staying upright.
She won't make it. I already know. Not unless I do something.
The wyrm lunges at her, jaws snapping. She dodges, barely, but the motion sends her sprawling. I rally all the concentration I possess to attempt to access the drake’s mind, when the creature rears back for another strike—
And then something unexpected happens. The earth beneath Lira's hands ripples, then splits. A tangle of roots erupts from the soil, wrapping around the wyrm's foreleg. Her gift, surging past the iron's suppression in one desperate burst.
My breath catches. “No, Lira, don’t—”
Too late. She’s revealed her true nature. And there’s nothing even Selen can do—or is willing to do—to help her now.
The hidden bowman’s bolt flies true, punching through her shoulder with enough force to spin her around. She falls, blood blooming across her gray uniform.
I'm on my feet before I realize it, a scream building in my chest. Zeriel rises with me, his arm like a band of steel across my waist, holding me back.
“Let me go,” I snarl, struggling against his grip. “I can help her—”
“You can’t!” he growls, his voice raw. “You'll just die with her.”
Below, the wyrm bears down on Lira’s crumpled body. She drags herself an inch at a time, blood smearing the earth in her wake.
I can’t breathe. Can’t think. The world narrows until there’s nothing but her—still fighting, still clinging to life. Focus. Reach the drake’s mind. Force it to turn. To stop. To hell with keeping it subtle. Let them see. Let them all see.
The wyrm’s shadow swallows her. Its head lowers, jaws parting—
I reach, clawing for the beast’s mind, its fury hot and jagged against mine. I almost have it—
And then Nyx is there. Out of nowhere. Throwing herself between Lira and death. In her hand, something glints: a piece of metal she must have torn from somewhere, now shaped into a crude blade. She drives it upward as the wyrm descends, burying it to the hilt in the soft flesh beneath its jaw.
The creature recoils, shrieking, black blood spraying from the wound. Nyx doesn't hesitate. She grabs Lira, hauling her upright, dragging her toward the shelter of the trees.
But before they reach the trees… they’re gone.
One heartbeat they’re there, the next the space is empty, as if the arena itself swallowed them whole. My mind claws for sense.
“Did—” I gasp, blinking hard, certain I've missed something. “Where did they go?”
Zeriel's grip on me slackens slightly, his own confusion evident in the sudden tension of his body. “I don't know,” he says, eyes narrowed as he scans the spot where Nyx and Lira just were.
A murmur ripples through the crowd, starting at the lower tiers and spreading outward like a wave. Heads crane forward, fingers point, voices rise in tense confusion. We’re not the only ones who noticed.
Could it have been Selen?
But even as I have the thought, it doesn’t make sense.
They’d both vanished too quickly to have had time to slip on void-scale suits.
And Selen was painfully clear that there was nothing she could or would do to help them.
She’d looked me dead in the eye, her voice flat with finality. No hope. No loopholes. So then… how?
The confusion rippling through the arena curdles fast. Nobles in the upper tiers lean forward, murmurs sharp as knives. Officials in their boxes are already on their feet, gesturing furiously, voices carrying.
And then the arena master’s voice booms out, cold and absolute:
“Find them. Drag them out. There will be no escape from justice.”
Without warning, the hidden alcoves in the walls erupt with activity. Iron arrows fly in merciless volleys, no longer waiting for displays of magic. They rain down on the remaining prisoners, punching through flesh with sickening efficiency.
Green-clad bodies crumple.
Gray uniforms collapse into the mud. A death they were destined to have the moment they stepped into the Ironhold.
“They're speeding up the slaughter,” Zeriel says, and this time I hear the tinge of disgust in his voice.
My eyes dart frantically across the arena floor, searching for any sign of Dren or the rest of Selen's women.
Vex, Talyra, Kaelin, Maris—where are they?
Did they vanish too? I can't tell. There's too much chaos, too many bodies, too much blood churning the earth to mud.
They could be under a wyrm, crushed into the mud, their bodies trampled beyond recognition.
The slaughter continues until only a few survivors remain.
A woman ignites herself in desperation, fire streaming from her hands as she sprints toward the trees.
For a heartbeat, she looks unstoppable. Then three arrows punch through her chest in perfect unison, snuffing her flames as she crumples mid-stride.
A man claws his way up the arena wall with impossible speed, fingers gripping ancient stone like a climber born to it. Hope flares for half a breath until a wyrm’s tail whips across the sky and smashes him down. The sound of his body hitting earth is final, bone splinter against stone.
And then it's over.
The vents sputter and fall silent. The wyrms are yanked back toward the gate, chains clanking as handlers drag them into the dark.
No one moves. No one breathes. No one survives.
The prelims are over.
“Subjects of Thalyris,” the arena master’s voice rolls across the silence, smooth, unshaken by the carnage. “You have seen the empire’s judgment. Let it etch itself into your memory—the price of defiance, the cost of sedition. This afternoon, the true games begin.”