“But you don’t have the Fuegorra to heal you,” he points out flatly, and none too tamely.
I look up at him, seeing the way his silver eyes burn. Of course he would’ve noticed. I don’t have anything to say to him. I can’t tell him how much it hurt, or how scary it was to go through the procedure.
No, instead the gates open again.
The thing that emerges should not be alive. Once, maybe, it was a bear. Now its ribs are carved with runes, eyes molten gold, fur blackened with dried blood. Just by looking at it, I can feel the magic coming off it in droves.
“Hostia puta,” I breathe out.
Vann exhales. “Fuck,indeed.”
It charges.
Vann shoves me aside, and the chain jostles me violently, causing more pain to well up from the wound in my arm. The ground trembles as claws strike where I was just standing. The chain whips tight again, jerking my wrist. I swing at the bear’s flank as it comes close to me, but I miss. Vann cuts its foreleg, but the wound only enrages it.
It hits him square across the chest. He goes down hard, rolling through the sand.
The crowd roars.
“Vann!” I cry out
“I’m fine!” he shouts back, spitting out dirt.
Use me, I implore my dark companion.
The bear rears, blotting out the sun. I lift my sword, angling it right into the ribs of the creature.
But Vann, yet again taking matters into his own hands, pulls thechain, dragging me sideways just as it slams down. The sand explodes around us.
My body screams. When I blink up, the bear still looms over me, jaws wide.
I stab upward. The sword sinks deep into its neck. It bellows, stumbles. Vann rises, swings once—clean and perfect—across its throat. Blackened blood spurts out and streams down over me and the sand. Just a bit away from us, the beast falls.
The crowd erupts. Louder than ever before. I wish I could block out the awful, high-pitched noise.
But Arion doesn’t smile. He stands from his throne, serene, then descends the steps with his crown burning brighter.
My whole life I had followed my own obsession with being nothing but good—or at least with not causing harm. It didn’t keep me safe, as I thought it would.
The king tried to kill me. Despite all my hard work—he still tried to bury me. I snap. I don’t feel like cowering as I have in the past.
I will try. I will give Arion a good show.
“Three trials, I promised,” he says. “Do you all not enjoy a spectacle?!”
More?
You can take it, Red.
Something inside of me hardens and steels me against reality. I’m tired of being weak and underestimated.
Cursed One is right.
I grit my teeth as the crowd roars in response. Arion smiles, ever the brilliant king. My body hurts, and I feel sticky.
That black-hot energy builds in me again.
“Arlet—”