He pulls me out of danger, and we pause for breath, our foreheads nearly touching. “You still with me?”
“Yes,” I say breathlessly. And my body remembers what my mind does not wish to see. My skin heats at the memory of last night. I remember everything.
Vann’s mouth curves, then he pushes me behind him. I look around his massive body as the ogre lunges.
“Run to the side as far as you can!” Vann shouts, and we split, the chain whipping between us. I catch its flank. He drives his blade through its calf. It collapses, bellowing, but the humans are already closing in.
I see their faces, dull and lifeless.
Something inside of me breaks.
Is this like the Cold Ones that once plagued Enduvida a year ago? Do they come from labor camps? My eyes burn, and my chest constricts.
Somewhere above us, Arion’s laughter cuts through the noise.
The sound causes the hairs on my arms and neck to stand straight up. How many times have I heard that sound? It enrages me. This hunger for life fills my taut belly.
I wish for his power to bleed out along with his blood.
Another beast charges and my vision narrows on Vann.
He stands tall, slicing through the last of the wolves. His forearms and shoulders ripple under the light, coated in sweat, dirt, and blood. His tail is tense behind him, causing the short leather armor to show the raw power of his thighs as he lunges and moves.
He is graceful and beautiful. Every last bit of him.
I don’t care that Arion watches. Before the undead humans come within dangerous proximity, I grab Vann’s braid, pulling him down to me and kissing him.
The world stops.
It’s blood and dust and the taste of iron. He kisses me back with the kind of desperation that belongs only to the dying. The crowd doesn’t like our display, but at least Arion stops fucking laughing. They begin to sneer and shout about the “whoring bitch.”
I ignore them. If I am to die in this next wave, if this is to be it, then I will go out of this world with one final kiss from the man who gave it all up to be at my side.
And with that image, something inside me snaps.
All the grief. All the rage. All the months of being a spectacle, of being silent, of surviving when I should’ve been allowed tolive. The manipulation. The cruelty of putting me against my own kin.
My fury breaks loose.
“I love you,” he breathes. The words are clipped. They are short, desperate, and life-giving.
I look him in the eye and pull back from him. “I know.” And then an arrow whines past my ear.
“¡Agáchate!” I shout, holding my ears. I hadn’t realized they’d also put archers with the crowd. Vann grabs me again, making sure to twist me around and out of the sight of any marksman.
Vann and I begin circling, trying to stay moving targets. A fewspear-wielding humans run forward, only for Vann to cut them down single-handed.
He bellows, emboldened by the kiss.
The crowd boos.
And then Arion stands.
“My bride did not just bring the traitorous troll to our gates,” he says. “She was a decoy for traitors to spread like wildfires. Tonight, this trial of blood extends not only to her and her lover, but to one who sought to bring me down!”
Guards enter the chaos of the arena, dragging an elf with short white hair. Fire blows up from the arena’s walls, lighting us in a grand spectacle just as night falls.
“The pretender! May his blood feed the soil!”