Red Queen(128)

She calls up a sword from the swirling metal, forging a blade. My lightning breaks against it, shocking through the iron, but still she duels. The metal shifts and splits all around us, trying to fight me. Even her spiders return to tear me down, but they aren’t enough. She isn’t enough.

Another blast of lightning knocks her blades away and sends her sprawling, trying to escape my wrath. She won’t.

“Not a trick,” she breathes, taken off guard. Her eyes fly between my hands as she backs away, bits of metal floating between us in a hasty shield. “Not a lie.”

I can taste red blood in my mouth, sharp and metallic and strangely wonderful. I spit it out for all to see. Overhead, the blue sky darkens through the shielded dome. Black clouds gather, heavy and full with rain. The storm is coming.

“You said you’d kill me if I ever got in your way.” It feels so good to throw her words back in her face. “Here’s your chance.”

Her chest rises and falls, heaving with each breath. She’s tired. She’s wounded. And the steel behind her eyes is almost gone, giving way to fear.

She lunges and I move to block her attack, but it never comes. Instead, she runs. She runs from me, sprinting at the closest gate she can find. I pound after her, running to hunt her down, but Cal’s roar of frustration stops me in my tracks.

Osanos is on his feet again, dueling with renewed strength, while Ptolemus dances around them, looking for his opening. Cal is no good against nymphs, not with his fire. I remember how easily bested Maven was in his own training so long ago.

My hand closes around the nymph’s wrist, shocking him through his skin, forcing him to turn his anger on me. The water feels like a hammer, knocking me backward into the sand. It crashes and crashes, making it impossible to breathe. For the first time since I entered the arena, the cold hand of fear clenches around my heart. Now that we have a chance of winning, of living, I’m so afraid to lose. My lungs scream for air and I can’t help but open my mouth, letting the water choke me. It stings like fire, like death.

The tiniest spark runs through me, and it’s enough, shocking through the water and up into Osanos. He yelps, jumping back long enough to let me scramble free, slipping through the wet sand. Air sears my lungs as I gasp for breath, but there’s no time to enjoy it. Osanos is on me again; this time his hands are around my neck, holding me under the swirling foot of water.

But I’m ready for him. The fool is stupid enough to touch me, to put his skin against mine. When I let the lightning go, shocking through flesh and water, he screams like a boiling teakettle and flops backward. As the water falls away, draining into the sand, I know he’s truly dead.

When I rise, soaking wet, shaking with adrenaline, fear, strength, my eyes fly to Cal. He’s slashed and bruised, bleeding all over, but his arms rage with bright red fire and Ptolemus cowers at his feet. He raises his hands in defeat, begging for mercy.

“Kill him, Cal,” I snarl, wanting to see him bleed. Above us, the lightning shield pulses again, surging with my anger. If only it was Evangeline. If only I could do it myself. “He tried to kill us. Kill him.”

Cal doesn’t move, breathing hard through his teeth. He looks so torn, eager for vengeance, consumed by the thrill of battle, but also steadily fading back to the calm, thoughtful man he used to be. The man he can’t be anymore.

But a man’s nature is not so easily changed. He steps back, flames fading away.

“I won’t.”

The silence presses down, a wonderful change from the screaming, jeering crowd who wanted us dead moments ago. But when I look up, I realize they aren’t staring. They aren’t seeing Cal’s mercy or my ability. They aren’t even there at all. The great arena has emptied, leaving no witnesses to our victory. The king sent them away, to hide the truth of what we have done so he can supplant it with his own lies.

From his box, Maven begins to clap.

“Well done,” he shouts, moving to the edge of the arena. He peers at us through the shield, his mother close at his shoulder.

The sound hurts more than any knife, making me cringe. It echoes over the empty structure, until marching feet, boots on stone and sand, drown him out.

Security, Sentinels, soldiers, all of them pour onto the sand from every gate. There are hundreds, thousands, too many to fight. Too many to run from. We won the battle, but we lost the war.

Ptolemus scrambles away, disappearing into the crowd of soldiers. Now we’re alone in a steadily closing circle, with nothing and no one left.

It’s not fair. We won. We showed them. It’s not fair. I want to scream, to shock and rage and fight, but the bullets will get me first. Hot tears of anger well in my eyes, but I will not cry. Not in these last moments.