by Marie Mistry
“What are they waiting for?” I asked.
There was another squawk, this one louder than the last. Only Daron’s quick thinking saved me from getting an arrow in the heart. It stopped inches away from my breastbone, rotating in thin air.
Then another one came. And another.
Each of them stopped only inches away, and Daron was sweating from the exertion of holding them all back.
I looked at Rina. “Shield.” We said at the same time.
Our bubble reappeared, both of our powers merging together to strengthen it beyond what either of us could have achieved alone. Daron breathed a sigh of relief, letting the arrows fall to the floor.
“If they hadn’t had metal heads…” He trailed off, looking at me with a haunted expression.
I didn’t want to think about it. “The ravens are doing something,” I said. “Every time one of them squawks a different attack happens.”
“Do we blast them, or run for it?” Rina asked, coolly examining the birds.
“Run,” Daron said. “We don’t know what they’ll do if we provoke them any more than we already are. At least with the arrows, we have a chance to make it to the arena walls. They’re right there.”
I nodded, looking at the stone walls that were our target. We didn’t wait before we took off at a jog, arrows pinging off the shield with such force that they sometimes shattered.
“Nearly there.” Rina panted.
We dived underneath the arched door of the arena and were rewarded by the arrows instantly ceasing their assault. For several moments I knelt on the stone, just breathing through the stitch in my side. When Daron once again offered me his hand, I knew we had to keep going. Getting here had been only half of the battle.
I led the way, familiar with the stone passageway after months of Saturdays spent scraping off moss and disposing hundreds of wheelbarrows full of rubble. Once I had finished fixing up the stadium as much as could be done by hand, Hadrian had used his power to fix the broken stonework in one large sweep and pronounced me finally fit enough for real combat training.
But Rina and Daron had never been here, so when we reached the inside of the arena, they spun in place, trying to take in every angle of the immense space.
“It’s huge,” Rina gasped.
“Down there.” I spotted a table right in the centre of the fighting pit. “That must be where the tokens are.”
All three of us climbed down into the pit, heading towards the table, which held a large glass jar filled with large gold discs strung onto the corner of colourful handkerchiefs. On the lid of the jar was an ornate lock, and the table underneath it was covered in twenty ornate keys.
“They’re words.” Rina mumbled, approaching the table and picking up one of the keys. Sure enough, the shaft of each key had been twisted to form a single word in fancy three-dimensional writing.
“Narcissism,” I read aloud.
“Vanity, Accomplishment…” Daron continued, flipping the keys around so that the words all faced us. “They’re all sub-castes of Pride.”
“It’s the special prize,” I realised. “We have to figure out which one is Maddox’s sub-caste.”
“What happens if we pick wrong?” Rina asked, cautiously examining the jar. “There are only four left. Eleven groups have already gotten tokens.”
“Did either of you ever figure it out?” Daron looked at us both. “I never got very far myself.”
“I had it narrowed down to three,” I admitted. “Hubris, Perfectionism or Conceit.”
Rina grabbed all three and placed them directly in front of us. “Which was the most likely one of those three?” she asked.
“He’s not a perfectionist,” Daron remarked, pushing that key back into the pile of others. “Have you seen the inside of his office? It’s messier than my room.”
“Okay then… What was the difference between a Hubris and a Conceit? I never even bothered with trying to force over a hundred sub-castes into my memory,” Rina admitted.
“Hubris had to do with over relying on their own confidence,” I began, thoughtfully. “Conceit was having an overestimation of their personal standing.”
Rina held up her hands in a surrender gesture, turning away and surveying the entrances. “You two brain-boxes can figure this one out. I’m just going to make sure no one takes your heads off while you do it.”
“He could be a Conceit,” Daron muttered. “He does have a lot of personal standing as it is.”
But the idea didn’t sit right with me, and I picked up the Hubris key instead. “Wouldn’t the ultimate act of hubris be setting an exam question about yourself, giving a hint about it on the first day and still believing no one would get it right?” I wondered.
Daron shrugged. “Your call. It’s sound logic.”
I lifted the key to the lock, twisted.
The lid swung to one side, and before it could change its mind, I snatched a token from inside. It was warm and heavy in my hand, and I looked up and met the relieved eyes of both of my teammates.
“Let’s go,” I suggested, watching as the jar slid closed once again and the keys reorganised themselves on the table.
We made it five minutes before a huge wave of PK sailed straight into our backs, sending us all flying.
“We’ll take that, thank you very much.” Abrosiax’s voice echoed from behind us, as she and her two teammates circled around us like vultures.
“Get your own,” I snarled, pushing myself back onto my feet. “There are loads left.”
“We tried,” one of her friends admitted. “But we chose wrong, and the lock melted shut around the key.”
“So, we’ll be having yours,” Abrosiax finished, holding her hands out towards me.
I looked up at the sun; we didn’t have time for this. “You want it?” Rina demanded. “Duel me for it.”
“How quaint.” The taller girl sneered, and it was one of those times when I hated my five-foot-three height, because she towered over me almost comically. “You’ve got yourself a guard dog. But I’m not interested in duelling a short-ass Wrath with an attitude problem.”
One of the girls behind us sent another burst of PK at us, but my shield blocked it. Rina wasn’t fast enough, going flying once again. Abrosiax’s other friend ignored her power in favour of stomping viciously on Rina’s nose.
I created a second shield over the top of Rina, allowing her to get back to her feet, her face dripping blood and her nose stuck at a horrible angle. Abrosiax sent a shockwave of terrakinesis underneath me, tripping me up and sending me flying back on my ass. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Daron facing off against the girl with the PK blasts. He was firmly on the defensive, and it took me a moment to realise why.
“For goodness’ sake, Daron!” Rina yelled, also forgoing using her powers in favour of savagely tossing a punch at her larger, beefier opponent. “Just because she’s a woman doesn’t mean you can’t knock her on her ass if she’s trying to do the same thing to you!” She jumped up and locked her legs around the Pride girl’s neck in a stunning display of acrobatics, pulling her down to the ground and choking her with her thighs.
Daron didn’t respond, but he didn’t change tactics either. I couldn’t watch anymore, because Abrosiax had taken a blunt force approach to dealing with my shield and was pelting me with PK missiles. Every strike decreased my power just a fraction, and unlike a Pride, I couldn’t generate more by myself. I threw my own missile of PK at her, sending her flying just as she had done to me earlier. She didn’t throw up a shield, obviously not used to anyone fighting back. I followed up with a second missile of PK from behind. For a second it looked like I might win, before she took a sleek, modern looking gun out of her waistband.
“What the fuck?” Rina swore. “How the hell did you get that past Maddox?”
“Nobody denies an Abrosiax anything, Rina dear,” she sneered. “Not people who want to live, anyway.”
She aimed the gun at my shield and fired, emptyi
ng the clip in several loud bursts. The first bullet stopped before it reached me, and I breathed a sigh of relief knowing that Daron had my back. However, the second bullet only wavered slightly, as if caught in a strong wind, before it slammed into the shield. Each strike after that made contact without any interference, and ricocheted off into the forest. The impacts drew more power from my shield than her PK missiles, draining me significantly till the thin curtain between us wavered with uncertainty. When she drew another clip from her pocket and set about reloading, I hastily looked back at Daron.
He was unconscious on the ground, bleeding from a head wound, his glasses cracked and crooked as one of Abrosiax’s followers smirked over him. The sight of my gentle, courteous mate crumpled on the ground triggered an anger in me unlike anything I’d ever felt before. I felt for him using the mating bond, relieved to feel him still there, but weak. He’d run out of power stopping the bullets for me, I realised. The truth only made me angrier.
A quick glance at Rina revealed that she was lagging, limping slightly whilst her bigger opponent only seemed to suffer from a split lip.
I sent a wave of pyrokinesis at Abrosiax, but she was prepared for it, and it bounced off her shield harmlessly. “How many more do you think it will take to finish you off?” she asked conversationally, cocking the gun and aiming at me once more. “One?” She fired the bullet. “Two?” She fired another one.
My thoughts were racing, I had maybe enough power for my shield to withstand four more hits at most. But surely even Abrosiax wasn’t arrogant enough to try to actually kill me when Maddox was within shouting distance. If I let the shield drop before I ran out, then used her overconfidence against her, could I get one large burst of power in, enough to stun her and her cronies and get Rina and Daron away from here?
It was the only idea that I had.
I took a breath, closed my eyes, and let the shield drop with the next bullet.
“Three’s the magic number,” she crooned. “Now, I’ll take that.” She snatched the token out of my pocket, but she didn’t let her shield drop as I had hoped. “Now… I think you need a lesson about leaving your betters hanging from a tree, freak.” She pointed the gun straight at my head, still not dropping her shield. “Don’t move now… it’s a lesson, after all.” My heart was racing, fear pumping through my veins.
The gunshot rang out.
Pain burst outwards from my horns.
Her shield dropped for one satisfying instant.
Something inside of me snapped, reaching straight for Abrosiax.
Chapter 34
Abrosiax screamed.
Her friends screamed. All of them writhed on the ground like they were being skinned alive, clawing at their bodies in agony.
But I didn’t really notice, because I was screaming too, my hands clutching at my horns, which were burning again. I was aware of Rina in front of me, eyes wide as she kicked the gun into the trees before trying to pull my hands away.
Hadrian’s ring, the yellow stone cracked and charred straight down the middle, fell from my head and dropped to the grass as I squeezed my scalp, just trying to make the pain stop. And the more I tried to end my pain, the worse Abrosiax writhed in front of me.
This was odynokinesis, I realised as my screeches turned to whimpers.
“Lilith, shut up and move your ass!” Rina finally screamed. “We have to get Daron and get out of here before the exam ends. I’m sorry but you’re going to have to pull on your big girl panties and deal!”
She hauled me to my feet, stooping to grab the discarded token before running over to Daron and hefting him halfway over her shoulders before leading the way towards the car park. “Come on.” She managed to grab my arm and drag me along after her, creating a strange, limping, cringing mass of bodies that somehow still moved forwards.
When we broke the treeline, Maddox was waiting for us, along with several strange demons and the rest of the class. There were gasps as they spotted us, but Rina waved the token in the air.
Maddox nodded, concern plain in his gaze. “The healers are waiting in the Gatehouse,” he announced, turning to the rest of the class. “Krossian, Daz, help these students to the temporary infirmary.”
Bane and another Pride rushed over to us, the Pride took Daron from Rina, who was still limping, and Bane lifted one of my arms over his shoulders and supported my weight with an arm around my hip. He was a little bruised and had a small piece of medical tape over a cut on his cheek, but otherwise he seemed unharmed.
“What happened to you?” he demanded. “Your horns…”
“Abrosiax had a gun,” Rina announced, loud enough that Maddox could hear.
“That is impossible. It would have been found when she was transported,” Maddox insisted.
“Well the bullet hole in Lilith’s horn says otherwise,” Rina yelled, stopping and turning back to face him. “Go and look for yourselves, she shot us to get the token because she couldn’t guess your stupid sub-caste.”
“Rina,” I whispered, “Let it drop.” She couldn’t speak to Maddox that way, especially in front of the other demons.
There was a tense silence while her brain caught up with mine. “Sorry, Sir,” she growled, turning back towards us and marching to the Gatehouse.
“What does she mean there’s a hole in my horn?” I asked Bane.
“Don’t worry, the healers will get it,” he assured me, looking at my head with a face so pale I wondered if it wasn’t him suffering from blood loss instead.
But I couldn’t help stealing a peek in the reflective glass of the window.
Not only had my horns gotten bigger again, the left horn, which Abrosiax had shot at, was bleeding and missing a chunk. I swayed slightly. My horns could bleed, and the amount of blood had turned my hair red.
“Don’t look,” Bane insisted, turning my head from my reflection and yelling towards the door. “We need some help out here!” He yelled.
I saw healers spilling out of the door, dressed in white scrubs, but the world started spinning. The last thing I remembered was Bane catching me.
I woke up in a single bed with scratchy white sheets, surrounded by darkness. I had the disconcerting realisation that I was being watched.
“She’s awake,” Aeron whispered.
“Thank the Strange God,” Bane replied, also in a whisper. “Come on, Lilith, you have to wake up properly for us, Precious.”
Hands gently stroked my arms, fluttered by my neck, and squeezed my hands.
“Come on, Baby Girl,” Aeron coaxed, “You have to wake up.”
“What’s going on?” I moaned, aware of a throbbing in my horns.
“You’re in the infirmary and you need power,” Aeron told me. “The healers had some ideas, but none of your mates think you’ll like them very much, so we’ve broken in.”
“You can take from us now. Take enough to be alert in the morning and make them back off.” Bane was staring at my horns for some reason.
“Wait, what happened? The exam?” I sat up slightly, trying to think past my throbbing head.
Aeron glanced around the room. “Baby Girl, we don’t have time,” he insisted. “Take power from me. Trust me.”
He pressed his lips over mine, in a kiss that didn’t make sense, but that stirred my power anyway. I let myself take from him, revelling in the possessiveness of his kiss until the fuzzy world started to make sense once again. His hand slid behind my head, keeping my mouth pressed against his, controlling the kiss completely as my nipples hardened into sharp points and every nerve in my body jolted awake.
“Take more,” Aeron insisted when I paused to breathe. “You’re healing and drained.”
He took my mouth again, fusing us together till my lips felt bruised and my breath came in tiny little pants.
Bane reached for me next. “I’m so sorry for everything,” he whispered. “Please take something from me as well.”
In my pain-addled state, I didn’t remember why I was upset with Bane
. All I knew was that he was my mate and my best friend, and his lips looked so inviting.
When my lips met his, it was like all the tension drained from my body. He tasted like toffee and dark chocolate, the sweet combination was the perfect complement to his brother’s bitter, dark coffee. His fingers traced the line of my jaw as he kissed me, and I leaned into his hold, wanting more.
I felt his power with my own, and it was like meeting a brick wall. My power flirted around the edges of it, coaxing and cajoling, but it was like brushing silk against a rock and expecting the rock to move.