Revinus flicks her shots away with a finger. His face hardens. “You, cervidae, do not interest me.” he booms, eyes on Lotha. “You are nothing.”
His hand dances again, tracing symbols that end with a closed fist.
Lotha screams, flailing to the ground. Her bow skitters over the sand. Her body jerks, bending in on itself. Blood sprays from her mouth, her ears. Her bones crack. I grab for her arms, her face, clutching her. She lets out a last anguished wail. The end is a blessing. She’s a mangled wreckage. I turn my face away and lay her gently on the sand.
“Now, we may battle, free of interruption.”
Interruption. I stand, hands wet with Lotha’s blood, and recall Etain’s words. “Fuck you, and fuck your mother. It’s what she likes best.”
Revinus purples. “You show lack of respect. Perhaps another demonstration will still your tongue.” His fingers twitch, and Theriss rises into the air, twisting, hissing, serpents furious. Revinus snaps, and her body goes taut, stretches enough to tear. She groans at the strain, fighting not to show her anguish.
This is not happening, not when we’re so close.
“Meridiana.”
She feels my intent, throws a wave of compulsion at Revinus so powerful it almost buckles my knees.
“Torvik...when the fire comes, throw.”
He grunts. I raise my hands, project flaming streams at Revinus, glassing the sand.
He’s slow to shake Meridiana’s influence, but still blocks the flames, hands moving rapidly as he wards against them.
It’s fortunate my blast was never meant to kill him.
Torvik’s axe spins through the fire, obscured almost until the moment it buries in Revinus’ chest.
He plunges from the air, dead before he hits the ground.
Theriss falls into my arms. The weight of her thick tail staggers me. Despite her scales, she’s smooth, body supple. I set her down and she promptly goes about pretending I didn’t just save her. Torvik isn’t far behind us. He carries Lotha’s body like a beloved pet. Torvik jerks his axe from the fallen mage, and spits on his face.
His shoulders shake, and I as I come around him, I realize he’s crying, tears cutting through dirt and blood that cakes his face. He falls to his knees and sets Lotha down gently.
I rest a hand on his ham of a shoulder.
He looks up at me, a picture of misery. “He killed Lotha. She was brave.”
I couldn’t protect her, and I hate it. I rest my other hand on Lotha. “In my lands, women of noble strength ascend to Folkvangr, where the goddess celebrates them with ale and feasts, and they fight an eternal battle which only the bravest have the honor of fighting.”
The crowd is eerily silent as I channel flame. “We send our warriors to Folkvangr on a glorious pyre.”
Torvik pushes shards of the arena floor around her body.
Lotha’s body burns among the dry scraps like a tinder, so small it takes only moments. Torvik trails his hand reverently through the smoke, watching it float away.
Above us, Maeve sits. She reclines, eating grapes clutched by a nude woman hunched painfully in obedience. Maeve is languid, almost bored by a lull in the violence.
I don’t think I can bond with her. I’m pretty damn sure I don’t want her in the garden.
First things first. I help Torvik up, the giant’s weight buckling my knees. We stare up at the Kyphex. In the distance, sounds of pitched battle recede.
“Can we destroy it?” I ask Goran.
He rubs his chin, thoughtful. “I don’t know. Just let me…” He doesn’t finish, reaches toward the Kyphex. His hand lights from within, green wisps of energy flowing from his fingers a moment before he jerks away, hissing. He shakes a singed hand. “It’s protected, somehow. It feels…” he trails off, shaking his head. “Hungry. And angry.”
“Let me try something,” Meridiana says. She walks back the way we came a short distance, scanning the ground. She stops and her tail flicks out, pulling something from the sand.
Lotha’s bow.
Meridiana returns, cocks her head before aiming upward. “Can you use that thing?” I ask, unable to resist.
Her glare is withering.
She turns back to the Kyphex, draws the bow. An arrow blinks into existence, hissing and snapping in the heat. Her tail comes up, helps position the bow, and she releases.
The arrow arcs up. The arena is silent as a grave.
The bolt hangs a long moment before coming down, directly atop the Kyphex. Just before it hits, it explodes in a shower of sparks and blue lightning, dissipating against a shield of energy.
Damn.
Meridiana shrugs. “Worth a try.” She whacks me across the ass with the bow before handing it to me with an impish grin. “And yes. I have shot a bow once or twice in my thousand years of age, and it’s quite rude to make me admit it.”
I rub my backside with one hand as I push the bow down into the bottomless bag. “Apologies, ancient one.”
You’ll pay for that later.
I look forward to it, I promise.
We turn back to the Kyphex. Theriss chews her lip. “If we can’t attack it, what about the pillar?
I walk up to it, rest my hand against its black, glassy surface. “Goran?”
The mage joins me, runs his hand along the pillar. “I don’t sense anything magical about it, but that doesn’t mean much, here. I have no idea what the material is, where it’s from.”
“I will try,” Torvik rumbles. He motions us back, and then winds up his axe. He chops, like he’s trying to cut down a tree made of stone, and I hold my breath. His blade impacts thunderously, but bounces back, the impact so violent that it jars from his hand and spins back at Theriss. It’s so sudden that I’m sure she’s about to die, but she moves, flows under it, so fast that I can’t believe it. I would have had trouble dodging it.
“Theriss, that was incredible. How?” I ask as Torvik retrieves his axe.
She smiles. It’s a small smile, but I’ll take it as a victory. “I’ll tell you, if we survive all this.”
We. When did we go from possibly killing each other at the end of this to trying to survive it together? What will I do if Maeve makes us fight?
I don’t want to think about it or think about bonding with an artifact who’d demand such a thing. I hope I can convince her otherwise, if it comes to that.
Goran is back at the pillar, is running his hands over it again. He puts his ear to it, knocks against it. “I think…” he wanders around the base, scratching his chin. “I think I can try something. It’s dangerous, but I think it’ll work.”
“Dangerous?”
He glances up. “Dangerous to me.”
Ah. “What can we do?”
Goran looks at all of us, smiles. “Nothing. Well, if I tell you to hit me over the head, do it. But that’s a worst-case scenario kind of thing.”
Torvik hefts his giant axe. “Torvik can do.”
“Ahh, Torvik, I think you’d better let me handle that,” I say, pushing his weapon back down.
He frowns, disappointed, but doesn’t protest.
Goran steps back, rolling up the sleeves of his robe. His arms are thin and mottled with liver spots despite his young age. The ravages of magic use? He raises his arms to the sky, begins chanting in a language I’ve never heard, in words that slip from my mind as soon they enter, escaping like quicksilver.
The sky darkens imperceptibly, and a thunderous rushing sound blankets the arena, like a thousand waterfalls inhabiting the same space. He raises his arms higher, and his voice is barely audible over the noise.
At the pillar, a globe of pure midnight appears. It intersects the dark stone, half inside of it, and begins to grow. A feeling of vast pressure washes over us as it expands, and I have to fight not to fall to my knees. It feels like a massive hand pushing me down, and my legs shake with the effort of resisting it.
The ball stops growing, and Goran’s voice reaches a crescendo. It’s huge, half as
tall as the pillar. It’s cracking, now, white splinters that expand and race along its surface, so bright I can’t stare at them.
Crispinus pulls us further back, his hand on each of us. “This is going to be bad,” he says, voice calm.
Goran shakes. His spell ends and he’s silent. Sweat pours down his face, soaking his robe. “Oh Gods,” he says, voice cracking. “It’s too much, it’s so hungry. Trying... trying to...Oh no…”
“What? What’s happening?” I shout.
“I’m so sorry!” He wails, sudden, in anguish. “I didn’t know!” His body shimmers, shaking so hard now that I’m afraid it will kill him. He’s like a marionette being tossed in a box, convulsing. “Kyphex...Won’t let me stop...Hungry…”
That’s enough. I strike with flat of my blade to stun him. It passes through the space he inhabits. He’s insubstantial. He shimmers, disappears a moment, his body blurry. “So... Sorry…” he cries, and his body evaporates, ripped to tiny pieces that blink out of existence as they float into the unnatural night.
“Goran!” I shout, but there’s nothing left of him. He’s gone.
The spell he cast is not.
The ball continues to splinter, more and more of its surface turning white as the pressure increases. We can’t resist any longer, fall heavily to our hands and knees, pushing through sand until we rest against hard stone below. When the globe turns pure white, and the rush is so loud I fear my eardrums with explode, it suddenly blinks out of existence with so little fanfare, taking the sound and pressure with it, that for a moment I don’t realize it’s gone.
A huge section of the pillar, circular, where the globe intersected it, is simply gone, like it had never been. The effect is immediate, and it starts to fall, bringing the Kyphex down with it. “Back, back!” I lurch up, lift Meridiana and Theriss as we run.
The remains of the pillar shatter as they hit the ground, showering us with dark chunks of shattered stone that sting and smack into our bodies. Choking dust billows past, and we’re thrown from our feet as the thunderous detonation of stone blocks out all sight and sound.
When it returns, we stagger up, search for each other as the sand settles. “Meridiana!”
Here. A single word, weary, in my mind.
Theriss rises, growling, as Torvik and Crispinus stagger up. Everyone looks alright, unhurt.
I turn, march back to where the pillar fell. There. Among the blasted stone lies the Kyphex. The eye towers above me, twice my height, and its massive pupil tracks me as I approach.
I stand before it, heaving, and my blade ignites.
For a moment, in black depths of the pupil, an image forms. My sister, bound, One standing behind her. His blade is at her throat, and in a long, slow pass, he cuts her head from her body. She convulses, pumps blood once, violently, before her heart stops.
With a cry of rage, and anguish, I stab the Kyphex in the center of its pupil, all the way to the hilt.
It screams, a sound we only hear with our minds, so loud that thousands of hands to go ears in vain attempts to block it out.
I pull my blade out with a wet squelch, and the Kyphex dies, it’s eye dimming.
I turn to my friends, eyes wet, breathing deep. Meridiana’s hand is on my shoulder, and a wave of comfort passes through our bond. Just a trick. Her words are a soft caress on my mind. It didn’t want to die, was trying to fuck with you.
Yeah. I hope she’s right.
Gods, let her be right.
Around us, the arena changes. The fallen sections rise, bringing the bodies of countless slain creatures with it. The corpses start to flicker out of existence, disappearing with little pops, and even the blood that spatters our armor evaporates into nothingness. Soon after, the few remaining combatants, fighting little wars at the far ends of the arena, disappear as well.
But Goran and Lotha are still dead.
I sigh heavily. The thought of another round has the weight of a mountain. “Let’s go.”
We return to the dais and stand, diminished, unbeaten, and look to the dais.
Maeve’s rod snaps the air like the first crack of a summer storm. Her movement fills the coliseum with a smell of something primordial, a scent from the space between lightning and rain.
She slips to her feet, long body full but seemingly delicate – an impression she breaks with a turn so quick my eye doesn't catch her movement. She grabs the slumped, empty-eyed man at her side and raises him from his throne.
His feet tread the air but he doesn’t fight. Maeve opens her mouth and inhales. Something trails from him, pulled from his mouth, a thin stream of essence that Maeve absorbs. He grows paler. His black and gold greaves slip free and clatter to the dais. Then his bracers. He thins and thins while she sucks in his essence.
The crowd murmurs, horror and hunger, a low spot in a song before the crescendo. This is what they’ve followed her through the stars to see, why they’ve formed a sinister entourage.
Fuck. Is this the real trial, figuring out how to stomach bonding with this...thing? Maeve does not seem cursed. She suddenly seems evil as all the hells. For the first time, winning a realm doesn’t look so great.
“Meridiana?” I whisper, eyes on Maeve.
The succubus closes her eyes, sensing. She flinches and makes a wounded sound. Her skin blanches to an almost human shade of pale. “Oryllix.”
“What?”
“She’ concealed it, but has the same will as the Oryllix. Feed, destroy, enslave.”
I don’t know if I can do this. I have to do it, for the other women, for my vengeance. But I fucking hate it now.
“Your succubus is not wrong,” whispers Theriss, mistaking my stunned silence for doubt. “Some combatants come here willingly, some are chosen without warning. And some of us were dragged to it against our will, by the magic of Maeve’s cult.”
I spare her a long look from Maeve’s last hoarse gasp. A chest plate bangs the onyx. “Cursed.”
Theriss nods, also watching the scene play out. “I suppose so, in mortal terms. This whole realm, actually. My people lived in this half of the sky, on this world, long before Maeve’s temple appeared, before the juncture.”
Realization sets in. “I came here for you.” This idea isn’t remotely horrible. Proud, sure, but Theriss is fierce and fearless. It’s written all over high, delicate features. Her body is strange, a word that’s taken on new meaning since the temple. Beautiful, sleek, powerful. I’m ashamed Maeve ever fooled me.
Theriss wrinkles her pert nose. “I’ll spare you any more humiliation; I don’t need saving.”
“No, no. I came here to find an Artifact and break her curse. It must be you.”
One black serpent weaves through Theriss’ waves and nuzzles my cheek. It whispers with her voice. “If you came here to help me break a curse, so be it. If you think you’re doing it for me?” The snake hisses hot and damp against my skin, fangs bared. “I’ll slice out your gullet before I carve out hers.”
“Faster because you like me better?” I utter.
She doesn’t answer, and I don’t listen.
Maeve pants, eyes closed, shriveled consort suspended above her. She seems dazed, entranced, but when she turns and launches his desiccated corpse there’s barely checked power in her movements.
He smacks the steps, tumbles to the first rampart and slides like an old coat fifty feet to the arena floor. There’s so little of him that the violent journey does almost no damage.
“The honor of consort stands open!” Maeve’s voice fills the arena like a deep moan of pleasure. Guards scurry to the staircase’s edge, one every five steps or so. I’m not counting; I’m trying to figure her out.
What is she and what is she capable of? Why did she wait until now to devour her vessel?
Maeve has been looking for something. Her companion must have been a being of great strength, a hero or a demigod to survive her so long, to sustain her. Simple mortals won’t do. “Maeve has been sorting the combatants,” I realize as her
eyes lock on me.
“She was looking for something…” Meridiana glances at me. “And she’s found it.”
“This place is a spider’s web, and she sits there waiting for prey to come to her.”
“And conveniently, the temple sent you.”
“No. I don’t think that’s how Cocidius does things.” Maybe he is mad, but he’s not malicious. He set me on this path with at least a small belief I could win. “We’re here to help Theriss. Not to be sacrificed.” There’s irony speaking these words while staring at the consort’s limp body abandoned like trash on the sand.
Maeve begins her descent.
Timid, hunched courtiers unfasten her gold girdle. Her robes fall open, revealing the golden geography of her long body. Maeve parts from the garment down three more steps, leaving her completely nude. Her sway is hypnotizing, tits rocking high and full in contrast to a taut belly. She smooths a hand down her stomach, brushing thick platinum curls between her thighs. Full hips rock, giving glimpses of her thick ass. Lower still, her pussy is barely visible, a perfect pink line that leaves me short of breath. Her proportions scream one thing to the most animal part of my brain. I understand why so many have submitted to her, even knowing their eventual fate. To take her would be like fucking a goddess, and many would willingly pay that price. A rush of blood heats my thighs.
“Easy,” warns Meridiana. Her word is spoken, but it ripples in my thoughts.
Maeve’s influence eases. But it doesn’t end, and she knows it.
Beside me, Torvik growls like a prison hound. Muscles bunch his tattoos into dimensional objects. He shakes like a beast desperate to kill or rut, or both. “Meridiana?”
She doesn’t answer, but Torvik stops trembling and his noises temper.
More servants scurry forth, clutching gorgeous pieces of armor. Maeve steps forward into a black and gold breast plate. Lithe arms extend to receive bracers. A slave hurries out onto the steps, a lamia like Theriss, except her serpents hang to her shoulders, decapitated, and her skin seems bleached of its cobalt color. She drops low at the bend in her tail and Maeve digs fingers into the slave’s dark hair.
“Prepare me for the consort,” demands Maeve, voice musical and terrible over the crowd’s hush. She drags the lamia’s face between her thighs and grinds her hips. The slave doesn’t stroke Maeve’s body, or touch her; she keeps arms stiff at her sides in a clear indication of the relationship between them. There’s no desire or attraction, she’s just a tool being used.
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