by Erin Hayes
This wasn’t going to work. She would draw more attention here than she would blended in with the crowd. So long as she kept a clear path for escape, she would be fine.
Gritting her teeth, she slunk out into the throng and wove between just enough citizens to blend in, but not so many that she couldn’t dash back into the alley if need be. Again, she pressed onto her toes. Still unable to see anything, she dug her fingernails into her palms to stop the itch of wanting to use magic.
One little spell, and she could see everything.
One little spell, and the Regent could see her.
Fine. She would get closer. Immerse herself deeper.
She weaseled her way a little farther into the crowd, her attention over her shoulder instead of focused on where she was going. More distance than she would like from her escape, but she needed to see this. And not for the same reason everyone else gathered around did.
Outside of the caged arena, Regent Dvorak stood with a young woman dressed in the customary white gown and gold belt. Her long blonde hair fell in loose waves past her breasts and down to her hips, her wrists chained at the small of her back. Dvorak gripped the metal links that ran from one cuff to the other, a smug grin twisting his lips.
In the sky above, slate gray clouds crackled with electricity. Dvorak’s magic. The very magic that kept the Ravagers out…except for when they brought them in…
Like today.
The scene confirmed Adira’s darkest fears. This was a Display. Deep down, she’d known as much, but the confirmation still stuck needles into her stomach.
She shifted her attention to the other side of the caged arena. Inside the pen, on the other side of the gate, was a Ravager. One glance at its gray, almost-translucent skin was enough. Adira averted her gaze, unable to look at its eyeless face, unwilling to confront its razor-edged teeth and deformed body that could almost pass for human if not so grotesque and alien-like.
Eventually, Adira would be caught. Eventually, she would have to stare down such a vicious beast. But she would fight fate with every fiber of her being until that day came.
Perhaps she was a coward, though no more so than anyone else in this town. Or perhaps she was just smart. No one said bravery and a death wish were the same thing, just as no one admitted to being a witch in Sector One unless out of desperation. Your whole family—if you still had one—could live out the rest of their existence comfortably at the mere suggestion you might have what it takes to keep the sector safe.
Dvorak raised his arms to the sky. Thunder rumbled, and bolts of electricity spit from the sky in the distance, cracking down against the earth in the forest beyond the boundaries.
No announcement need be made. Everyone in Sector One knew what this meant. But that never stopped Dvorak.
“People of Sector One!” he said, his voice firm. Proud. “I stand before you today, your Regent and Protector, to carry forth the will of The Sixteen. Two centuries ago, when Ravagers infested Othala, the Sixteen High Witches came together to save the human race. Each of them created their own sector with their own magic for your protection, becoming the first Regents in our revered history. Let us take a moment to honor The Sixteen!”
“All hail The Sixteen!” the crowd cheered.
The speech always made Adira’s stomach twist. Hail The Sixteen? The Sixteen were long gone, and she often wondered if they would even approve of what Regent Dvorak was doing with Sector One.
“The survival of the human race is now our responsibility. It is we who must preserve the magic and the tradition of our sector, to keep us safe from the Ravagers and to sustain life for all who reside here. Let us not betray our Sixteen. Let us uphold their vision for our future.”
“In perfect love and perfect trust,” the crowd crooned.
What a joke. Nothing Dvorak did was out of love and certainly nothing he said was deserving of trust. Were these people driven by fear, or were they simply brainwashed?
“To accomplish this, every Regent must bring forth an heir. It is the responsibility of any suitable witch to step forth and claim her place in the hierarchy, to bear a witch of the same bloodline of the original Sixteen, to maintain the enchantment that protects this land.”
The part he always left out was how if the witch failed to bear his child, he would have her killed.
Okay, that wasn’t exactly true, except that it was. It was always the same, after all. Every “witch” was subject to two Displays. The first one, she was to face a Ravager to prove her worth. Most died on the first Display because many subjected to it were not actually witches.
However, if they were, and if they defeated the Ravager, they would have the duty then to marry the Regent and produce an heir. And that was where things got ugly. If not for the very idea of someone’s “duty” being to make a child with someone, the problem was that no one had actually ever accomplished the task.
In the second Display, the boundaries were opened and the Doomed Queen was sent out into the world beyond. Into the Ravager’s land. Banishment.
The Regent said on more than one occasion, “If a witch cannot bear an heir, the least she can do is use her magic to protect our borders from the outside.”
Everyone knew that not even a witch could survive that, though. It was certain death. It was why the witches who were banished were never seen again.
And now, here they were, Adira having lived long enough to see decades of these Displays—including her own mother’s.
The more time that passed, the worse things got. Time was running out for Dvorak to bring forth a child in enough time to train it up to be a great leader and practitioner. He had already burned through every witch born of direct lineage. That was a bit harder to hide—everyone knew who they were from the moment they were born, and under Dvorak’s rule, fewer witches were having children in fear for their future.
That left the human-born witches, like Adira. The anomalies. A witch born of two human parents. Some said that was how the original Sixteen came to be in the first place. And now, here they were. Hunted by their own Regent. The poor woman at Dvorak’s side would be the next victim.
“May she prove herself well,” Dvorak said, tilting up his chin. “May we find our new Queen.”
The crowd swelled closer to the half-walls surrounding the arena. “Blessed be our hopeful Queen!”
“United we stand,” Dvorak said. “Divided, we conquer!”
He thrust his fist into the air, and the crowd erupted in applause.
Divide and conquer had been the Sixteen’s original plan. If the human race were to survive, they would need as many chances as possible to do so. For that reason, each sector was to have its own enchantment, to be segregated completely from all other sectors. For all anyone knew, Sector One was the last remaining.
When Adira was young, her parents said the phrase had once been “United we stand, divided we fall,” but that it in the end, things didn’t work out that way; it was the division of the world and the creation of the sectors that ultimately saved everyone. To this day, though, Adira still questioned the validity of that. What is the Original Sixteen had been as manipulative of Regent Dvorak? What, if anything, could she trust, when she hadn’t been there to see it for herself?
Regent Dvorak tilted his head to speak to one of the guards. Then he nodded to the two standing post by the arena’s entrance, and they opened the gate, the supposed-witch’s eyes growing wider.
The Doomed Queen.
Opening the arena instead of the borders meant this was her first Display.
She screamed as the guards pushed toward the arena, digging her heels into the ground to slow her procession to death. “No! Wait! I am not a witch!”
Her gaze darted around until it landed on the Ravager on the other side of the arena. Then, her attention did not budge, but her pleas intensified, making Adira’s skin crawl with desire to help. But that would only land her where the Doomed Queen stood now.
“Please!” the Doomed Queen
begged. “I don’t know any magic! My family made me do this!”
A lump formed in Adira’s throat. The Doomed Queen’s own family had sold her into this? Surely they knew it was an unavoidable death. No human could survive a Ravager.
A large man beside Adira spit over the wall. “Aye, then maybe you have what’s coming!”
“Yeah!” someone shouted from the other side of the arena. “Why give people false hope?”
“I bet she is a witch!” another cried.
Really, there was only one way to tell. Make her desperate enough to use magic, should she have any to use. Which was exactly what Regent Dvorak intended to do. If she failed to kill the Ravager, everyone would know she wasn’t a witch. That, and she would be dead.
If she succeeded, however—and magic was the only way to make that happen—she would be crowned Queen, bride of the Regent. That would buy her a few months before Dvorak killed her some other way—unless, of course, she came to be with child.
If history were any indication, the odds were not in her favor.
Despite all of her clawing and desperate pleading, the guards forced the Doomed Queen into the arena, and before she could turn to escape, Dvorak sent his energy into the surrounding runestone lamp posts. An electrical force-field crackled around the arena to form a dome, not unlike the same one that was already containing a Ravager on the other side within.
This was the magic that protected our Sector. On the outskirts of the city, one could see this on a larger scale: you could stand there and look out into the Deadlands and see the Ravagers skirting through the trees, just feet away from our borders. Those same runes were found in lamp posts scattered throughout the city, meant to create new, smaller prisons in the event of a border breach.
And those same posts also trapped the Ravager until the Display began, and the Doomed Queen until the Display was over.
In a way, we were all prisoners. The townsfolk were prisoners beneath the dome of the Sector, the Doomed Queen a prisoner beneath the dome of the arena, and the Ravager a prisoner within the smaller dome inside.
But not for long, and the Doomed Queen knew as much. She turned around, pressing her hands against the electrical dome, which burned her hands but did not let her pass through.
“I didn’t want this!” she begged. Tears soaked her face and matted hair against his cheeks and jaw. “I am not a witch! Please, don’t do this!”
Dvorak tilted up his chin. Then, with a dismissive wave of his hand, the smallest of the lamp posts turned off, releasing the Ravager.
The Doomed Queen crouched down, curling into a ball.
Adira’s stepped back, knocking into someone.
“Sorry,” she mumbled, trying to take another step, but the crowd had gotten too dense.
No way out—no way for Adira out of the crowd, no way for the Doomed Queen out of the arena. Adira’s lungs constricted. She couldn’t breathe. She needed to get out. This was her mother’s death all over again. Her fault. Every human who died a witch’s death was Adira’s fault. So much blood on her hands.
She didn’t want to see this. All she’d needed to know was if this was the first or second Display. If she had days or months left before the Guard would unknowingly be looking for her—the next witch. She didn’t need to see the kill.
She sucked in another breath, nearly collapsing if not for the sea of bodies around her pushing her upright.
The Ravager roared—the sound somewhere between a gurgle and a hiss but infinitely louder. The woman in the arena screamed. First in terror, then in agony. Adira had learned to differentiate the cries all too well. She squeezed her eyes shut and trembled with her effort not to use magic.
Please, I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to see this, to hear this.
Adira shoved past two burly men. One of them elbowed her in the rib as they knocked her farther into the mob. She grabbed her side and pushed through a small gap, gulping down air and wincing at the bruised pain in her rib.
Soon, the jaunts and cheers of the crowd drowned out the screaming. Those were the moments she hated herself most. She preferred the cheers to the screaming, even if they were celebrating a massacre. What kind of monster did that make her?
The sound that followed, though, was the worst. Silence. It meant an end. It meant…death.
The Doomed Queen had been telling the truth. She was not a witch.
Which meant the Regent would waste no time resuming his search for someone who was.
Someone like Adira.
She side-stepped another citizen, finally working her way out of the crowd. As she did, she came right back into the line of sight of the Regent. This time, a man stood before him. A witch hunter, judging by the customary garb: dark, loose pants; no shirt; a sword in a scabbard secured to his back. And of course, the tattoo.
From where she stood now, she once again couldn’t see the arena, but today had reminded her what a blessing that was.
As the witch hunter turned toward the crowd, Adira froze.
Him? He’d been the man from the dispensary—the one who had helped her get the cloves. He couldn’t be the one to go in and fight the Ravager.
But no sooner did Adira have that thought than she realized the ridiculous reason she’d thought it. There was no such thing as being too handsome to fight a Ravager. If the Regent chose him as one of the warriors for the task, then that would be his fate.
She scanned the rest of the guards to see who else would step forward. When she saw no one, she once again pressed up on the tips of her toes to try to see inside the arena. Perhaps they were already by the entryway.
No?
She glanced back at witch hunter, his olive skin glistening beneath the high midday sun, pearls of sweat sliding along the cords of muscle in his arms and stomach and tracing down his shoulder blades and spine. His tan seemed darker around the lines of his muscles, making everything about him more defined, more pronounced, more…intimidating.
But not intimidating enough to take down a Ravager alone.
Where were the other witch hunters? The last time she’d seen a Display, it had taken five of them to bring down the last Ravager, and all the blessed armor had been destroyed in the process.
Strands of black hair fell against the sole witch hunter’s forehead as his dark gaze panned the crowd. For a beat, his attention stopped on her.
Adira’s heart thudded in her chest, and the oxygen in her lungs seemed to disappear without a breath.
His large hands curled into fists at his side. His broad chest heaved. If Adira wasn’t mistaken, it seemed he was nearly about to lunge for her. She took a step back, and the witch hunter scowled before turning away. He kneeled in front of the Regent to present his sword on open palms.
Saved by the Display. Again. There was more irony to that than Adira would care to ruminate on.
Dvorak waved his hand over the witch hunter’s weapon, his lips moving to cast a spell that Adira couldn’t hear from this distance. Dvorak was always careful to protect his spells. From who, one could only wonder.
As the handsome warrior stood and headed toward the arena, Adira shook her head. One witch hunter was not enough. A blessing spell was not near enough to face a Ravager alone—not without magic of his own.
The most beautiful man Adira had ever seen was being sent on a suicide mission.
“They can’t do that,” she muttered. “They can’t send him in there alone!”
A man beside her nudged his elbow into her arm. “Ay, miss. He won’t let them send anyone in with him. Alec says we can’t risk so many of our witch hunters on one event.”
Alec. So the man had a name. And apparently a heart, though that made his chosen profession a bit harder to understand.
“Glad he cares about some lives,” she mumbled to the man.
But bitter as she might sound, she could not be entirely angry with him. Despite his role in the Sector, if what the man said was true, then Alec was different. He was, at least, a man w
ho didn’t deserve to die.
So Adira stayed for the Ravager’s slaying. Weaseled back into the crowd to where she could see the arena. Where she could see Alec.
Because at the very least, if worse came to worst, the man deserved every last person here to witness his death the same as they had the Doomed Queen’s.
Chapter Four
Alec turned to face the arena. Normally, this moment was one of complete clarity and focus for him. In the past, the only part of any of this that he struggled with was the moment Regent Dvorak had to turn off the runestone that unleashed the Ravager on the Doomed Queen.
He always hoped for them. Always watched those moments with breath held and body tensed. But once what was done was done, his peace returned, his focus re-centered, his mind tunneled on the task at hand: killing the Ravager.
And then she showed up.
How brazen was she? She’d been caught stealing, and now she was just standing around watching? Was she hoping to watch him die? Hoping to have one less Guardsman to worry about stopping her from her thieving ways?
Alec clenched his teeth, taking another heavy step toward the arena. Well, wouldn’t she be in for surprise when he not only defeated this Ravager, but walked out of the arena and captured her next.
While Alec stood at the entryway to the arena, he stared down at the Doomed Queen with regret he wished he didn’t feel. It was her family who claimed her to be a witch. It was true she failed her duty. But did she deserve such a fate?
His grip tightened around the handle of the sword. The crowd was already starting to back away, knowing what was coming next. He wished to tell them to just go home, where they would be safe—did they really think a few feet would make much of a difference? And did they need a show so badly? Had seeing the death of the Doomed Queen not satisfied them enough?
He scanned the crowd again—or rather, his gaze snapped to the one person he’d already pinpointed in the sea of faces. The market girl. Even as others were backing away in anticipation of what would come next, she stood stalwart.