Amnesty sighed. "My parents died when I was young, so I wouldn't know what to expect from a parent, but I don't think they'd leave you to die, no matter the circumstances."
"That just goes to show how little you know about monarchs." Victoria twisted to look at her. "How did you get down here, anyway?"
"I frequently bring criminals down here for the king to collect their bounties."
"Do you even know what their crimes are?"
"What does it matter?"
Victoria sat up. "Olvir, come here." The little fae boy obeyed and sat down next to her. "You were picked up for a bounty, correct?" The boy nodded. "What was your crime?"
"Lesser Fae," he responded.
Victoria looked up at Amnesty and said, "That's why it matters."
Amnesty looked down at her shoes in guilt. When she looked back up at Victoria, there was a wildfire alight in her green eyes. "You will get out of here, princess."
Victoria nodded but replied, "It might be too late for me, but it's not for them. Get them out of here first."
Amnesty hesitated but nodded. The sound of footsteps echoed in the tunnels and Amnesty got up. "Looks like that's my cue. I'm technically not supposed to be down here anyway."
Amnesty dashed into the shadows by the time the owner of the footsteps got to the cell door. Nicolae's malicious face smiled down at her when he asked, "I think your time would be more beneficial preparing for your next fight rather than chatting with friends."
"Who am I fighting next?"
"Me."
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Playing with Your Food
Victoria had become wholly uninterested in anything that she used to think was important. Her entire world was now made up of the Underground. There was no more surface. The only family she had now were those whom she shared her tiny dank prison cell with. Success was defined by living to see the next day.
"Champion coming through!" the guard to her right shouted. The champion of the Teren City arena was glorified. They were considered a celebrity, a god amongst men. They received special privileges and lived life the way they wanted so long as they were in the arena when told.
This was not the case for Victoria. Being the champion of the Underground arena only gave her a bigger target on her back. She had killed everyone she had ever gone up against, and the guards took no chances, which was precisely why she was so heavily chained and guarded whenever outside of her cage.
When the guards had come to escort them to the arena's version of a dining hall, everyone in the cage had been led by one guard in a single-file line. There wasn't a single chain on them. When Victoria had tried to leave, they pushed her back, clamping silver shackles around her wrists, ankles, and neck. It was with those shackles that five guards led her to where the others were. There was no way she could have escaped even if she had tried.
"Dead girl walking," some whispered as she passed. She said nothing and instead made her way over to a solitary wooden table with a place for them to lock up her chains. The champion's table. What an honor.
"Not so tough with those shackles on, are you?" A group of incubus and succubus made their way over to her, and it was their leader who spoke. "All you vampires are the same. You act all high and mighty, but the second you get cornered with a little bit of silver, you become weak and pathetic. Especially you, crippled princess."
Victoria picked up the raw piece of meat off of her plate and tore off a hunk with sharp fangs, completely ignoring the group before her. She wasn't entirely sure what creature her food had come from, neither did she care. She'd eaten far worse by now.
"Can't you hear me, freak? Listen to me when I'm talking to you!" He raised up an arm to hit her, but as his fist came down, she caught his wrist and began twisting. The man immediately cried out in pain. He may have been an incubus, but there was a reason why vampires were considered the superior version of them. She was probably half his age, but already far stronger.
"Can't you see I'm trying to eat here? Take your childish arrogance somewhere else." She pushed him away causing him to go crashing into a nearby table. Everyone in the vicinity was watching now. Guards and the strongest of the slaves were ready to jump into a fight. The weaker ones were getting ready to run.
"You piece of vampire trash!" the incubus spat as he rose to his feet. "You'll pay!"
Victoria looked sideways at the guard who held the key for her shackles. "Can't you release me to teach this guy a lesson? I swear I'll go back after it's done. I still have Nicolae to go up against, after all."
The guard just stared at her. After a few moments, he looked at the others who nodded. With a sinister smile, he took out his keys and unchained Victoria. "One thousand gold on the champion."
That was all she needed. All hell broke loose as the fight broke out. The incubus ran at her, teeth bared and claws out. She did the same. Before they met, though, she dodged to the side and knocked his legs out from under him, sending him to the floor. His face made a loud crack as it made impact with the hard stone. Spitting out a broken tooth, he rose to his feet and turned to her.
"Is that the best you got?" he taunted.
"Hardly, I'm just having fun."
Around them, other prisoners fought each other, as well as the other guards. The guards who weren't fighting had locked themselves behind the cage door, separating themselves from the fray and taking bets.
"Are you ready to die, princess?"
"Make no mistake," Victoria circled her prey, picking up a knocked-down chair in the process. "I do intend to die down here, just not from the likes of you."
The incubus lunged at her again, and she took that chair and bashed him with it, sending him flying. The impact of his body hitting the wall had been so hard that it had cracked the stone beneath. Still, the incubus shakily made his way to his feet gnashing his nasty fangs. The broken chair had completely smashed to pieces save for the leg, which was now a sharp wooden stake in her hand.
"How fitting," she laughed. She was hungry and ready for the fight to be over now. His next attack would surely be his last. When he lunged himself at her again, he was far slower. It made no difference, though. He would have died either way. Victoria took that wooden stake and plunged it deep into his heart. High pitched screaming erupted from him stopping everyone cold in their tracks. Victoria lifted his corpse to her champion's table which had, surprisingly, survived the brawl. The guards at last returned from their secured position, one of them now one thousand gold coins richer, and re-chained her to the table.
With the initial shock over, there were still a few fights taking place, but no one dared disrupt her as she took her blunt, rusted kitchen knife and used it to cut away parts of the incubus, quickly shoving them into her mouth. With a blood-tinted smile, Victoria again began to think of her future fight with Nicolae, and how she might defeat him.
Ω
News of what Victoria had done eventually reached Nicolae. The evidence of a fight was kind of hard to miss what with the dining hall completely destroyed and several more slaves now dead.
"Arrogant vampire," he snarled at her dragging her out of her cage. "You'll pay for what you've done. No one makes a fool out of me."
"Except for yourself, isn't that right?" she managed to grind out as her skin was scraped and broken against the rough stone floor.
"Just keep laughing. You won't be soon."
Nicolae dragged her back into the demolished dining hall, slightly renovated with new hooks and chains on the ceiling and floor.
"I love what you've done with the place."
Nicolae yanked the chain around her neck, causing her to choke. With rasping coughs, Victoria struggled against him, but the silver chains were making her weak, and he was already putting them through the hooks and pulling her off of the floor. Victoria snarled and snapped, but was helpless to stop what was happening.
Nicolae took the chains around her feet and nailed them into the floor. How long was he planning on keeping her h
ere, then?
"You look worried, princess. Don't worry. I won't be killing you before we get the chance to fight it out."
"Unchain me and let us fight now, coward!"
"Oh, I don't think so. This is your punishment for defying me. Your whole life belongs to me. You sleep when I say sleep. You eat when I say eat. Everything that you are, your blood, your bones, it all belongs to me." Someone brought in a case for him and he opened it with a new kind of glee. "I went weapon shopping while you've been here. I must say, this one might be one of my favorites." Nicolae pulled a long whip coated with sharp, silver barbs out from the case. From here, she could tell it had been coated with his signature poison. "How many lashings will you be able to take before you pass out?"
Victoria steeled herself for what was to come, but there was no preparation she could have ever done to be ready for such excruciating pain. She had held out from screaming before when Nicolae had sliced into her skin, but this was far worse. The first crack of the whip sent fear roaring through her body and she couldn't keep herself from screaming out in agony as the barbs sunk their teeth into her back, pulling out chunks of her flesh. The pain that remained afterwards felt like fire spreading through the wounds. Tears were spilling out of her eyes and mingling with the blood that dripped onto the floor.
When Nicolae lashed at her again, Victoria went feral. Her eyes tipped back into that inky blackness and her claws fully extended along with her fangs. The roar of pain that escaped her body was angry and otherworldly. The guards nearby cowered within her presence. Not Nicolae, though. Nicolae was laughing.
Her life was agony. There was no purpose to it, not anymore. She would die down here, this she knew to be certain. Her existence meant nothing to the universe. Maybe that's why she had been spared when her brother had been killed. He would have been someone great. He was a ray of moonlight in an otherwise dark world. He had been all too young when he'd died, but even then, others had seen what he would become. That was why they murdered him. They had to know, somehow. Just as they knew that she was nothing.
"Why," she barely registered her surroundings, but she still managed to choke out a few of the worlds that had been in her heart for as long as she could remember. "Why have you done this to us?"
"Why?" Nicolae responded. "For justice."
CHAPTER TWENTY
Gods and Monsters
The fight between Nicolae and Victoria was to take place at the end of the week. As tribute to King Azazel, Nicolae would put on a good show and kill his enemy's daughter. Apparently, it was to be very exciting. Even though she was still recovering from her beating in the dining area, her bones still sang with the desire to kill him.
"People aren't sure of whether or not to call you two gods or monsters," Amnesty told her one evening when she had come to drop off a couple of murderers. The fight between Nicolae and Victoria was the talk of the Underground. "People are taking bets. Nicolae Blake has a reputation around here, but after you started killing and eating opponents, there have been quite a lot of bets in favor of you winning the fight instead of him."
"Do they know I'm a cripple?" she asked her between taking gulps of blood. Out of the murderers that Amnesty had gone after for the bounty, she'd brought in one and killed the other. Before she came, she filled a flask with his blood.
"What do you get out of helping me, anyways?"
Amnesty shrugged. "You want to know the reason why I can't step foot back in Frumos anymore? Living in the Golden District, you're born with nothing and you die with nothing. My little brother and I were starving, so I stole a lot. I wasn't the only one. A lot of the orphans only survived as long as they did because they swiped food off of the vendors stalls. They caught me once, and the penalty for stealing is the removal of your hands which leads to the removal of your life." She sighed. "So, I ran. I haven't seen my brother in six years. I suppose you can say that I can't stand to watch innocent kids starve."
Victoria nodded. "Thank you."
Amnesty sighed. "Fifteen years old and a slave forced into gladiator fights in the Underground. I don't know how you do it."
"This world isn't exactly forgiving for vampires. I know that might seem selfish to say given your history, but it's the truth. Many vampires, especially the nobles, have to make peace with the fact that they'll never make it past their one hundredth year. Only the rare do, like my mother, and I still have no idea how she did it."
"Why is that?"
"She fought for the Noctis for over one hundred years before she met my father and became queen. They say she was savage on the battlefield. I always wished for her strength."
"I think your mother would be proud of you if she knew what you were going through down here. There aren't a lot of people who survive this arena, and there's even less people who survive being at the mercy of Nicolae Blake."
Victoria nodded. "It's funny. I've been wishing I was dead for so long, but now that I've been facing death, all I want to do is live. It's true what they say about not realizing what you have until it's gone."
Outside, someone began announcing the fight that everyone had been waiting: Victoria verses Nicolae. In a matter of moments, her captors would be back to take her out to the arena.
Knowing what was to come, Amnesty rose to her feet. "You'd better win this fight, princess. I have more than just a few gold coins bet on you."
Ω
The rumble of noise that met Victoria when she walked down the tunnel and into the arena was unlike anything she had ever heard before. It was far louder than even her fight where she earned the title of Champion of the Arena. It seemed that everyone had come to see the event of the century. It was Nicolae Blake against Victoria Speranta.
She had been outfitted differently than before. Someone had somehow gotten their hands on a Noctis uniform, which she supposed was meant to symbolize the fall of Sangera when she no doubt died. Her war paint was just the same as before. The crowd roared and began to spray each other with blood while baring their teeth, even if they didn't have any fangs. What a disturbing way of showing their support for her. Amongst the cheers for her, there were also the boos from those who had bet on Nicolae instead, as well as many brawls between the two groups.
Nicolae walked out in his fighting leathers holding the Sangeran flag. The crowd cheered as he held it up and then proceeded to tear it in half. "May Sangera be the first of many kingdoms to fall!" he shouted.
"Are we going to fight or are you nothing more than cheap parlor tricks?"
"Oh, I can fight," he replied. "I trained at the Academy same as every other soldier."
Victoria was surprised but didn't bother to dwell on it. In the king's box, Azazel raised his arms and the audience was immediately quiet. That familiar gong that she heard at all hours rang signaling the beginning of the fight, but Nicolae and Victoria merely circled each other like predators waiting for the other to move first.
"Are you finally ready to die, Princess?" he asked her.
"I'm not going to die today," she replied. "But when I kill you, I'm going to lick your bones clean before I grind them into dust."
He laughed a deep and hearty chuckle. "I must say, Victoria Speranta, you have become quite the monster. It pleases me to know that I was the one who made you this way."
"Then it'll be your own creation that becomes your doom."
Victoria launched herself at him and he met her sword with his own. Nicolae was just as strong and fast as the others had said he was, and he would be far more ruthless than anyone else she had fought. If Victoria hadn't been so extensively trained by Maria, then she certainly would have been dead by now. The two warriors moved around the arena, each barely escaping instant death. Victoria drowned out the sounds of the spectators around her and only focused on Nicolae and the sheer joy and relief she would feel when she stuck that sword into his twisted heart.
But Nicolae was too fast. Victoria had trained her whole life, but so had he. In a swift movement, Nicolae hit Victoria'
s sword out of her hand and smiled at her. He was simply toying with her, a cat playing with a mouse before he inevitably killed it. She growled as he moved to stand between herself and her sword. Unlike the fight against the ogre, the guards had left all of the weapons out this time. Victoria ran for the rack just as Nicolae picked up her sword to fight her with both. She grabbed a hammer with images of bludgeoning his face in with it.
"How archaic," he commented. He swung at her with those swords but she dodged, bringing the metal hammer hard against the side of his face. If it were anyone else, he would have been dead. Dead or severely concussed. However, this wasn't anyone else. This was Nicolae Blake, a half-breed, a warrior, a vicious beast. He was stronger than the rest. Picking himself up off of the floor, Victoria saw how the jagged ends of the hammer had left cuts and imprints on the side of his face. Now it was her turn to smile while he snarled at her.
"You're going to pay for that." He ran at her swinging so fast she could hardly react in time. During one of his swings, he managed to slice her arms. It immediately began to burn. Victoria hissed at the silver, and Nicolae grinned in triumph as if he had already won.
Victoria made to hit him with the hammer again, but he jumped back. Instead of cracking his skull, she crunched his foot underneath the hammer's heavy weight. Nicolae howled and Victoria got in a couple more swings for sure breaking his leg due to the cracking sounds that she heard. The crowd was filled with cheers of delight and moans of disgust at the sheer amount of damage that Nicolae and Victoria were doing to each other. Nicolae's left foot and leg were broken, and the right side of his face looked like it had just gone through a meat grinder. It seemed that half-breeds didn't heal nearly fast enough. Victoria swung that hammer into his stomach knocking the wind out of him as he fell to the ground. She hobbled over to him as fast as she could to make the finishing blow, but she wasn't fast enough. Both of her legs were cut up and she was fairly certain one of her femurs was sticking out. Her nose was pouring out blood from where Nicolae had managed to elbow her and it was getting increasingly more difficult to see out of her black eyes.
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