“Octavia has won this round!” Bacchus announced, his eyes wild as he pointed his scepter toward the statues. They pieced back together and righted themselves, so they were exactly how they’d been at the start of the competition. “Antonia will return to the Champions’ Box and stand at the back, to signify that she’s out of the competition. But first—Octavia, select the two champions who will be facing off next.”
“Easy.” Octavia smirked and tossed her hair over her shoulders, looking at me like she’d already won the entire thing. “I choose Cassia, the chosen champion of Ceres, and Julian, the chosen champion of Mars.”
With his extreme strength, Julian quickly knocked Cassia out of the competition. He made it look like a piece of cake. Cassia barely had a chance to try.
Julian didn’t hesitate before pitting Octavia and Emmet against each other.
The two of them marched confidently to their lanes. They even had the gall to high five each other before taking their places.
Bacchus counted off again. Emmet started chugging his wine, and Octavia surrounded her goblet with magic like she had before.
What was she doing to her goblet?
Emmet finished his wine and started throwing first. His aim was all right, although not as perfect as it would have been if he were allowed to use his power over air. He only managed to knock down one statue before Octavia finished her wine and walked over to her discus.
She walked as straight as before, still unaffected by the wine even though it was the second goblet she’d chugged. “Let me have this,” she said to Emmet after he took a shot and missed another statue. “I’m using my magic to evaporate the alcohol out of the wine. This competition is mine.”
Rage rushed through my veins, electricity surging through my body. Octavia was cheating.
But it wasn’t technically cheating. Bacchus had specified that they had to drink all the liquid in their goblets. By evaporating the alcohol out of the wine, it was no longer liquid.
The competition was rigged in Octavia’s favor.
The lightning crackled more intensely under my skin. But I breathed slower, doing my best to meditate and channel Sorcha’s calm demeanor. Acting out would only hurt me and my alliance-mates. I needed to keep my magic under control.
Julian’s still in the competition, I reminded myself. He’s strong. He can beat Octavia. And I still have Bridget on my side, too.
Emmet flung his discus forward, knocking down another statue. “Thanks for the offer,” he said to Octavia. “But I’m here to compete.”
Octavia snarled and destroyed another statue.
The round didn’t take long, and it was close. But Octavia knocked down her statues first.
“Next up, I choose Julian, the chosen champion of Mars,” she said. “To face off against Cillian, the chosen champion of Pluto.”
I froze at Cillian’s name. Apparently Octavia didn’t care about pissing off Pluto’s volatile champion. Which meant she really wanted to knock Julian out of the competition.
Come on Julian, I thought as he and Cillian stepped up to the lanes. You’ve got this.
They downed their goblets of wine, finishing around the same time. Then they walked up to grab their discuses, and luckily, Julian was still steady on his feet.
I held my breath as they took their first throws.
Julian destroyed one of his statues on the first try.
Cillian missed. By a lot. His discus would have flown into the audience if it weren’t for the protective boundary around the lanes.
They went to retrieve their discuses, and Julian ran, like all the other champions had done. Cillian jogged at a steady pace.
I sat there, shocked as I watched Cillian’s casual attitude.
He didn’t want to be Emperor of the Villa.
There were a bunch of possible reasons why. But I didn’t care. All that mattered was the relief I felt when Julian destroyed his final statue, and Cillian strolled back to the box to stand with the others who were out of the competition.
Next, Julian chose Octavia and Pierce to face off.
“I see how this is gonna be.” Octavia glared at Julian as she and Pierce hurried to their places.
Why was Julian picking on Octavia? Octavia had it out for me—not for him. By making a show of trying to knock her out of the competition, he was drawing a line in the sand and painting a target on his back.
He’s doing it to protect me.
My heart sped up, but I quickly shook away the thought. There were tons of other reasons to explain why Julian had it out for Octavia. And even if he was trying to protect me, it wasn’t because he cared about me. It was because he thought I was an asset to our alliance.
By protecting me, he was protecting himself. That was all.
Octavia and Pierce picked up their goblets. But after Bacchus counted off, neither of them drank. Instead, they both used their magic. Pierce’s orange magic surrounded his goblet just like Octavia’s blue magic surrounded hers.
Fire. Pierce’s magic was control over fire.
Fire evaporated alcohol.
I smiled at Julian, although he couldn’t see, because his back was toward me as he watched the competition. Pitting Pierce against Octavia was smart.
Because Pierce and Octavia would both be sober as they faced off against each other.
I leaned forward, my entire body tense as I watched them throw their discuses and destroy their statues. They were both killing it. Octavia had the swing of it after so many previous rounds, and Pierce was just a force to be reckoned with.
Finally, they were down to one statue each.
The entire crowd was on their toes, watching with anticipation.
They flung their discuses, and the statues exploded in tandem, silencing the crowd.
“Wow!” Bacchus pointed his scepter toward the orbs floating throughout the circus, bringing them together to make a giant globe above his head. “It looks like we’ll be taking a closer look to determine our winner!”
A holographic image flickered to life inside of the globe—a flashback to Pierce and Octavia right before taking their final shots.
Like before, their discuses flew toward the statues. But right before they hit, the recording slowed down so the discuses were moving so sluggishly that they might as well have been floating in place.
The discuses crept toward the statues, and I held my breath along with the rest of the crowd.
One of them hit its statue half a second before the other.
“Octavia!” Bacchus shouted her name above the cheers of the crowd. My stomach knotted, every bone in my body hollow as she raised her arms in victory. “You’ve won this round and will select the next two champions to face off in the competition!”
26
Selena
Octavia pitted Julian and Bridget against each other.
Julian won, but he didn’t have a choice to make, since Octavia and Felix were the only other remaining champions in the competition. Against Felix, Octavia won by a landslide.
With everyone else knocked out, Julian and Octavia were the only two champions left standing.
Well, Julian was sort of standing. By that point, he’d downed three giant goblets of Bacchus’s insanely strong wine. He swayed as he walked in a wobbly line to the end of his lane, his eyes dizzy and unfocused. Once he reached the pedestal, he rested a hand on the edge of it to balance himself.
Come on, Julian, I thought. Just one more round. You can do this.
He had to do it. My life in the Games depended on it.
Bacchus counted down, and Julian and Octavia reached for their goblets.
As always, Octavia used her magic to evaporate the alcohol out of the wine.
Julian stared down the center of his, swallowing like he was about to be sick. But he raised the goblet to his lips anyway, forcing down the liquid much slower than he had before.
From the disgusted way Octavia looked down into her goblet after evaporating the alcohol, it was obvi
ous that the sheer amount of liquid they were consuming was a problem as well. But she also forced her drink down, finishing around the same time as Julian.
Julian held his head in his hands and took a few deep breaths, trying to get ahold of himself. As he did, Octavia picked her discus off the ground and hurled it toward the statues.
BOOM. Her first statue exploded into pieces, and the crowd cheered in excitement.
They wanted Octavia to win. She was a monster, yet they were rooting for her.
Electricity rushed through me, and before I could process what was happening, my lightning exploded out of my hands.
It crashed into an invisible wall around the box and sizzled out.
People in the crowd looked my way and laughed. So I shot out another bolt, and another, and another. Each bolt released a bit of the anger building inside of me, but it didn’t matter. Trapped in that glass box, I was all but powerless.
After a few more tries, I gasped and clenched my fists, gazing around at the crowd. Barely any of them looked my way anymore. They were all focused on Julian and Octavia.
Then I spotted two familiar faces diagonally across the way, far back in the lower tier. Finn and Bryan. The fae who had trained me in the days before the Games.
They were staring at me, their eyes hard in warning.
The sight of them anchored me in place. I needed to think back to my training. What would they tell me to do?
They’d tell me to control myself. They’d remind me that I wasn’t helping Julian with this outburst. All I was doing was putting more of a target on my back—and the backs of the others in my alliance.
Even if Octavia becomes Empress of the Villa, it doesn’t mean the end for me, I told myself. If she sends me to the arena, I won’t just lie down and die. I’ll fight, and I’ll live. I’ll make sure of it.
I sat straighter, returning my focus to Octavia and Julian. Octavia had four statues down, and Julian had two.
It wasn’t ideal. But despite Octavia’s advantage, the competition wouldn’t be over until one of them had the golden wreath on their head.
Julian could still win.
He swayed even more after finishing that goblet. He was covered in sweat, and his aim was shot. So he was relying on brute strength to get through.
He threw the discus as hard and fast as he could, ran to get it, and repeated the process over and over. He barely paused, minus a few stumbles running to get the discus and coming back with it.
He was managing to destroy a decent number of statues that way.
But Octavia didn’t miss. She destroyed one statue after another, until eventually, they were all down.
Julian collapsed onto his knees and rested his forehead on the dirt. He pounded his fists into the ground, and the entire arena shook with the force of his strength.
Defeat crashed upon me. I couldn’t move. I was frozen on the throne, watching Octavia pull her dark hair out of its ponytail and shake it out to blow freely over her shoulders as the crowd cheered her name.
This can’t be happening.
Bacchus flew his chariot to the ground in front of her and raised his goblet of wine in a toast. “Congratulations to our new Empress of the Villa—Octavia, the chosen champion of Neptune!” he said, and the crowd cheered and toasted with him. “Step up to the throne in the Champions Box, where the previous Empress of the Villa will crown you with the golden wreath.”
Octavia smirked the entire time she walked toward me. But I held her gaze, not wanting to look weak by glancing away.
She might have power for the next week. But I refused to let her break me. I’d get through this, somehow. I had to.
Her face was covered in sweat, dirt sticking to it like war paint. She kneeled before me, her dangerous, ocean blue gaze never leaving mine.
My palms hummed with electricity. It would be so easy to reach forward and jolt her at high force, killing her on the spot. My magic danced faster with the thought of it, my hands and arms glowing with the lightning running through them.
“You want to kill me.” She smiled sweetly, her voice full of venom. “Do it. I dare you. Do it, and we’ll both die.”
Disgust rose up my throat—because she was right.
I’d never thought of myself as capable of murder. But a few seconds ago, I’d truly wanted to kill her with every bit of magic in my body.
I glanced away from her, my chest hollow as I observed the cheering, bloodthirsty crowd around us.
I won’t let them win.
I might have been thrust into these Games against my will. But I refused to let them turn me into a monster. Even if I was forced to kill or be killed, I’d do it with a heavy heart, and take no joy from it.
The electricity rushing through me dulled to a low throb until the glowing bolts disappeared from my skin.
“You may be my enemy in the Games,” I said, reaching up to remove the wreath from my head. “But that doesn’t mean you deserve to die.”
Even as I placed the wreath gently on Octavia’s head, she looked as angry as ever.
“I don’t care how ‘special’ everyone thinks you are.” She narrowed her eyes, like everything about me disgusted her. “Sure, you may have powerful magic. But your heart is soft. And that’s going to get you killed.”
I didn’t have time to reply before she spun around, her back toward me as she raised her arms above her head and soaked in the crowd’s applause.
Dread curled through me. Octavia was officially Empress of the Villa.
And by the end of the week, I expected to be in the ring at the Coliseum, fighting for my life.
27
Selena
The banquet that night in honor of Octavia’s Empress of the Villa win was torturous.
Julian and I sat across from each other, neither of us speaking to one another. Felix sat next to Octavia, making sure her wine glass remained full. Pierce and Emmet sat close to her as well, joking and bantering like brothers.
Even Bridget and Cassia pretended to make nice with Octavia. I didn’t blame them—of course they wanted to avoid being sent to the arena. But it didn’t change the fact that every time one of them chatted with her, it felt like a knife of betrayal stabbing me in the back, over and over and over again.
The only one who was as quiet as me and Julian was Cillian. He just sat there, stabbing his food and glaring at everyone with his creepy eyes that were as dark as night.
Once dinner was over, Octavia breezed by me on the way up to her suite. “Don’t even bother trying to come up to talk with me,” she said. “I won’t let you in. And it’s best you save your breath, since nothing you can say or do will change my mind.”
I believed her.
And she was right that I should save my energy. Because I had more important things to do.
I needed to learn how to master my magic so I’d have a fighting chance in that arena.
That night, I lay in the giant room I shared with the other girls in the villa, waiting for them to go to sleep. Once positive they were out cold, I sneaked out, tiptoed over to the guys’ room, and pressed my ear against their door. All was quiet in there, too. The light was off upstairs in Octavia’s suite as well.
They were all exhausted—or hungover—after the competition today. Which was perfect for me.
Because with everyone sound asleep, I stepped into the back yard of the villa. It was fenced in—a fence went around the entire house—but it was the largest area of open space we had. The aurora danced beautifully in the sky, a stunning mix of greens, pinks, and purples.
I walked to the end of the yard near the fence, not wanting to risk waking anyone up.
If only I had witch powers. Then I could cast a sound barrier spell and make sure no one hears me.
But I didn’t have witch powers. So I was just going to do the best with what I had. Besides, what would the others do if they knew I was practicing my magic to use it against them? Kill me?
They already wanted to do that.
So I truly had nothing to lose.
The back yard was full of trees with branches that wept like umbrellas. Occasional sticks and twigs were scattered across the grass.
I could work with this.
I gathered some of the sticks, placed them in a row on the ground, kneeled down to get closer to them, and rubbed my hands together.
Okay, lightning. Time to do your thing.
I gathered up the sparks of electricity humming through my body until my hands and arms glowed with power. In training, this was when I’d touch an object and make it combust.
But I’d proven multiple times in the Games that I was capable of doing so much more than that.
All I needed was to learn how to control it.
I held my arm out straight in front of me, picturing a bolt of lightning shooting out of my palm and striking the nearest branch.
The light in my hand flickered and dimmed out.
Seriously?
I glared at the branch and shook my hands out a few times, like they were broken objects I could repair by fiddling with them a bit.
Nothing happened.
I tried gathering my electricity a few more times, waiting until it buzzed brighter and stronger before shooting it toward the branches.
But as hard as I tried to push the lightning out of my palms, it just wouldn’t go.
Don’t get defeated, I told myself, standing up and stretching my hands behind my back. It was only your first few tries. You didn’t think you’d get this on your first few tries, did you?
After how easily the bolts had come to me those other times, yeah, I kind of did. But then, I’d been fueled with emotion—rage and desperation.
That was what was missing now. Emotion. I’d been so focused on the actual, physical magic that I hadn’t been thinking about anything going on inside of me.
If I was being honest with myself, there was a reason for that. Because if I gave in to the pain and anger, I was afraid it would consume me until I didn’t recognize myself anymore. Until I turned into the ruthless killer I feared I would become.
The Faerie Pawn (Dark World: The Faerie Games Book 2) Page 10