A tray of food was placed in front of us.
I stretched and my back cracked, making me wince. Axel and I had slept the whole night leaning against each other.
“Have you decided on a champion?” he asked, stepping back.
“Me,” I said before reaching forward to snatch a bread roll of the plate. I passed it to Axel and got myself one.
“Not you?” the man said, eyeing Axel, a broad smile on his lips.
Axel looked away, his jaw working the bread, a vein twitching against his forehead. He looked about ready to kill the guy.
“That’s a shame. I believe Valeria was looking forward to watching you compete in today’s games.”
Axel blushed and I wondered who this Valeria was.
“I rode on the back of her horse,” he said, staring down at the plate of food.
“Very well.” The man’s eyes gleamed. “I will enjoy watching you, Amber.”
“How do you know my name?”
His eyes skipped away guiltily, and he stepped back and motioned for a guard to lock the door. Perhaps he’d been spying on us last night. I looked at Axel, who was splitting the food into two piles and felt my cheeks heat as I recalled the way he’d lifted me off the ground and pressed me up against the wall.
It took my breath away to remember what it felt like, to have him pressed up against me like that.
“Are you all right?” Axel asked, and I realised that I’d gasped out loud.
My face burned even more and I reached out and grabbed a potato and bit into it.
“Someone will come for you and dress you before the games,” the man said through the barred window before he disappeared.
We ate in silence. Though I was hungry, I only ended up eating the potato and the one bread roll. I was too nervous. My mind kept conjuring up battles with gladiators swinging spiked medicine balls or sharp axes. Or being set upon by lions.
An hour later, they unlocked the door and dragged Axel out—it took four men to drag him away from me—before they threw him into the next cell with the others.
“Amber!” he shouted, his fists banging against the door.
A woman entered my cell and dressed me in a skin-tight black dress that dipped low at the front, revealing the space between my breasts.
“How am I supposed to fight in this?” I asked, but the girl remained silent, save for the secretive smile on her lips.
After she worked my hair with a waxy substance so that it was slicked back and away from my face, she began to do things to my face.
She patted on a cream coloured powder, which looked a little like mineral makeup. Then she took a tiny brush and dipped it in a thick, black paste and began to line my eyes.
Twenty or so minutes later, she nodded and grinned.
“Beautiful. I wish you well.”
“Thanks.”
Guards came and lead me up the stairs. The other cell had been silent when we passed.
“They are waiting in the amphitheatre,” said the man, smiling kindly. “You’re lucky to have arrived late yesterday. If you had arrived the night before last, you’d be facing the lions.”
I laughed nervously, thinking he was joking, but when he didn’t laugh, I realised that he was speaking the truth.
“What does the queen have planned for today?”
He paused in step and shook his head. “It’s best you don’t know.”
“Why?”
“Helps with the stage fright.”
We arrived at a double door and before he announced us, he leaned over and whispered. “I had a daughter like you, strong and tall and beautiful.” His eyes filmed over with tears. “Just remember that it’s not a game of skill, but a game of endurance.”
The door opened as she shouted, “Here!”
The drone of murmurs of a large crowd met my ears. There must have been thousands of people waiting to see us die.
The man ushered me towards a black curtain, were six other men and women stood, the women dressed just like me and the men in loose black trousers belted at the waist and bare chests.
Trumpets sounded and the curtains were drawn, revealing us to the massive crowd. There was no chance of spotting Axel or the others. I just had to hope they were out there, cheering me on, for whatever it was that I had to do.
The queen stood and the others knelt, but I didn’t. She wasn’t my queen.
She turned her head to stare me down, but said nothing. If anything, I thought her lips twisted into a smile.
“Today’s game is Dance Until Your Death,” she said with a serene smile.
Wait, did I just hear that right?
The men and woman beside me whispered, “Yes,” like a classroom full of kids who had just got the answers to their test right.
“Does she mean we dance until our—”
“Our deaths. Yes,” said a good-looking boy around my age.
Why was he smiling so much? Didn’t he realise how terrible this was?
“The victor gets a choice. A life of luxury or their freedom beyond the castle gates.”
Several guards stepped forward and strapped something heavy to our arms and legs. When they stepped away I raised my limbs and dropped them immediately. We’d been strapped with iron to weigh us down.
Music began, the soft, uplifting sound of a flute. The others began twirling around and making circles with their feet and moving their arms up and down elaborately. I wasn’t sure how they were able to do that with about ten kilos strapped to each limb. They must have practiced or trained for it.
A cold chill swept down my back. I was going to die here, on the stage. Dancing was not my strong point. But then I recalled what that guard had said.
“Just remember that it’s not a game of skill, but a game of endurance.”
I started to move my legs from side to side, swaying my hips only just so that it could pass for dancing. I knew what the guard meant. I needed to conserve my energy if I was going to survive. He must have lost his daughter this way.
While I moved I scanned the crowd for a familiar face but found nobody. My heart sank, but I had to focus. I had to keep moving and get into a zone.
For the next hour or so I moved from side to side, turning only when the guards prodded me with the red tipped metal prong they were poking at anyone who wasn’t dancing hard enough. But mostly I kept motivated by imagining what it would be like to see Sam again. To reach out and touch him. To talk to him again and hear his voice.
A decent amount of time must have passed because I was dragged out of my thoughts by two loud thuds.
A beautiful redheaded woman and a handsome, fair-haired man lay sprawled on their backs.
I was happy despite feeling bad for them, thinking I actually had a chance at winning this thing, when I saw two guards poke them with the sizzling hot pokers until they got to their feet and began dancing again.
Next, the three other contenders fell to the floor, one after the other.
My stomach churned sickly as the smell of charred flesh greeted my nostrils. My legs felt so heavy, my muscles stiff from too much dancing.
The crowd blurred before my eyes. It seemed darker now. There was less light. All I could see were the hot pokers heading towards me.
I felt dizzy and light and fell flat on my back.
I closed my eyes and I was back home again, and our house was ablaze.
Sam was screaming my name and I was at his door, staring at that brass knob of his bedroom door.
“It’s too hot!” I screamed as I tried and tried to wrap my hand around it.
“Try again, Amber!” Sam cried, his voice desperate. I could tell he was crying. “You can do it!”
I closed my eyes and wrapped my hands around the door knob and I screamed as I twisted it open.
But when I opened my eyes I wasn’t inside my house anymore. I was flat on my back, on the stage of the amphitheatre, holding a red hot poker in the palm of my hand.
I leapt to my feet, a sudden rage
infusing me with strength and I twisted that poker and yanked it out of the guard’s hand. I spun it around and caught the handle with my other hand and pointed the hot poker at the guard’s chest.
“Get away!” I shouted in the silence, and it was then I realised that I was the only one standing and the others were on the ground, weak with exhaustion.
The queen stood and nodded her head my way. “We have a new victor!”
The crowd erupted into deafening cheers.
My hand throbbed and I turned away from them and crouched down beside the girl nearest to me.
She murmured something about telling her mother that she loved her.
“You’ll tell her yourself,” I said.
The girl’s pretty eyes opened and her long lashes fluttered. She was so beautiful.
“This game is to the death.”
A guard came to drag the girl away.
“Where are you taking her?”
The others had already been taken.
“What’s happening?”
The guard who had helped me earlier came to my side.
“Hush. The queen will poison their wine tonight and they will be dead in the morning.”
It was outrageous.
I was about to ask him why he and the others, all the people of the kingdom, let this happen to the ones they loved, but the queen rose to her feet.
The crowd hushed.
“What will it be, victor? A life of luxury, beauty, and eternal youth—no, eternal life—for you and your companions, or your mortal freedom?”
It was so easy I nearly laughed. I didn’t want to live forever.
I just wanted my brother back.
“Freedom. For myself and for my friends.”
The queen nodded and laughed, then raised her hands to the heavens and everything around us, the amphitheatre, the guards, the crowds and the castle, fell away.
A blinding light forced me to close my eyes and when I felt that light dim, I opened my eyes to find myself surrounded by a beautiful garden.
And at the centre of the garden, stood a fat mountain spurting ash.
Volcano.
28
The queen had transformed into a pale skinned woman with long, grey hair and dark, black eyes.
“Where are we?” I asked as the volcano rumbled behind the woman.
The woman laughed. “Guess.”
“The Land of Resting Souls.”
She nodded. “That’s one name for it. But I prefer Death’s Garden.”
Birds called to each other, exotic ones I had never heard or seen before. Water babbled somewhere nearby.
“Where are my friends?”
The lady walked towards me.
“We are alone, you and I. And seeing as I am Leirza, I have the power to bring someone you love back to life. Do you want your friends back, or your long lost loved one who you cry for every night in your bed when you are alone?”
Tears filled my eyes.
“I want Sam back. But I want my friends too.”
She nodded.
“I understand, but did you know that for every life I bring back, I need eight lives to take its place? I can give you your brother, for their lives. Or I can give you your friends back.”
I shook my head. But it made sense now. So that was how the others in past groups of nine had died. They didn’t die during the journey. They died through sacrifice.
Tears trickled down my cheeks.
“I can’t give you my friends as a sacrifice,” I said. “I just can’t.”
“Are you sure? Are you certain you do not wish to have your brother back?”
I stared up at the starless night sky above us.
Sorry, Sam.
“I’m sure.”
She waved a hand and Axel, Bruce, Jacob, Reece, Claire, Rueben, Kyle, and Noah fell to the soft, mossy ground as though they’d dropped from the heavens.
They sat up and rubbed their heads as though they’d been knocked out.
“Amber?” Axel asked before scrambling to his feet. He stopped in his tracks when he saw Leirza.
“It’s her,” he whispered, his face turning pale.
Leirza waved a hand behind her and a wall of flames sprang up from the ground.
“Behind me is death’s gateway. In order for a soul to leave, another eight must replace it.”
Axel’s eyes widened.
“I didn’t know about this,” he said. He shook his head. I knew what he was thinking, that he was never going to bring his brother back. And I knew how much that realisation hurt.
I moved to stand beside him and he took my hand in his and squeezed it between his fingers.
“I hate to be the one to do this,” said Bruce as he came up behind me and Axel. “But I came to get my wife back. And I intend to do so.”
And with that he shoved us both forward, towards the flames. Axel managed to ground himself and elbowed Bruce in the face, but I tripped and went flying towards death’s gateway.
Just as my arms felt the heat of the flames, there was an almighty roar and a gust of wind that blew me sideways. And suddenly I felt something warm and wet nuzzle my neck and I found myself being lifted off the ground and away from the wall of flames.
“You came back!” I said as I dangled from the dragon’s jaws by my shirt collar.
It seemed to nod as it dove down and gently set me to my feet before landing herself, causing the earth to vibrate beneath our feet.
The dragon threw her head back and spewed flames into the sky before crouching by my side. “The emerald dragon,” said Leirza, her black eyes glowing red. “I want her.”
I slid my arms up around the dragon’s neck.
“You’re not getting my dragon. She’s not mine to bargain with. She is a free spirit.”
“But I will bring everybody’s loved one back to life, including that fool, King Cyril’s wife and your other friend, Bella’s lover, the handsome one. All I ask for return is your dragon. She is worth a thousand lives.”
“Amber, you must consider this,” said Bruce, his eyes wide and his hair sticking out in all directions.
I should hate him for trying to push Axel and me into the wall of flames, but I only felt a heavy sadness in my heart. He missed his wife, so badly that he was willing to do anything to get her back. He was willing to kill.
“The dragon isn’t real anyway, Amber,” said Rueben. “It’s just a figment of a dead soul’s imagination. Someone dreamed her up. So you wouldn’t really be killing her and we’d all get our loved ones back.”
I shook my head.
“No. I can’t do this to her.” Tears stung my eyes. “I want Sam back so much. I hate my life without him. My parents look at me every day with such disappointment in their eyes, like they wished that I’d burned in the fire and not Sam. Nobody likes me back home. Nobody believed me when I told them that I’d tried to save my brother.” I paused to suck in great gulps of breath and wipe at my eyes. “Life sucks without Sam.”
I slid my arms across the dragon’s back and caressed its emerald scales beneath my palm. A deep groan of contentment rumbled in its throat.
“But I can’t kill a beautiful living creature just to bring Sam back. I can’t do it.”
Bruce started lunging towards me, his eyes wild, but my dragon leapt between us and breathed a wall of fire, keeping Bruce away.
The dragon turned her head and met my gaze, her beautiful golden eyes staring at me unblinking, before she flapped her wings and dove straight through death’s gateway.
“No!” I screamed, and ran after it. Shocked at what had just happened.
Leirza stood in front of me, blocking my path.
“You witch! You horrible, horrible witch. You made her do this.” I grabbed the woman by her thin, bony arms and shook her hard. “How could you do that to her?”
The flames hissed and spat and I let go of Leirza to watch as ten shadows stepped out of the fire.
As they walked towards us, their bodies
of flames transformed into the faces and bodies of our dead loved ones. Except, they were now alive.
Alive.
Sam, who was cradling a small baby to his chest, walked over to a wide-eyed Claire first, and handed her the wriggling bundle. She stared down at the baby in her arms and burst into tears.
My brother turned to me and smiled then broke into a run. He wrapped his arms around me and swung me around in a circle before setting me to my feet.
“I’m alive, Amber,” he said, his eyes wide with disbelief. He stepped back and ran his hands up and across his body, squeezing his biceps and thighs, caressing his face.
I couldn’t believe it.
Sam. Was here. Right in front of me.
“You’re not scarred,” I said, touching his cheek. All this time, since I’d come to this place, I’d held a secret fear that I’d be bringing him home to Mum and Dad all scarred, his skin forever changed by the fire.
“No, child,” said Leirza. “He is returned whole.” Her eyes darkened. “Physically whole.”
I wanted to ask what she meant by “physically,” but Claire’s baby sister started to cry, her screams causing brightly coloured birds to flee the nearby trees and launch into the sky.
Axel stood, frozen, as a small curly-haired boy approached him. The boy stared up at Axel with wide blue eyes.
“Did you die too, Axel?”
Axel’s face crumpled with emotion and he knelt down so that he was eye level with the small boy.
“No. But you’re alive again, Rin,” he said, his lips trembling before he scooped the boy up into his arms and hugged him tight, burying his face in the boys neck.
Little Rin patted his brother’s shoulders and said, “Don’t cry, Axel. Let’s find mother so she can hug you and make you feel better.”
Tears flooded my eyes and continued to stream down my cheeks as I watched, with Sam by my side, as everyone was reunited with their loved ones.
I watched Jacob being embraced by his big father, who was an older version of Jacob in every way. Reece hugged his mum tight before moving to hug a tall, good-looking boy with jet black hair and dark good looks.
The Veiled World Page 23