Red Queen

A strongarm Rhambos to tear me apart, the Haven son who will disappear and choke me like a shadowed ghost, and Lord Osanos himself to drown Cal’s fire. Arven as well, I remind myself. He stands at the gate, his eyes never leaving my body.

Don’t forget the other two. The magnetrons.

It’s almost poetic, really. In matching armor, with matching scowls, Evangeline and Ptolemus stare us down, their fists bristling with long, cruel knives.

Somewhere in my head, a clock ticks, counting down. Not much time left.

Above us, Maven’s voice croaks out.

“Let them die.”

TWENTY-EIGHT

The shield explodes to life above us, a giant purple dome of veined glass like the one in the Spiral Garden. Not to protect us—but to protect the crowd. Sparks of lightning pulse through the monstrous ceiling, teasing me. Without Arven, the lightning would be mine and I could fight. I could show this world who I am. But that is not to be.

Cal shifts, putting out his arm. The air ripples around him, distorted by the waves of heat rolling off his body. He angles himself toward the others, protecting me.

“Stay behind me as long as you can,” he says, letting his own heat push me back. The flame maker sparks, and fire crackles between his fingers, growing up his arms. Something in his shirt keeps it from burning and the fabric doesn’t smoke away. “When they break through the wall, you’ll have to run. Evangeline’s weakest, but the strongarm’s slow. You can outrun him. They’ll try to drag this out, to make it a show.” Then softly, “They won’t let us die quickly.”

“What about you? Osanos will—”

“Let me worry about Osanos.”

The executioners move steadily, like wolves stalking prey. They spread out across the middle of the arena, each one ready to advance. Somewhere, metal scrapes and a piece of the arena floor slides away, revealing a sloshing pool of water at Lord Osanos’s feet. He smiles, drawing the water up to him in a menacing shield. I remember his daughter Tirana dueling Maven in Training. She destroyed him.

All around, the crowd jeers. Ptolemus roars with them, letting his famed temper take over. He smacks at his armor, ringing it like a bell. At his side, Evangeline spins her knives, sliding them over her knuckles with a grin.

“This won’t be like before, Red,” she crows. “No tricks can save you now.”

Tricks. Evangeline knows my abilities better than most; she knows they weren’t tricks. But she believes. She ignores the truth for something easier to understand.

The Haven son, Stralian, grins to himself. Like his sister Elane, he is a shadow. When he flickers out of being, disappearing in the bright sunlight, Cal moves faster than I thought possible, swinging out his arm in a wide arc like he’s throwing a haymaker punch.

A roar of flame follows his arm, burning up the sand, separating us from them. But the fire is surprisingly weak. The sand will barely burn.

I can’t stop myself from glancing back at Maven, wanting to scream at him, only to find he’s still staring at me with that insufferable crooked smirk. Not only has he taken away my abilities but he’s limiting Cal as much as he can.

“Bastard,” I curse under my breath. “The sand—”

“I know,” Cal snaps, igniting more bits of the ground with a wave of his hand.

Directly across from us, the line of flame separates for a second, followed closely by a bitter scream of pain. On the other side of the dying fire, Stralian fades back into sight, batting flames from his arms. Osanos douses him with a lazy gesture, putting out the fire with a wave of water. Then he turns his startling blue eyes on us, on Cal’s wall, and in a single motion, draws water across the weak fire like a lapping wave. The water hisses and spits, flash-boiling into thick clouds of steam. Trapped by the glass dome, the steam settles through the arena, shrouding us in a ghostly white fog. It swirls and spins, enveloping us in a white world where every shadow could be our doom.

“Be ready!” Cal shouts, a hand reaching for me, but Ptolemus charges out of the steam in a roar of flesh and steel.

He hits Cal around the middle, knocking him to the ground, but Cal doesn’t stay down long enough for Ptolemus to stab out with his knives. The blades dig into the ground seconds after Cal leaps, his hands on Ptolemus’s armor. The steel melts beneath his touch, drawing a scream from the berserker. I can only run as Cal tries to cook a man in his own armor.

“I don’t want to kill you, Ptolemus,” Cal says through the screams of pain. Every knife, every shard of metal Ptolemus raises to stab Cal melts away from his intense heat. “I don’t want to do this.”

Three sparkling blades cut through the steam, barely flashing blurs. Too fast to melt in midair. They hit Cal’s back, stinging through his shirt before melting away. He yells in pain, losing focus for a second as three spots of silverblood stain his shirt. The knives were too small to cut deep, but they weaken him still. Ptolemus takes his chance and in the blink of an eye, his knives meld into a single monstrous sword. He slashes, meaning to slice Cal in two, but he dodges in time, earning a scratch across the belly.

Still alive. But not for long.

Evangeline appears through the steam, knives swirling around in a glinting display. Cal dips and dodges her blades, throwing blasts of fire to knock her off course. He duels them both, hitting an insane rhythm that allows him to fight off two magnetrons, despite their strength and power. But blood stains his clothes and new wounds appear with every passing second. Ptolemus’s weapon shifts, from a sword to an ax to a razor-thin metal whip, while Evangeline’s jagged stars keep biting. They’re wearing him down. Slowly but surely.

My lightning, I think mournfully, looking back to Arven at our gate. He’s still there, a black presence to haunt me. A gun hangs at his waist; I can’t even try to fight him. I can’t do anything.

When a massive chunk of concrete sails out of the steam, heading directly for me, I barely have time to dodge. It shatters against the sand where I stood seconds ago, but before I have time to think, another comes hunting, howling through the air. The sky is raining concrete down on me. Like Cal, I find my rhythm, scurrying through the sand like a rat, until something stops me short.

A hand. An invisible hand.

Stralian’s grip closes on my throat, choking me. I can hear him breathing in my ear, though I can’t see him. “Red and dead,” he growls, tightening his hand.

My arm swings out, digging an elbow into what I suppose are his ribs, but he holds firm. I can’t breathe and black spots dot my vision, threatening to spread, but I keep fighting. Through the haze, I can see the Rhambos strongarm prowling, his eyes locked on me. He’ll pull me apart.

Cal still fights the Samos siblings, doing his best not to get stabbed. I can’t scream for him even if I wanted to, but somehow he manages to throw a fireball my way. Rhambos has to jump back, stumbling on his massive feet, buying me a few more seconds. Gasping, choking, I dig my nails back, reaching for a head I cannot see. It’s a miracle when I feel his face and then his eyes. With a gasping scream, I dig in, thumbs to his eye sockets, blinding him. Stralian roars, letting go of me. He falls to his knees, flickering back into being. Silverblood trails from his eyes like mirrored tears.

“You were supposed to be mine!” a voice screams, and I turn to see Evangeline standing over Cal, her blade raised. Ptolemus has wrestled Cal to the ground, the two of them rolling through the sand with Evangeline haunting over them, her knives peppering the ground around him. “Mine!”