Lexa
Meg groans as I wrap a length of leather torn from my dress around her mangled upper arm. Chessie kneels nearby, tearing into her dress, dried blood crinkling off her knuckles in crimson flakes. She hands me another length of leather, but her eyes tell me the truth of the matter. Meg’s in bad shape.
She closes her eyes, leaning her head against the grimy wall of the room we were thrown into several hours ago, but we’re together, at least.
“She needs to eat something,” Chessie whispers over the soft hum of the battle taking place above our heads. Another Culling. Sixteen so far, not including ours. The rounds take mere minutes to complete. Only five or six hours have passed, I’d guess, since our round ended.
No one has come to see us, to feed us or give us water. No medical supplies have been offered. We’ve been alone, trying to stop Meg from bleeding out.
I shake my head at Chessie with a sigh. “There’s nothing we can do as it stands.” I glance at the heavy wooden door blocking our view of what I believe is some kind of holding facility in the bowels of the arena. It’s cleaner than the cell from this morning, which is a blessing. Still, Meg needs a healer as soon as possible.
We’ve had time to talk, though. To establish the series of events that led us here and what to do now. Meg and Chessie have both looked to me for direction, and I’ve done my best. I’m a warrior. A leader. I know when to fight and when to cede, and right now, we’re resting, conserving what energy we have while we wait for this to play out.
Escape isn’t an option. We tried that already. My nails are cracked and bloody from trying to pry open the door and knock stones from the walls. Our bodies are broken and worn. We’re starving, thirsty, and covered in stinking dried blood.
Our escape will come, but not now, not when Meg is on the verge of passing out.
“Listen,” Chessie says, looking up at the ceiling. The room rumbles, vibrating violently. “The platforms are lowering again. This round is over.”
Seventeen rounds. Seventeen victors.
Twenty, counting us.
I rub my swollen hands over my face, scrubbing fatigue from my eyes. I’ve been pondering the reasoning behind keeping the three of us alive, breaking the rules the king laid out before our game began. I keep thinking of the man I killed on the platform and his damning words. He was right, I suppose. We’re the entertainment.
And the crowd roared the loudest during our round. The other rounds have been quiet in comparison.
Heavy footfalls finally echo toward our holding cell. I throw a sharp look at Chessie, a silent command since none of us can communicate through the mind-link as it stands, and she quickly obeys by moving behind me, situating herself in front of Meg.
I rise from the floor, posed to strike, as the door opens, and six guards appear–all fae, all dressed finely, all carrying short blades along their belts.
They move into the room with silent determination. I shove two back as they grip my arms, but it’s no use. I’m weak as it stands. Hungry. Tired. Chessie grunts in protest as she’s dragged to her feet, but the second one of the guards grabs Meg by the hair after she refuses to stand, my lips part to shout for him to let her go.
But another guard beats me to it, rattling off a sharp command in a language I don’t understand. He motions wildly with his hands to the other guards, and suddenly, the grip on my arms loosens, and I watch in confusion as Meg is carefully lifted off the floor.
Chessie’s green eyes shine with unease as we’re led into a hallway with high ceilings and crude infrastructure. Chains and pipes stretch above our heads. The crowd noise dims, and the footsteps of the guards create the only sound–footfalls echoing into the metal rafters. A large, open space expands around us, and I turn my head toward the last inklings of sunlight stretching toward us through a wide entrance to the arena itself. People are out on the dirt–workers, I realize with a start–dragging blooded bodies into a pile.
My heart beats once, then twice, out of rhythm before returning to normal. I swallow my shock, fear, and nerves. I keep them locked up tight, tilting my chin. We’re herded through one door, then another, and up several dimly lit stairwells. The narrow stone hallways lead into well-lit corridors painted in shades of beige, which transition into ornate spaces with stonework and wallpaper, similarly fashioned like the palace in Moonrise. Wealth drips from crystal sconces and scents the air with fresh linen–a far cry from the mildew and blood I’ve been inhaling all day.
Another string of unintelligible words fills the hallway, and the guards break formation. I startle when Chessie is led down a different hallway, jerking in her direction, but my attempt to get to her is quickly corrected. Meg is gone. I have no idea where they took her, but I’m given a sharp, determined shove as an order to keep moving, and I have no choice but to heed that command.
My heart rate skyrockets as the hallway drags on and on, but eventually I’m led through a door and into some kind of suite.
A trio of fae women in starched gray robes blink at me before turning to the guards behind me, who give them commands, I assume, in the language I can’t keep up with. The grip on my arms gives way. The women move forward, replacing the guards’ hands, and I’m ushered into an enormous bathroom where a tub is already running, the water casting steam toward the tiled ceiling.
My dress is peeled away by long, pale fingers. The women’s voices are soft and bright as they rattle on in their native tongue, but I’m just staring at my body in the mirror, at the bruises, at the wounds that’ll leave new scars. I keep staring at my reflection until they dump a bucket of hot, soapy water over my head. It burns into every gash, every scrape and scratch. Three more buckets follow until I’m deemed clean enough to be herded into the bath–which is more like a pool. I sink into the hot, soapy, heavily perfumed water, but my eyes remain on the drain in the center of the completely tiled room, watching red water swirl, gurgling into the abyss.
This must be where the victors go after the Culling. Into suites to bathe, to have blood and filth scrubbed from their skin and hair, just like me.
One woman viciously scrubs my filthy hair before combing through my tangles with her fingers. She’s not gentle, but I don’t flinch. I stay perfectly still, allowing another to trim my cracked nails before scrubbing them clean. The third woman stands in wait, two towels draped over her forearm. I look at her, and she meets my gaze, holding it, the corners of her mouth remaining a flat, narrow line.
I can’t tell how old they are. Very young, I would guess. Likely my age. No wrinkles mark the years of their lives beside their eyes. No freckles show how many summers have passed. But they carry themselves like experienced women–like my mother, and my many aunts, who are all in their forties.
I’m ushered out of the bath where they rub me down with towels and force me into a robe before moving back into the suite, planting me on a stool in the center of the room and beginning the long, arduous task of trying to tame my hair.
“Good fucking luck,” I murmur in my native tongue, which elicits sideways glances between the women.
My stomach growls repeatedly, but no food or drink is offered. I’m lotioned, oiled, and roughly squeezed into a plain, homespun shirt and matching pants the color of dark sand. The women titter over my feet like they’re debating giving me shoes and decide against it at the very moment the door to the suite opens, and four guards shuffle into the room, their leader’s voice booming in that strange, musical language, and I’m off again.
The wounds on my arms and legs sting, unmended. Not even a swipe of ointment was given to aid the healing. Yet, I’ve been scrubbed raw and given clean clothes. My hair falls loose over my back and shoulders–shockingly clean–twisting into a wild, voluminous burst of tight waves, coils, and uneven curls–a mess of patterns I usually tame with braids or clips, but right now, I’m at my rawest.
I realize, as the hallway bleeds into a wide, ornate grand foyer in shades of white and opalescent blue, why I wasn’t healed or fed or even given a moment to rest. Those things don’t matter. I’m being served on a silver dish to the king like something for him to gaze upon, a shiny new trophy to add to his collection. I am a piece on a chessboard, a cog in the wheel.
My hunger doesn’t matter. The likelihood my wounds will fester with disease doesn’t matter.
I won my round of his sick, twisted game.
But the game isn’t over.
Voices drift from a ballroom of sorts on the second floor. I’m herded inside, where several dozen men–all fae, all draped in rich robes and other finery–are mingling, but it’s the group of people dressed like me–rubbed raw and exhausted like me–standing in the center of the room that snatch my attention.
Chessie and Meg are standing far apart, several men between them. Meg looks better than before but still slightly gray as I meet her eyes. The column of her throat bobs as she swallows, giving me a tight nod. Chessie doesn’t look much better. Her eyes are wide and round as her gaze slips from my face to scan the room, locking on the dozens of sets of wings. Wings tucked in tight, wings relaxed. Wings, wings, wings…
I’m shoved into the line of what I realize are the victors, and I’m the last to arrive. I turn to the long table behind me where the king is standing just behind it, scanning the crowd.
But it’s the blond man at his side that has a scream dying in my throat.
Hannibal Arachnis leans toward the king to whisper something in his ear. My skin prickles with gooseflesh as the detailed image painted by Maeve, Blake, and Soren comes to mind. His nearly white eyes. His unnatural height. His spidery leanness…. Yes, this is him.
The thought of Blake has me turning back to the room at large like he’s suddenly going to appear. It sends a note of unease through me to think about what he’d done in Moonrise, the chaos he caused, and for what? Why?
Had he known about this?
I turn back to the man who brutally tortured my cousin, but his eyes scan the line of victors–twenty of us, I was right–and pass right by me without pausing. He doesn’t know about the relationship I have with Blake, but things are starting to fall into place.
These beings came to the Deadlands and stole me away to play in these games.
But where, exactly, am I?
The king raises his hands, a motion that commands silence, and silence follows. A shift floods through the crowd as fae nobles, I assume, turn to face their leader. I follow suit, glancing down the line at Meg and Chessie before facing forward, ignoring the men on either side of me.
A few males step up to the table, greeting their king with short bobs of their heads or little smiles–strange, I think. They must be friends, I believe, because of how casual this all seems. They’re all young. Some show signs of the beginnings of middle age, but that’s it.
The king says something to the crowd at large that’s immediately repeated in the Dead Tongue by a man standing off the end of the table. He’s a guard, I presume, based on his clothes.
“What a fine Culling today. An interesting Culling, I’d say, based on that fact we have twenty victors this year–our largest yet.” The translator pauses to allow the king to continue in his native tongue then says, “Now it is time to choose your victors. All sponsors, please, if you haven’t already come to the table, do so now.”
There’s more shuffling in the crowd. Men gather, talking in low tones, their bodies blocking out their king as they negotiate. Plotting with each other.
Scheming over who gets whom.
After almost twenty minutes, my tired, starving body ready to give way, the men turn to us with hungry, excited eyes, but only one of them looks at me. He’s not fae. I’m not sure how I didn’t notice him standing at the table before, toward the far end, alone. Golden brown hair shimmers in the chandelier light, and his eyes are nearly the same color–a rich hazel. He’s tall and strong, yes, but more built than the fae males around him. No wings. Large hands. A wolfish gaze that cuts into mine.
I stand a little straighter.
He’s a shifter. Like me. Just a shifter.