Lexa
No one wakes me up. Hot midday sunlight spills through the window, barely muffled by the curtain. It’s definitely past noon when I roll myself out of bed, out of the coarse, woven sheets and onto the hard but freshly swept floor.
Something inside me shifted yesterday. Something cold and gnawing I’ve been struggling with since I was young. It’s easy to forget that I’m still a person beyond the weapons and my skills in battle, but when I look in the rusted mirror hanging on the wall by the bed, tugging the strings that pull my shifting dress into shape, I see her. Me. Just Lexa.
Lexa, who watched her mother prime and fire that arrow that didn’t make it in time. Lexa, who watched a man she cared about–maybe even a man she could have grown to love–grovel for her affection before seeing him get cut down in cold blood. Lexa, who worries about her friends more than anything else. A daughter, a sister, a friend.
A fucking princess.
I untangle the strands of my hair with my fingers before roughly braiding it. I adjust and readjust the straps and loops on my dress until it fits like a glove, every seam and stitch painstakingly in place.
It’s been over a week since the Culling that determined my fate. A week of training, of trying to prove myself worthy of these games to Kaleb.
I wonder what he’s thinking right now as the sun inches back toward the horizon.
Lis isn’t in the kitchen when I come downstairs. I’m not hungry anyway. I doubt I’d be able to eat if I tried. My mind is locked and honed on the task at hand–staying calm. Staying collected. Keeping my head on straight, and more importantly, secured to my shoulders.
Around 3:00 in the afternoon, Kaleb arrives in silence. He glances at my dress but doesn’t say a word even though he sets the pile of leather armor he had made for me on the kitchen table and turns to leave the house again. I silently follow, but we don’t turn to the castle.
“Where are we going?” I ask over the quieter than usual hum in the Glade as we walk side by side into what these people call the pit–the incline down to the far gate to the outside world. Stone staircases weave between buildings and shops as I follow him deep down to a long stretch of open dirt along the wall–stained black from the funerals last week after the Culling.
Kaleb stops in front of the scorched wall, his arms crossed protectively over his chest. “Do you know why I brought you down here?”
I roll my lower lip between my teeth to try to bite back my snide comment, but it slips out anyway. “To remind me that my body could easily be added to the ash beneath our feet if I don’t heed your training advice?”
“No.” He purses his lips to hide a smile, but I can see it, just there, on the corner of his mouth. In another life, another time, he would have been… fun. One of those guys who took everything so seriously–competitive, assertive–maybe he would have played sports or been the Alpha of a small, rural pack like my parents. If he had freedom to be himself, that is.
We’re a lot alike in that way. I’ve been told on multiple occasions that I’m too competitive for my own good.
“I want you,” he says slowly, choosing his words like he’s fanning over the weapons cache at the sparring ring, “to decide why you’re fighting today, and tell it to our ancestors.”
I arch a brow. “Are you finally admitting that I’m not a liar, and we share a culture?”
“I’m aware that Eastonia is real, yes, and that you’re from the tribes. There’s an ocean between us culturally, however, but it’s not enough space to diminish the fact that you pray to the same Goddess, and our people share beliefs. So, say it. Say why you’re fighting. Make it an offering to Her and everyone who came, and failed, before you.”
I turn to the wall, to the coat of soot covering the thick, impenetrable iron, I believe, based on the years of decay and rust chipping away at its surface.
But then I turn to the city behind me–a city of shifters who can’t access their wolves or any of the gifts that come with it.
“Can any of you feel the mate bond?”
“No. Not unless the king allows it. Every few years or so, he’ll lift his magic and mate bonds snap into place but… usually, by then, people have coupled and started families. It causes issues for the pack, which is exactly why he does it that way. It keeps us in chaos.” He relaxes his arms to his sides, angling his body toward mine. “I’m under the impression you lost your mate during the battle when you were taken.”
I startle, turning in his direction.
He licks his lower lip, squinting into the glare of the sun. “I may have overheard you talking to Chessie about someone named Austin, and I could sense you didn’t want to continue the conversation, so I stepped into the room.”
I run a hand over my face. “I–I don’t have a mate. At least–Austin and I–I didn’t think it was that serious, but he–before he died, we’d been…. Why am I telling you any of this?”
“If you need to get something off your chest before the game today, now is the time to do it.”
I huff a breath. He’s not wrong about relieving myself of some of the guilt I’ve been carrying about Austin’s death, and weeks from now, Kaleb will be history–a stranger–a hopefully fading memory while I carry on my life in Eastonia. “He told me we were mates, but I didn’t feel it. I enjoyed his company, yes. I had a crush on him. I liked him. But when he said we were mates, it just tripped something in my mind. I didn’t get a chance to process it as it stands because he died protecting me and Chessie.” I look down at my hand, curling my fingers into a fist. “I don’t know if we were mates. I’ll never know now.”
“That’s stupid.”
“What?”
He shrugs, a very casual, very male gesture that would have made my skin crawl had it not been him, for some odd reason. “How long have you been able to shift?”
“I came into my wolf early. Sixteen or seventeen.”
“You’d know immediately if you’d found your mate. It wasn’t him, so leave that behind. You can grieve, feel guilt over his untimely death, but don’t be concerned about the fact you didn’t feel a bond that wasn’t there.”
“Then why would he say I was his mate?” I growl, and Kaleb looks down at me like that’s the dumbest question anyone has ever asked him.
“Because what you had to offer to him is far greater than anything he could have offered you. You are magnificent. Any man can take a single look at you and see plainly what you can add to their bloodline.”
I scoff despite the sudden warmth spreading through me. Magnificent? He thinks I’m… magnificent?
He smiles a sideways, cocky grin that immediately has my hackles raised and reminds of the tidbit he added to what could have been a very nice compliment, if he actually meant it.
“You bastard!”
“Save that energy for the arena, Lexa.”
A horn blares in the distance, followed by an unnerving kind of silence that creeps over my body like a million little bugs. I shiver, and he looks toward the far wall, where the palace rises, casting the Glade in its shadow.
***
The inner sanctum of the arena is sickeningly quiet compared to the snarling, screaming carnage taking place in the arena itself.
Kaleb crouches in front of me, tying the leather laces of my sandals tight against my calves while I watch the end of the second round over the top of his head. Blood already coats the hot, red dirt. Steam rises from crimson puddles while the two remaining victors battle to the death against a particularly vicious hellhound, I believe. It’s a type of beast I’ve seen before. Hellhounds are rare now in Eastonia, but there’s still a few that roam the Deadlands, forever tethered to their long-dead witches. I’ve never seen a decaying rogue in real life, however. My parents helped eradicate those undead beasts when I was a child, but here, in the arena, they’re massive and gangly–gray skin falling from bones that click together with each step.
I keep my eyes wide, watching the two victors fight. Both can leave the arena once the last beast is dead. During the first round, three victors out of five advanced to whatever hell awaits us next. This round will have two now that the hellhound is falling on its side, its flesh melting into flakes of ash. I draw in a breath. Their victory is drowned out by thunderous applause.
My round is next.
Kaleb rises, using my shoulder for support. His touch is welcome, especially as he squeezes the tension from my shoulder and turns to Silas, who’s hurrying in our direction.
But Silas is alone.
I blink up at him from my stool. Kaleb stiffens when Silas comes into full view, stepping into the glare of hazy sunlight pouring through the slated entrances to the bowels of the arena where we’ve been waiting.
“Where’s Chessie?” I ask, the words falling from my tongue, which feels thick and heavy as his expression–knotted with worry–comes into startling focus. I rise, my fingers curled into fists.
Silas takes a moment to collect himself before saying, “There’s been a change.” The horn ending the round of the trial blares, swallowing his words. “Lexa is no longer fighting in the third round. She’s in the last round of the Beast Trial. The fourth.”
Kaleb turns away from us, running his fingers through his hair. Stress pours from him–I can feel it, sense his sudden, striking anxiety right in the dead center of my chest.
“But Chessie and Meg will be fighting in the third round together,” Silas confirms. “Chessie’s ready, Lexa. She’s going to be fine.”
“I know. She’s a skilled hunter. A better hunter than a warrior, I admit.” I close my eyes and send a brief, but desperate, prayer to the Goddess. “Meg will have her back. They were trained for this.”
“Why aren’t you with her now?” Kaleb asks.
Silas shakes his head. “The guards rounded up the victors for the third round only moments ago. That’s how I found out Meg was replacing Lexa in this round.”
“This should have been discussed with me.” Kaleb snarls, and I bristle at his tone. Even Silas flinches.
“The king decided it.”
“Of course, he did.” Kaleb growls, each syllable dripping with acid.
Something’s up. I can tell by the look on their faces that there’s something about the fourth and final round of these games that’s different from the rest.
“Did you fight in the fourth round?” I ask him.
He turns to me as the next horn blares, and the third round begins. His eyes tell me everything I need to know but that he can’t say.
Yes, he did.
Yes, I’m right. There’s something different about this next round.
No, there’s nothing we can do to change it now.
The three of us move to the bars overlooking the arena, where several more decaying rogues race onto the dirt, kicking up dust. Two hellhounds follow, bellowing their siren songs–the almost human voices ravaged by magic and time. The victors sprint toward a weapons cache, but not fast enough for some. It’s horrible. It’s absolutely horrendous.
Blood sprays almost immediately, but Meg and Chessie do exactly what they were taught to do. Not by me, but by the best hunter and beast killer the Deadlands has ever seen.
My mother.
I watch them shift between their human and wolf forms effortlessly, cutting down rogue after rogue. The hellhounds move in, and they’re much harder to kill, but together, working in tandem, both women make it through without a scratch.
My chest tightens with mingled thanks and unease as the final rogue takes down the last man standing–a halfling, I believe–leaving only Meg and Chessie in the ring. It’s nearly over in a matter of minutes.
“Come on,” I beg, gripping the iron bars preventing me from moving into the arena like my body wants me to. “Just one more. Just one more.”
Chessie gets the kill shot, using a blade only as long and wide as her forearm to cut through its neck. Hot black blood scatters over the arena as she turns with a bright, deliriously happy smile stretching across her face. “WE DID IT!”
Her words cut out like a staunched flame as the rogue falls onto its side.
I feel my soul leave my body, a scream ripping from my throat as Meg swings a sword, slashing Chessie across the middle.
Chessie falls to her knees, her hand outstretched to Meg, reaching for mercy, for her friend since toddlerhood.
I scream again when Meg brings the sword down one last time, and ends the round as the true last victor standing.
Alone.