Kaleb
I rush through the chaotic swell of guards scrambling to access the arena, pushing and shoving my way through the fray. Silas shouts my name, but I ignore him as the dragon breaks free of its chains and soars into the sky, bellowing a roar that shakes the entire city.
I catch a glimpse of Lexa. She falls to her knees, and blaring bright lights fill the arena.
Guards with swords and spears race for her as the gates to the arena open, allowing them access, but I run faster, breathless, skirting around the open pit and over puddles of blood until I reach her side.
She moans, curling into herself as she succumbs to what I know is shock. Shock from the games, from the dragon, from the physical and mental agony of entertaining the crowd above, which is now being hastily dispersed.
Shock from watching her friend get executed by someone she loved and trusted.
Her cheek is ice cold against my palm.
But the guards are closing in. I scoop her into my arms and back against the wall as weapons point in our direction.
“Put her down, by order of the king!” shouts a guard in his heavy armor and mask.
“Fuck off! She won! This round is over!” I shout, clutching her to my chest as she trembles, unable to open her eyes past slits.
The guards part as the king himself stalks in my direction, followed by several sponsors and trainers, everyone arguing behind him, but most in awe of what just happened.
Silas, pale and drawn, stands toward the back of the crowd, his eyes locked on mine–grim. Empty, but curious, like there’s a single sliver of life left in him.
“Enough!” the king shouts, rage lacing through the word. “Set her down, Kaleb. Allow the guards to finish the job so we can move on–”
“No,” I snarl, and the king’s eyes widen. “She won this round. She will move on to the next.”
Several of the sponsors shift from foot to foot, nervously awaiting the king’s reply, but the king scowls as he looks from me to the night sky above our heads, that scowl deepening to something murderous.
“She was supposed to kill that beast, not free it!”
“The rules of the Beast Trial state,” Silas says with restraint, stepping through the crowd, “that the round is over when the last beast is gone. The dragon is… gone. Just in a more unorthodox way–”
“Gone doesn’t necessarily mean dead,” agrees one of the sponsors, but the king whips around to Silas, glaring.
Silas raises his hands in a show of surrender but adds, “The rules are ancient and are to be followed. They don’t explicitly say–”
“I know what the rules say!” the king shouts, furious. He grits his teeth, panting with rage, and turns back to me and Lexa. “I will kill her myself if she pulls another stunt like that. Keep your victor on a tight leash, halfling. I will not be so merciful again.” With a swish of his cloak, he stalks back across the arena, shoving a guard out of his way. His wings expand with each step, but he doesn’t fly off, not yet at least.
The other sponsors linger for a few seconds before scurrying back to their victors or the bodies left behind by the game, but Silas remains.
“You need to get her out of here,” Silas says shakily. “Take her back to the Glade, now.”
“Are you all right?”
Silas’s mouth moves, but no words come out. He looks down at his fine, polished leather shoes–stained with blood. His cloak, too, is stained crimson in the shape of the woman he carefully carried out of the arena, clutching her like a child. I’d seen it. Seen him walk off with Chessie in his arms while Lexa’s round began, his warrior’s golden curls cascading over the crook of his arm while he stifled sobs.
“I–I don’t know how to notify her family,” he says gravely. “I can’t.” He runs his fingers through his hair, looking entirely undone.
“I told you not to get attached.”
His eyes meet mine in the bright haze of artificial fae-lights. He chuckles darkly, looking suddenly furious but keeping it contained. “You don’t know the half of it, Kaleb. Go home. Do not leave the Glade unless I call for you directly.”
“A lock of her hair,” I say into the silence settling over the arena.
Silas stops, his back to me, and slowly turns.
“I need a lock of Chessie’s hair. We’ll build a pyre for her in the Glade. We’ll hold a funeral.”
“I cannot turn over her body to the Glade. It’s against the rules as her sponsor. I’m responsible for–for that.”
“A lock of her hair is all we need.” I adjust Lexa’s weight in my arms. I wonder how much she can hear, how aware she is currently. “That’s it. She was from the tribes. We’ll do it our way.”
Silas nods, but his eyes are so heavy and sad that it makes my chest tighten.
He walks away, his cloak billowing out behind him in the warm, still night.
***
Chastan leans his back against the wall in the hallway outside Lexa’s bedroom. Warm lamplight casts us both in shades of amber while Lis rises from her knees at Lexa’s bedside. I feel Chastan’s gaze on my cheek, but I can’t draw my eyes away from the hand Lis rests on Lexa’s bare shoulder.
It’s hard to describe the last hour. I stood outside the gates of the Glade with Lexa in my arms while the guards–fae guards–allowed us entrance into the slice of kingdom I rule. Once inside… I was unprepared for the quiet reception that followed. My people filled their doorways, windows, and the narrow streets, some holding candles, others bowing their heads in silent solidarity. But it was the women who stepped out of their homes to bless Lexa as we passed that made me grip her harder, like I was trying to just… keep her here. Keep her safe in my arms. Bringing her home. Silent, gentle touches. Whispers prayers.
“We all saw the dragon,” Chastan says quietly beside me, swallowing hard. “It flew right over the Glade.”
“Find Colin and Avery and have them start a new pyre tomorrow morning.”
Chastan turns to look at me.
“Something big. It’s for one of our own.”
I know word has already spread about the games, the deaths, and Lexa’s triumph. My people knew three shifters, three women, had ascended past the Culling, one of them our victor. And tonight, our champion. They’ll honor the wolf that didn’t make it out of the arena even if I didn’t make the command for a funeral.
Lis moves into the hallway on silent feet, closing the door just a crack. “She’s not badly injured. A few scrapes and bruises. Her right arm is a bit swollen, but that could be anything. Morning will tell.”
“Thank you, Lis,” I murmur, and she bows her head as Chastan guides her down the hallway and down the stairs, where they have their own quarters just off the kitchen.
Lexa isn’t asleep when I ease onto the side of her bed. She’s seated and staring at the far wall, at the hazy, aged windows and the glow of the lights along the wall beyond.
I don’t know why I do it, but I reach for her–this girl. This woman. This she-wolf with a body like iron and a brain as sharp as the finest of blades. A woman who cannot remain in a cage. A woman who freed a dragon today, when I’d killed one during my own games, even though every fiber of my being told me I was making the wrong choice.
Lexa stared death in the face countless times today.
She didn’t need training, not like we’ve been doing for the past week or so. No, it’s the aftermath she wasn’t ready for, but I don’t know how to teach her this.
“Did you kill the dragon in your games?” she asks, her face half buried in her pillow.
“I did.”
“Did it talk to you?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Did you shift?”
I take a breath as she curls deeper into herself. My hand rests on the slope of her thigh, but she doesn’t pull away. She seems to sink into the touch instead. “I didn’t have a chance. I’m sure you felt it in the arena tonight, but being robbed of your wolf abilities for even a short period of time makes them… unstable. Unsteady. I couldn’t risk it.”
“What’s next, then?”
“It’s hard to say. The games change. Normally there are fifty years between the Trials, sometimes longer, so the games being repetitive wouldn’t matter much, but this is different. It could be anything. The king will announce the next match in a few days, I assume. We’ll know then.”
She’s silent for several seconds, and beyond the window, the lights along the wall flicker as clouds move in, promising much needed rain, I hope. It’s been ages since it’s rained.
“I promised her we’d make it home,” she whispers, and when I turn to her, I notice tears staining the pillow.
“You’ll make it home to tell her story.” I squeeze her thigh. She’s softer than I thought she’d be, and something deep within my chest tugs at the knowledge–something warm and hard to ignore, but I try. I have to try.
“Do you think Silas loved her?”
I close my eyes at the thought of my brother. “I do.”
“Like really loved her? The way she talked about him and how kind he was to her, it felt–Chessie’s always been a romantic, and I hope that maybe, somehow she got a taste of that with him, at least, before she–she–” The words fall apart into a tangled exhale, like she’s trying her hardest not to sob.
“I believe he did love her. Silas is a good man. He always has been. When my sister–” I grit my teeth as Alice’s memory comes sweeping into existence. It’s painful to think about her, even after ten years without her presence in this house. “When my sister died, Silas took care of everything. Tried to save the baby, tried to save her. She was as comfortable as she could have been when she went to the Goddess, and he didn’t have to do that for her. She was a shifter. Their only relation was me. I was also their only connection.”
She peaks over the blanket, her eyes, glossy with tears, are all that’s visible. “Will you tell me about her?”
I adjust my position on the bed, leaning over her, resting my elbow between the curve of her belly and thighs. It’s dark in the room, with only the light shining from the top of the wall in the distance illuminating the sharp angles of her face, her cheekbones, her button nose, and her freckles that remind me of the stars.
“Alice was older than me by ten years or so. She was nearly my age now when she died, and she wasn’t very nice. She was nice to me but not to others. She dominated every circle, every crowd, and she was beautiful.” I pick at the frays in the woven blanket separating us. “My father was the Alpha of our pack before I combined the packs of the Glade into one after my Trials, and he was rarely home. I never knew his wife, Alice’s mother, and Alice was the one who raised me after I was born and brought to the Glade. When I was nineteen, there were whispers of upcoming Trials in the fae cities. Alice knew, based on the fact I was a halfling and of age to participate, that I’d likely be chosen to compete in the Culling, and that’s almost always a death sentence.”
Lexa draws her legs in, brushing my arm, as her body tightens. I know this is the story she wants, even though it’s the story I’ve yet to tell anyone out loud. Maybe it’s the Goddess’s will tonight. Lexa deserves a piece of me for everything she’s done tonight, even if she doesn’t understand the significance of her actions yet.
“Alice often worked in the house of a high fae nobleman and his family as a laundress, and she never admitted it, but I believe she offered herself to her master in an effort to keep me out of the Culling. It didn’t work, and as the months passed, and the Culling grew closer, it was obvious she was with child. My father was furious, flew into a blind rage and killed several fae guards who’d ventured beyond the gates, and he was put to death for it.” I lick my lips, closing my eyes as those months spiral into full color. “I became Alpha. Alice died in childbirth after suffering for almost a week in labor. No fae healers would touch her. Silas risked his life trying to save them with his connections, but they were both too far gone. They died, and the very next day, a thousand men from the Glade were rounded up for the Culling, and I was the only one who came back.”
Rain patters against the window. It’s a sound I haven’t heard in over a year.
“What was your why?” she asks quietly, almost timidly.
“I wanted to kill the king for what he and his kind did to my family,” I whisper, reaching to move a tight curl away from her face. “And one day, I will. But not tonight. Probably not tomorrow, either. But someday.”