Panic gripped her. They were running out of time, and she was perilously close to losing control of her magic.
She stumbled away from the beast and ran for Fionn as the bear curled in on itself. Its stumps were quickly sprouting two new arms each.
Fionn shot arrows at the beast for cover, but it retreated into the far corner to regenerate.
The mercenary paused and glanced at Stella’s side, which was still bleeding steadily.
A wave of dizziness hit her, and she stumbled into his arms. Water sloshed around her hips and she cursed as it splashed into her wound.
“Easy, princess. You’re not looking so good. We need to end this and get you out of here.” Fionn steadied her, and she turned and looked at the beast again.
“I couldn’t reach the ribbon to snatch the jewel,” she mumbled.
“I think we’ve got one more rally in us. What do you say?” Fionn said.
“I think we’ve been lucky so far. We don’t need to kill it. We just need to remove the ruby. I was trying to get the arms out of the way so I could do this.” Stella aimed her bow and breathed out. “To luck,” she whispered.
She loosed the arrow and closed her eyes.Please. It was a plea not to the gods, but to something deep within herself.Please be good enough. She heard the arrow hit the dirt wall with a thud.
The water sloshed beside her. When she blinked her eyes open, Fionn was halfway across the pit. The bear barely noticed his approach. It was writhing in the water as its new arms grew longer. They were nearly fully grown again, several claws beginning to sprout from the ends of each paw.
Fionn sprinted the last yard as fast as he could to her arrow on the pit wall. He jumped to grab the ruby dangling from the green ribbon. The moment his hand closed around it, the Octobear went rigid and then desiccated to dust.
The cheer of the crowd drowned out the pounding of Stella’s heart in her ears.
Stella bent forward and bit back a sob of relief as the water level immediately started to recede. She was dizzy and nauseous and had very little fight left. If that hadn’t worked, she would have been lost.
She forced herself to roll her shoulders back and turn to face the stands. Her parents were on their feet shouting, as were Leo and Rosie beside them. King Xander and Queen Jessamin were also on their feet, applauding. Jalen and Juliana joined their parents, butAlexandra stared at Stella with her eyes in narrowed assessment. Did she remember what Stella had done?
Stella shrugged it off. Nothing she could do about it now.
Finally, she looked at Arden. His tan face was paler than usual, but he was on his feet applauding her. The sight of him looking so frazzled made her heart soar. Stella was exhausted and she must have looked frightful, but she beamed at her love.
It was only the first challenge, and she’d almost died. Worse, she’d come perilously close to losing control of her magic, but she refused to let Arden or the crowd see her sweat.
As she turned toward the ladder that had been lowered into the pit, she spotted Endros in front of his elevated throne. He cocked his head, studying her with anger in his eyes, his shoulders shaking. But as flames erupted around him and the crowd gasped, Stella realized the god of war wasn’t angry at all. He was laughing.
13
STELLA
The healer’s suite was sweltering in the summer heat. All the windows had been thrown open for airflow, but the humidity of Olney summers was inescapable.
Once it was clear that Stella’s wounds, though stable, were more substantial than some light healing could fix, she had been brought from the tournament recovery tent to the healer’s suite in the heart of Olney City to see the head healer.
According to the frazzled young woman who had dropped her off in the room, three of the sixteen competitors had died in the first challenge.
Stella felt numb to that reality. It felt both real and unbelievable and she hadn’t been able to get any more information from the healer before the woman ran off to tend to another ailing warrior. Teddy wasn’t one of the fallen, though. The healthy dose of anxiety pulsing in her chest made her confident of that.
The smaller wounds on Stella’s head and arms had been healed, but still throbbed. Though pain could be lessened and wounds healed, the ache of the injuries usually lingered for a day or two. Her ruined armor was in a pile in the corner. Her tattered shirt was soaked with blood still weeping from her wound and her skin wassticky with sweat and drying groundwater. It was a bad sign that the cut was so severe and her body so depleted from the fight that it hadn’t managed to heal at all on its own. She wanted to bathe desperately, but she’d settle for just a change of clothes at this point.
The healing assistant who had left to fetch her some fresh clothes had been gone long enough that Stella assumed she’d been forgotten.
She lifted the hem of her tattered shirt and glanced at her bloody side. The gory mess made her dizzy. She immediately yanked her shirt down and gripped the edge of the tabletop to steady herself.
The healing suite door flew open and Cecilia ran in. She stopped short, scanning Stella the way she had when she was a child with a scraped knee. Her mother’s face was wan, her bright blue eyes puffy. Cecilia blew out a breath and her eyes went glassy.
“We are so relieved you and Teddy are safe,” her mother rasped.
