“Vexar!” I hear again, her voice like a soothing hand to the ache that is my entire existence. “You can’t make me love you and then just leave! Fight back!”
Love. She loves me. I want to tell her I love her, too. I want to say that I am sorry, but I cannot speak. Cannot breathe. The pain spreads, burning across my chest and back as I keep searching, praying my eyes will find hers before I am truly lost.
LET GO.
A tsunami of emotion slams into me. My eyes go wide. Amara’s voice pulses through me as my gaze finally lands on her. “Get up!” she screams.
My shadow pushes forward, and in the split second it takes for me to process Amara’s words, I decide to let go. To let the shadow consume me. To give up my control to whatever savagebeast the Zhyrrak has conjured. It is the only option I have. Ice-cold fire spreads through my veins. Both my hearts slam against my ribcage, again and again in perfect synchrony as a tempest takes my place and rage becomes my god.
My hands are moving, claws digging into the gargantuan foot, sinking deep and holding strong. My muscles creak, bones threaten to snap, but the foot moves. In the echo of the creature’s deafening shriek, I am freed.
I roll away, sucking in air and sand, each breath like a lung-full of glass.
End them.
I am no longer a Vhorathi. I am something different. A monster with a singular purpose. Talrath incarnate. Smooth wood slides into my palm. I stalk towards the Skugga. A spray of blood bursts from my mouth, and I roar, “I am going to end you!”
The beast limps back, confused by the sudden shift in dynamic, and a dark laugh shakes my chest.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spot the disembodied foot of the Manta. There’s a tug at the back of my mind, and instead of fighting it, I move with it, bending like grass in the wind. In the span of a single heartbeat, something strange happens. I feel the cool embrace of shadow around my logical mind, and then there is no separation. No difference between me and it. We become one until I am no longer watching from some distant place in my own mind; I am standing astride the darkness.
Logical thought crescendos in a symphony of intelligent, chaotic aggression.
The Skugga’s footfalls thud against the ground. Time slows. A million thoughts flick through my mind, and I see the fight play out. Iknowwhat to do.
I dash forward, grab the Manta’s severed foot, and launch it at the Skugga’s face before it reaches me. With a swing of its long arm, the Skugga bats the flying appendage away, giving me anopening. I meet the beast with an upwards slash, carving muscle from bone along the creature’s hip, and in the shower of gore, I hear it scream.
I spin out of the strike zone, sheath my axe, and dash to Nonus’s corpse. Fighting is not about brute strength; it is about strategy. Strategy and the will to do what is necessary. With as much speed as I can muster, I sprint back to the Manta’s corpse with Nonus’s sword in hand.
Gaius left no time to clear the dead, and that will be his undoing.
I smile as I drag the flat of Nonus’s blade up my bleeding arm. With a roar of effort, I launch the bloodied sword at the beast’s face, grab a handful of mud created by the Manta’s pooling blood, and charge. As expected, the beast is distracted by the bloody sword and doesn’t register my charge until it is too late.
I jump and climb. The claws of my free hand dig through flesh and fur as I launch myself upwards. The surprised beast flails, swinging wildly in an attempt to swat me off, but those long arms are clumsy at such a close range. It can no longer bat me away.
I reach its bony head and shove the handful of mud into the creature’s eye sockets. It bucks as I lock my legs around its neck and slide my hands around its jaws. With a roar of effort, I wrench the beast’s mouth open, not stopping until I hear the crack of bone and the tearing of flesh. A gargled shriek breaks through. It thrashes. I fall, landing hard on my back. But I do not stop. I get to my feet. Ragged gasps shake my chest. The creature is digging at its eyes, trying to clear the mud, but only blinding itself further.
Somehow, it is still not dead. Its jaw hangs loosely from tendrils of torn flesh. Blood runs down its chest. But it does not die. I unsheathe my axe and start to swing, enraged by itsresistance.Why won’t you die?Rage turns my vision red, and by the time I stop swinging, the Skugga is little more than a pile of meat, and the arena is silent.
Heaving, bloodied, and furious, I turn towards Gaius, axe still clutched in my hand.
Amara is on her knees, gripping the bars of that barbaric cage, eyes wide and locked on me.My Queen.My body moves on pure instinct. I sheath my axe and march towards the wall of the arena, directly beneath the Magistrate’s box, and I climb. Stone crumbles beneath my fingers. Rage curls in my gut. And by the time I reach the first landing, the crowd has already dispersed, clearing the way for the crazed gladiator. Clearing the way forme.
“Stop!” Gaius orders over the loudspeaker.
I do not.
Gaius lets out a nervous laugh and continues to speak.
I claim the next level, and the next, ignoring Gaius’s words while ruining the walls of his precious arena.
A line of guards with pulse-sticks waits for me at the front of Gaius’s box. The fools. I am the monster their parents warned them about, and I have come for my Queen. I pull myself up the final wall and release a deep, rumbling growl. Some of the guards scatter, their instinct for self-preservation winning out over their loyalty, but some remain.
Crackling electricity breaks the air, and I backhand the guard wielding the pulse-stick. He careens off the landing, and the remaining guards retreat in a flurry of panicked shouts.
To my surprise, Gaius remains by this throne, standing in place as if fleeing is not an option. I offer him a toothy snarl, and he responds with a growing puddle of piss between his perfectly polished shoes.
Ignoring the coward, I turn towards Amara. The bars of her cage give way beneath my hands like warm wax, bending backand snapping with satisfying ease. For a moment, we just stare at each other. Then she launches herself through the opening, impacting my chest with a gasp, and wrapping her legs around my waist.
