“Your objective,” he continues, lifting one of his crackling lightning bolts, “is to outlast the other competitors, who will fall by blade or power, weakness or blood loss, surrender or grievous wound. When we are satisfied that enough blood has been shed, we will open the door at the center of the arena and allow fifty of those still standing to pass through.”
As the announcement takes hold, I observe the participants checking and rechecking weapons, scanning those foes nearest to them. Eurus assesses the Fates across the field. The shortest of the trio wields a scythe. The tallest brandishes a gleaming black whip. The last bears no weapon, but brown leather wraps her knuckles, and her fiery hair has been braided in a crown across her skull. With a sinking sensation in my gut, I realize that they, too, possess wings.
“You fight to claim something for yourself,” the lightning god roars, feeding the crowd’s growing frenzy. “You fight,” he says, “to win.”
A thunderous assent shakes the arena.
“Competitors, take your marks.”
As the Fates glide to the far side of the field, a short, stumpy god with a dented breastplate hobbles after them. An old injury in the leg? Already, he is at a disadvantage.
“Who are you betting on?” Demi asks eagerly.
I continue to watch Eurus, the bag of chestnuts crumpled inside my sweaty palms. They are all predators in the ring, but the East Wind’s lack of motion is particularly eerie, a stillness amongst the impatient and the keen. He needs me—but I need him, too. He is both protector and captor, my only means of returning home. “Eurus, I guess.”
“A reliable choice.”
I glance over to see her exchanging coin with the group sitting behind us. It is all so very casual, betting on the lives of her friends.
The lightning god lifts a hand. “Begin.”
An ear-splitting crack rends the air. There is a great rush toward the field’s center, all one hundred and ten competitors bearing swords and maces, axes and rusted shields. Many are accompanied by animal companions, whether hawk or owl or dove, fox or snake or dog. Then, a spray of blood, a wretched scream: the first kill.
I’m not sure where to look first. Arin locks staffs with a much larger opponent. The Fates work as a team, driving their weapons into hearts, stomachs, throats. Two gods collide at the far wall. One punches a mass of fire toward his foe. It hits a transparent barrier, and the fire-god’s opponent flees, ducking blows in his attempt to reach safety on the opposite side of the arena.
“What was that?” Demi screams at the fleeing god as she shoves to her feet. Her dark hair springs from its confinement, and red paints her face. “Are you a coward, or are you a conqueror?”
Our neighbors holler their agreement, shaking fists and flinging food into the stands below. I shrink further into my seat, horrified beyond measure, yet unable to look away.
The stadium rumbles, and I clutch the railing in confusion as a cyclone plummets downward, whipping up a thick haze of debris. Gray clouds boil overhead, spitting hail and a stinging rain. A bolt of lightning strikes three competitors at once. They collapse, dazed, as I squintagainst the driving rain. In the center of the cyclone stands Eurus, the storm his to command. He lifts his hands, and the tempest sweeps the field. It drags three, five, seven competitors inside its spiral before spitting them out in pieces.
Dead litter the ground. The air is a great red cloud, a coppery miasma. I cover my eyes against the suffering, but it makes no difference. I am back at the estate, Lady Clarisse venturing belowground. Sometimes, the screams would stretch for hours until the voices failed, disintegrating under constant strain.
My fingers spread, and I peer through the spaces between. One deity dressed in an ornate robe locks blades with a blue-haired goddess. Her skin glows in shades of brightening sunrise, the intensity enough to burn her opponent’s eyes to dust. He claws at his face until someone rams a spear through his chest.
Across the arena, a wild-eyed goddess nocks an arrow to her bow. The East Wind, whose back is to her, does not recognize the danger as his wings unfurl and he takes to the sky.
“Watch out!” I scream.
The arrow cuts the air, swift and clean, embedding itself in his shoulder. Cloak flapping around him, Eurus locks onto the goddess who shot the arrow. A two-headed ax appears in his hand, and he dives toward his adversary, dodging a second arrow, a third. I gasp, leaning forward. His ax. It’shere.
The goddess bares her teeth, stabbing at him with one of her arrows. He dodges easily, slips behind her, and decapitates her with one brutal slash.
The head bounces, rolls. I gag as her body crumples. The stadium quakes with another wave of deafening noise. Meanwhile, Demi has made herself comfortable, legs resting on the back of the bench in front of us. She laughs and tosses another chestnut into her mouth.
Eurus blasts hail at a gray-skinned woman with snakes slithering along her limbs—the goddess Demi and I spotted the other day in town. He calls down a thundercloud that seethes with white lightning. Using the rain as a shroud, Eurus evades the snake goddess’ great yelloweyes, speeding low toward the ground until she loses interest and seeks another poor soul to turn to stone.
And still the battle rages. Two gods fall, their wings ripped off. Another collapses onto the ground, not one, butthreedaggers protruding from his chest. Several deaths are added to the growing tally: a beast with its belly split open, a god impaled by a spear. The more violent the tournament becomes, the louder and more piercing the screams.
“Oh, come on!” Demi cries, lurching forward. “Use your shield to protect that skull of yours! Or do you lack the brain to recognize that?”
I stare at her, eyes wide.
“Pardon,” the goddess says, lips curved coyly as she settles back and resumes her languishing. “I sometimes get, ah,heatedabout sports.”
She and I have a different definition of sport.
A great many deities now lie strewn across the blood-soaked grass, either gravely wounded, or dead. One goddess with the lower body of a canid lunges at Eurus, who uses his winds to divert her into the wall. He pins her, ax in hand, and cuts her throat.
