“Alyss?” Eira choked out, rummaging, even though her whole body was protesting every movement. Everything was an agony that could only be summed up by the chorus of a thousand screams rising to the unforgiving sun high above. “Please,pleaseno.” There was so much blood…
“Eira!” A large piece of rock to her left moved to reveal a winded Alyss. “Eira!” Her friend rushed to her. “I’m sorry, it happened so fast. I thought I had you, too.”
Tears streamed down her face with relief.Alyss was all right.
“We have to go!” Cullen called. He and half the other competitors stood in a ring of debris. He must’ve summoned a gale to protect them.
Eira looked back over her shoulder to where Ulvarth still stood. The madman was shouting, “Behold. Behold her power, her might! Blessings, blessing upon us.”
The royals’ box was completely gone. Utterly destroyed. Nothing but a hulking hole in the side of the arena was left. It had been reduced to a pile of rubble overtaken by an inferno of magic flame.
How many royals had still been there? Did they have enough warning to use their magic to protect themselves? How many had her uncle managed to usher out? Had he made it away? Eira howled with pain at the thought. She didn’t know who had escaped, but there was one person who she knew would’ve been too far to get away. The woman who always stood at the front of it all, right on the edge, farthest from the exit.
Lumeria.
The queen of Meru. The leader who’d thrown her weight behind the treaty. If Vi had been the mastermind, Lumeria had been the heart. And now she was gone. Gone in a blast of flash beads.
“We have to fight,” she murmured. They couldn’t just run. Though, hadn’t she been the one to suggest it? Eira spun, adrift. What was the point of running? To live? What were they living for? Everything was crumbling around them. What world would be left for them if they ran now? Was there anywhere safe?
“We can’t fight.” Cullen’s voice was close. He’d closed the gap between them in what seemed like a second. Without warning, he leaned in, wrapping his arm around her and hoisting her into the air. Eira leaned against his shoulder.
“We can’t let him get away with this.”
“I know.” He carried her away from Ulvarth, toward an opening in the wall that the morphi were leading them through. “But we can’t kill him now, either.”
She remembered what he’d said. “We’d make him a martyr.”
But did that mean he could never be defeated? Were they destined to be his prey forever? Or would they have to live in a world run by that madman? If he’d killed Aldrik and Vhalla, was Solaris next?
Cullen carried her away from battle. Eira couldn’t fight. She could hardly focus on anything. Her ears were still ringing and the side of her face was wet. She was still crying. Eira touched her cheek lightly. Her fingers were red when she pulled them away. It was more than tears…but her grief was the only thing that seemed to hurt.
Mother, Father… The rogue thought punctuated her heartbeats. Where were they? Did they make it? They had come to see her and for it they would suffer. Would she ever be anything but agony for them?
Eira inhaled sharply and exhaled a noise of torment. Everything was happening so fast. She had to—
A glyph appeared before them. Eira recognized the Lightspinning by the shape alone. She wrapped her arms around Cullen’s neck and pulled. He spun off-balance and they toppledto the floor as another explosion rang out—much smaller than the last, though strong enough to rattle the foundations of the coliseum around them.
Cullen landed on top of her, elbows on either side of her head. As if he was trying to use his body to shield her. Eira blinked up at him.
“Why are you doing this?” she whispered.
“Because I love you. No matter how hard I’ve tried, I’ve never stopped loving you. Not for a breath or for a moment.” Somehow, despite the grime and blood that covered his cheeks, a brilliant smile shone through. “You were right, Eira. I keep trying to live for everyone else. But now, I’m going to live for myself and what I want.You.”
The world was cruel. It was only in this moment, as everything was slowly coming undone around them, that she could allow herself to hear his words, to see them, to allow them to sink into her marrow. They might die in this moment. They might never see the sun again, crushed under the weight of the coliseum or their throats slit by a Pillar.
But they had this second. This breath. This brief ray of something good amongst all the cold realities that had been thrust upon them.
She opened her mouth—“Cullen, I…”—and couldn’t find words. Her heart was as broken as the coliseum. It still hadn’t mended. Wound after wound had been inflicted on its pieces throughout the tournament and she hadn’t had time enough to do anything for it.
Love? Could she tell him she still loved him? Would she mean it? Or would it be an emotion in the moment? Did any of it matter when death was chasing them with footsteps that sounded like the frantic beats of their hearts?
“Eira?” He searched her features, confusion and hurt beginning to bloom in his eyes.
Movement over his shoulder distracted her. A Pillar raised a sword high above Cullen’s head. Eira raised her hand. “No!”
But the magic didn’t come. There was nothing. No tingle under her skin. No chill. No ocean of power to lose herself in.
Her magic was gone.
