Like any mother, I couldn’t do it all.
But what I could do was win Tiers and request my twin’s demon be freed from the dungeons. I could help her escape to the Earth realm to warn the other supernaturals about the gates and Carmine’s plans to conquer them. I could allow the powerful rulers of the Vissimo, Luthers, and magus to do the lion’s share of weakening Carmine before I stepped forward to kill him for good.
That was what I could do.
That was what I must do for my son.
10
I portaled to the middle of the crumbling walkway and tilted my head to take in the sight of the looming Crave Arena at the far end.
Strategizing my entry to the arena had kept me up half the night. Should I portal to my bottom room in the Pinnacle?No.
Should I portal to the top where all the reds and purples would be? A certain trap.
I could have portaled to the gate at the end of the passage to chitchat with the guard before Tiers began… but I wanted toseethe trap.
I turned to peer back at the Pinnacle. The other contestants were gathered around the start of the walkway. Purple and red smoke shrouded the entire peak of the Pinnacle. In readiness for my appearance, no doubt. Most of the demons were focusing on the spot they must have collectively decided I would appear. Did they hold a vote on that?
Though, some players had already discovered thatwouldn’tbe the case. One demon elbowed his neighbor. Another demon blurted her discovery for others, pointing wildly in my direction.
Our number had more than halved in the first round. We’d each had to kill one, yet some demons had decided to take outfar more. Just under one hundred demons remained, most of them either red, purple, or blue. So I was looking at about sixty contestants who had gathered to join in on the ambush.
I laughed. This shit really did tickle me. I was aware that I must have undiagnosed disorders.
I called out, “That’s all you came up with?”
Shoulders shaking with more laughter, I then turned to walk to the arena. I kept my muscles loose, and my posture confident and relaxed. Sixty demons were arealproblem. That was a partial army.
My heart pounded as thoughts of Adeuto’s broken heart filled my head. I couldn’t die. He couldn’t lose me today. Heneededme, because I understood what it felt like to lose a mother, and I was sixteen at the time. Panic rose in me at the idea of his life without me to guide and love and protect him.
But sixty demons.
Suddenly the ideas I’d rustled up over the week between dealing with Carmine’s moods seemed really likely to fail.
My gut twinged, and as the combined smoke of my attackers launched at my back, I opened a portal into the Crave Arena. Over the crowd, specifically. Because of my undiagnosed disorders.
Screams rent the air. Howls of anger. Shrieks of pain and indignation.
“You’re pissing them off,” I sang, then snorted.
The twinge in my gut disappeared as their smoke attack was pulled back. I closed the portal.
The other players weren’t scared of the crowd, but they were scared of the king.
I made it to the other end of the walkway and glanced back. No one had started across yet. Funny that.
There must still be contestants who couldn’t portal, and if they didn’t make it to the arena, then guards would hunt themdown. For me.Work smart, not hard.I lashed a whip of my power at the thinnest points of the pillars holding up the sad excuse for a walkway. We needed a new one anyway.
Bye-bye.
In a thunderous crash and roll of rock and rubble, the walkway collapsed hundreds of feet below.
Most would still make it across. Some wouldn’t, and so they could leave with their lives intact. I would kill anyone who got in my way. I wouldn’t do it gladly, but Iwoulddo it.
I strode into the passage, smelling the sulfurous arrival of those who could portal behind me. Ahead, near the gate, a few reds appeared with a yellow in tow.
The yellow who’d baited me in the first round. How was he still alive? Demons seriously had to stop underestimating yellows and oranges. Clever bastards.
