I flapped around for a fraction of a click before ringing my hands. “Dwellers aren’t allowed in the Sacred Sand arena like this. I haven’t even done my first cleaning shift there because you have to be trained and cleansed before you step into the halls of the gods.”
Siret fitted his hands under my arms and hauled me out of the room. The Abcurses were moving rapidly, ignoring my freak out.
“Guys!” I tried to drag my feet, especially when I realised that I was still dressed in Coen’s huge clothes. “Stop right now. Now! I’m not wearing my own clothes and my ass is literally hanging out. I can’t go before the gods like this.”
“Close your eyes,” Siret whispered in my ear and for some reason, I obeyed him. I almost suspected that he was channelling some of Yael’s persuasion.
Thankfully, he was still half carrying me down the hall because walking with eyes closed for someone like me was not advisable. I felt the warmth of something caress my body, and figured it was the sunshine as we stepped out the front door, but when I found my eyes flying open, we weren’t quite there yet. Which meant …
I glanced down to find that my clothes had completely changed. The dress was a deep purple, moulding perfectly to my body, as though it had been made specifically for me. It even felt like I had underwear on and everything. I could even see that my hair had somehow been tamed, curling obediently over my shoulders, the strands looking silky and shiny.Well wasn’t I a bit fancy right now?But how the heck had Siret done that to me? Was it a trick or an illusion?
“You shouldn’t be wasting your energy like that, Trickery.” Yael’s face was expressionless, his voice flat. His brother didn’t bother to answer; he was focused on getting to the arena.
A few more steps and we were outside. The massive arena rose up into the distance, the last straggling sols disappearing through the huge entrance. I’d only ever seen it from the outside, so I was looking forward to checking out the rest of it. This was the place where sols gathered every moon-cycle to perform for the gods. This was where they wanted to be noticed. This was the place where future gods were discovered.
The inside was as impressive as I had expected. A wide open circular space with a multitude of obstacles and different flooring was the centre and focal-point of the entire building. Around it, on all sides, were staggered rows of chairs, which were right now filled with sols. All five Abcurses paused to stare at the end furthest from us, where there was a raised and glassed-off platform. The reflecting sun through the open panes of the rooftop made it hard to see into that boxed area, but it had to be where the gods were.
“Come on, we need to take our seats,” Coen muttered, leading us toward the empty seats that were very far away from the glassed box. Away from the gods. Which was totally not normal sol behaviour. From what I could see, the seats closest to the gods were packed with the students of Blesswood. Dwellers stood around the perimeter waiting to be called on for service, probably hoping that the gods would notice them too. They were all dressed in their absolute best: the females in dresses and the males in trousers and long shirts. I wondered if they’d still want the gods to notice them if they knew the uniform for the Jeffreys.
The end we were heading toward was practically empty, even though it was the row closest to the actual arena. Those sols who hadn’t managed to get a place close to the glass box all seemed to prefer the middle ring of seats. I had only a moment to wonder why, before the first sols were called into the sands, and then I realised several things at once.
Firstly, sols were dangerous.
Secondly, a sand floor easily absorbed blood, and negated the need for a post-arena-demonstration cleaning crew.
And finally, the front row of seats was absolutely theworstrow of seats.
More than once, a sol was tossed right up against the flimsy wooden barrier that I sat behind. I hadn’t actually been paying much attention to the other sols of Blesswood until then. I hadn’t bothered to even admire their slightly-better-than-dweller appearances, or their slightly-bigger-than-dweller statures, but now I was noticing it all, and my slightly-less-than-stellar coping mechanisms were kicking into gear, forcing my palms to sweat. In front of me, a male sol had a female sol pinned right up against the barrier. I could almost feel his snarling breath. I could almost feel the sharpness of the knife that he held up against her throat, and then I coulddefinitelyfeel the blood that splattered right over my face.
“What the fuck?” I cried out, clamouring right over the back of my seat as the female sol’s head lolled a little to the side, teetering as though it would fall right where my shoes had been tapping nervously against the ground.
The male sol … the one with the knife … the one who just almost beheaded his opponent right there in front of me—was now staring at me. I noted that he was still holding the bloody knife. That seemed important, but my frazzled brain couldn’t seem to figure outwhyit was important.
“Dweller?” he sounded surprised. “Are you lost?”
“N-nope,” I stammered. “Meant to be here.” I looked down, at the boy whose lap I had basically scrambled into. He had been sitting right behind me. In the row of seats reserved for intelligent sols who didn’t want to get covered in blood. “Totally did that deliberately,” I told him—and Stabby, who was still staring at me.
A single gong sounded, signalling the end of the match, and Stabby shrugged, though there was a frown on his face as he spun around and walked to the other end of the arena. He bowed before the glass box, as the other victors had, and then disappeared through a door leading down below the arena.
“Dweller?” a male voice sounded, about a few inches away from my ear. “You’re still sitting on me.”
I glanced down at the guy. Now that I paid attention, I noticed that he was actually taking up two of the seats, he wasthatbig. I couldn’t even tell if it was fat, or muscle. He was just …huge. Oh, and he was giving me a look. A ‘what the hell are you sitting on me for?’ look.
“I can explain,” I managed, slowly standing up, my hands raised before me.
“We’re waiting.” This had come from Siret, who had been sitting to my left in the blood row. He was now twisted around, as were the others.
He was smirking, clearly finding my awkward predicament funny. Even Aros was grinning, but the others weren’t. A stormy expression had dropped over Rome’s face. Maybe he didn’t like other people being bigger than him.
“Stabby got blood on me.” I frowned. “And he killed that girl.” I pointed to said girl, who was now being carried away by two of the dweller attendants.
“That’s what happens,” Yael muttered, reaching over the seat and hauling me back to the front row, forcing me down between him and Siret. “In these games, you either surrender, or you die.”
“So why didn’t shesurrender?” I crossed my arms over my chest, casting a quick look over my shoulder at Mountain Man. He was still frowning at me. I could feel it burning into the back of my head as I tried to ignore him.
He was probably waiting for a formal dweller-style apology, or for me to drop and kiss his feet. Problem was, Yael still had a hand on my shoulder, forcing me to stay in my seat, so kissing Mountain Man’s feet was going to be a problem.
“Maybe she thought she was strong enough,” Coen returned, from Yael’s other side. “Maybe she thought that she would become a god.” His voice was soft, but it had an edge of something malicious. It was almost like heknewthat she wasn’t strong enough. That she had died for nothing. And he liked that fact.
