The air tightened in my chest and my heartbeat pounded as the first contestant was called.
“Magnus Hartfield.”
The name boomed loudly, and the gods stationed above erupted in polite applause. A blond-haired, well-built man wearing a tailored suit stepped forward with confidence and headed straight towards the mask named, The Enforcer. The power of strength.
As he placed it on his face and tied the ribbons behind his head, a blast of light enveloped his body shooting out of the tips of his fingers. It was nearly blinding, and I had to avert my eyes as the power settled into his veins. The glow dimmed and he took his place back in line.
A ripple of apprehension ran through me, wondering if I’d be the next name called. No such luck.
The next name out of the lion’s mouth was the timid girl with dirty blonde hair that I had observed earlier. Her name was LillyPerkins. She snatched The Ghost, granting herself the power of invisibility. The same effect happened once she placed the mask upon herself, and the gods applauded in response. They talked amongst themselves in a hushed whisper. I wondered if they were placing bets on us as they observed us.
Name by name was called and my stomach grew into a tighter knot, knowing that as each power was picked, my chances of survival became less and less. The Medusa, The Pyro, The Timepiece had all been claimed, but the healer was still up for grabs.
“Dex Bourreau.”
The dark-haired man whose made it his mission to make me uncomfortable, stepped forward, hands shoved deep in his pockets as he considered his options. He took his time, weighing his options. He stopped over The Mender mask and every muscle in my body tensed. Almost as if he sensed my reaction, he looked up at me and held my gaze. Those icy blue eyes of his twinkling with mischief. Internally, I was begging for him not to choose that one. Any other one but that. His hand slowly reached over the pillow as my stomach plummeted past my knees and sunk deep into my toes. At the last moment, he diverted and snatched the one next to it— The Stag. A mask shaped like a skull with demon like horns coming out the top, giving him the power to reanimate bones. And in a place surrounded by over six million human bones, he’d have a lot at his disposal.
“Marcela Peroit.”
A girl with wine-red hair and a prominent wobble to her step shuffled forward and made a beeline for The Mender mask and my hopes of being able to obtain the one thing that could save my mother from her illness, crumbled into a million pieces before my eyes.
I didn’t have time to mourn the loss before I was called next.
“Odessa Deveraux.”
The sound of my name jolted my entire body as I felt the eyes of everyone around me swivel towards my shaking form. Walking passed the glittering gold masks— I weighed my options.
The Bird, The Siren, and The Onyx were all solid choices. Controlling flight or water could come in handy. And the ability to control shadows might be able to make me as close to invisible as I could without that exact power. I pulled my bottom lip between my teeth as I passed Marcela, seeing the mask I had originally wanted firmly affixed to her face.
The only way to get that power now, would be to kill her in the games. Her violet-hued eyes caught mine and a moment of uncertainty passed between us before I focused my attention back on the remaining masks and their powers.
My hand hovered over The Onyx, noticing the prominent swirls etched along the face. The two holes for the eyes stare directly at me as if daring me to choose it. Before I even knew what I was doing, I felt my hand clasp around the mask. Choice made.
With a deep breath, I tied the ribbons around the back of my head, careful not to snag my hair in the knot. It tightened on its own securing itself in place. I braced myself for the blinding light, but it didn’t come.
Murmurs from above began to reach my ears.
Did it not work? Was it broken or out of magick?
Just as I went to adjust it, wondering if I didn’t tie it tight enough, the room plummeted into total darkness all around us.
My entire body felt like it was set on fire and a scream ripped free from my mouth. I didn’t know for sure what was happening around me because the pain was so overwhelming, but I was distantly aware of bodies rushing about in the darkness running into each other in utter chaos. Shrieks are drowned out by myown scream. Power like I’ve never known rattled across my teeth and down into my every nerve ending. It was all consuming, dragging me down into its inky depths of untapped potential. Beckoning me to unleash it into the world. Whispers filled my ears urging me to give in.
Release, release, release!
Large hands gripped into my shoulders and as suddenly as the room darkened, it dissipated, returning to that eerie red glow from the chandelier above. The pain felt as if were sucked straight out of my body leaving me feeling dizzy and unsteady on my feet.
When my eyes finally focused, I saw the person holding onto me was none other than that cocky gorgeous bastard, Dex. His head was tilted to the side and the slits of his mask showed his icy blue eyes staring down at me with an intensity I felt all the way to my toes. His grip tightened a fraction of a second before he released me and returned to his spot in line like nothing just happened.
The lion cleared his throat, “Right. Well, if everyone can take their places.”
The entire room seemed to follow me as I stalked back to the line and whispers filled the air as people righted themselves. Several had been knocked down in the fray. I stared down at the ground, ignoring them all, unable to shake the feeling that whatever I just experienced was not a normal reaction. Even trying to avoid the glances, I couldn’t ignore the stillness emanating from the gods above. They’d gone from being jovial and excited to reserved and quiet. Their obvious attention on me, was the opposite of what I’d wanted. I’d hoped to slink in and be unnoticed. A blip, not worthy of their focus, but they were focused now, and it made my skin crawl. Having the gods’ attention could be deadly. But something about the way my mask reacted seemed to have them on edge, and I didn’t likethe feeling one bit. I chanced another look to where they were stationed above in all their glittering splendor. They were still, but something was amiss. One, two, three… I counted the gods and there was one notable detail that had my blood chilling inside my veins— one was missing. Which god, I couldn’t say, but there were only fifteen instead of the revered sixteen that usually attended. Had they been missing the whole time, or was it a recent development?
I pushed away the thoughts and averted my gaze once more, not wanting to be caught staring too long. People had been struck dead for less. All I wanted was to get through this competition and make it back home to my family, but I feared that I inadvertently had a target painted on my back from that little display of power. I searched my memory of anything happening like that in prior games but came up empty. I don’t even know what it meant— if it meant anything at all. Maybe I was just overthinking things. It could have just been because the mask’s power was rooted in producing shadows—nothing more.
After all the masks had been chosen, we were escorted to our rooms with instructions to meet in the banquet hall in the morning. There were three fully functioning bathrooms dispersed throughout the hallway, which made me cringe. I was well aware of how sharing a bathroom could go, having done it all my life with my siblings. Jean was the worst of us siblings, always hogging the room for hours at a time and leaving his hair all over the sink. It was disgusting.
The room the guard took me to that was to be mine for the next serval days, was down a long, arched corridor with flickering sconces placed at shoulder level to illuminate the path. There were black and white checkered tiles that looked as if they were several hundred years old lining the ground, and every few feet, a skull was imbedded into the stone walls.
