Spinning in circles, I slap at my body. They’re all off me now, but I can still feel them. I shudder.Everywhere.
In a circle all around me, countless hairy legs spin and strain. Spiders twist, trying to right themselves while others crawl all over them in a mad rush for space and air. I inevitably crush some underfoot. They burst and ooze, and I wince, my stomach turning over violently.Hate spiders! Ack! Ack!
Still wiggling like an idiot and using completely irrelevant hand gestures, I mentally direct the spiders toward our opponents. They reach Flynn first and start climbing his legs. I flap my hands, yelling, “No! No! Not him!”
They drop and swarm the Tarvan instead. Distracted, the Tarvan leaves himself open. Flynn cocks back his big fist and knocks the man out with one punch.
The crowd roars in approval. The spectators closest to Jocasta and me have come back down and are swarming the barrier, just like the spiders, only without crawling over the top. They shout and point toward Griffin’s fight.
That’s where I was going anyway. I move the spiders toward Griffin’s opponent. They’re halfway there when pain bursts behind my eyes. I hiss and clutch my head. The spiders stop, and I feel their confusion like a slow blink in my mind.
There’s a sharp pinch and then a yank that throws me off balance. The Fisan with compulsion is sitting up—and giving me an epic evil eye. He wants his spiders back.
Regaining his feet, the Magoi sends out a mental call that dims the light inside my head. One by one, the sparks extinguish, and the spiders flit from my grasp. The ones I lose start racing back toward me—and not in a friendly way.
I have a choice to make, and not much time to decide. Catch the spiders again. Or catchhim. That’s a line I’ve never crossed before, not on purpose, anyway. I was too young to put words to it at the time, but I remember the thick, oily dread, the polluted feeling, and how I shook when I understood what I could do. That I could control humans. That I was a rare and terrible breed. That I was just like Mother.
My sister Ianthe was a screaming baby. I was a terrified six-year-old who wanted her to be quiet before Mother stormed the nursery in a rage. I inadvertently commanded Ianthe to shut her mouth. A compulsion is different than just wanting or thinking something. There’s a specific, conscious desire that you have to isolate, nourish into intensity, and then send out with a target in mind, but I didn’t know that then. All I knew was that she had to be quiet, or we’d all pay—Eleni, me, and the little ones. Ianthe didn’t eat or drink for three days and almost died before Thanos and I figured out what I’d done.
Six years old and already almost a killer. We grew up fast in Castle Fisa.
I look at the Magoi, still snipping and snapping at my mind like a little dog, ripping his spiders back one by one with an effort that makes him shake. I inherently know I could make him dance a jig and then run himself through with his own knife, but he’s not worth corrupting one of the few parts of myself I’ve managed to keep pure.
As spiders swarm my legs, I envision a yank, like I felt from the other Magoi. I imagine plucking the glowing spider minds right from his brain and bringing them back to mine.
The Fisan screams. He starts convulsing. His eyes roll back, and he drops, blood dribbling from his ears and nose.
The crowd gasps, and my lips part in shock. I blink. I held back. I really did.
The spiders make for the barrier again, and people start to panic. I rein them in, easily this time, and then separate them into two swarming masses. Carver has his adversary on the ground, his sword at his throat, so I send the spiders further on. They hit Kato’s and Griffin’s opponents at the same time. Just a thought has the spiders encasing both adversaries in mountains of sticky webs. Immobilized, the men topple over—spidersmostlyon top—and then about a gazillion beady, black eyes turn to me.
I grimace.Good spiders. Gross, but good.
They chitter happily, and my skin crawls.
Kato and Griffin cut air holes over the downed men’s mouths, and a hushed silence falls over the arena. The crowd watches with bated breath. A dull murmuring begins. It turns into a clamoring that escalates with every passing second of inaction. Flushed faces, fevered eyes, pumping fists—the spectators are hungry for blood, and we’re not giving it to them.
I look around, disgusted. They can starve.
Another full minute goes by—clearly, the Gameskeepers are wondering what in the Gods’ names we’re doing, too—before the gong finally sounds, barely audible over the frenetic chant of “Death! Death!”
I look at Griffin, and his sober expression reflects my thoughts. There’ll be plenty of time for killing. We won’t have another round like this, and we’ll do whatever it takes to defend ourselves.
The gong sounds a second time, a long, low, metallic rumble. The third hit finally resonates, and until the eerie vibration stops, we can either finish off our adversaries permanently, our opponents can stay down, or they can get up again and keep fighting. If even one person on an opposing team is standing when the sound dies, the round goes on.
The man Carver ran through twitches, and Carver gives him a close enough look at the tip of his sword that the man goes cross-eyed. “Next time, the blade goes into your head. Healers have a harder time with that.” Carver’s tone is utterly amiable.
The man stops moving and keeps his hand pressed to his belly. The gong fades into silence. People grumble. Jeer. It gets louder. We deprived them of a slaughter, which is exactly what we meant to do. Not a single person is dead—I think.
Ignoring the energetic heckling, I run to Griffin. He lifts me high into the air and spins me around, his gray eyes shining.
I grip his shoulders, grinning. “I told you we’d walk through the first round.”
He lowers me and then kisses me hard on the lips. “And you were right.”
“Aren’t I always?”
Chuckling, Griffin bends me over his arm and ravishes my mouth so thoroughly I get dizzy and can’t tell which way is up.
