“Watch your back, bitch,” my enemy mutters as she shoulders her way past me.
An uninjured Clem dashes over and nearly crashes into me, wrapping her arms around my shoulders in a hug that could break bones.“Sands, I thought you were dead,” I tell her, embracing her back just as hard. “What happened to you last night?”
“Got a personal tour of the dungeons,” she says with a jaunty curl of her lip, even though she looks tired, with thick, dark circles under her eyes. “Stupid piece-of-horseshit riddle confounded me. I knew the answer, too. Feed me and I live, give me a drink and I die. What am I?” She rolls her eyes. “Fucking fire. But what does this genius say? Water.” I stare blankly at her, and she punches me in the shoulder. “I’m fine, it wasn’t too bad, even if we didn’t get any food. How was the dinner? Did you eat for both of us? Because if you didn’t, I might have to rethink this friendship. I haven’t eaten since yesterday and I’m bloody starving.”
Oh!“I brought this for you,” I say, and rummage in my pocket for the now unrecognizably flattened pastry, holding it out to her with an apologetic look. Clem pounces on the offering, unwraps it, and shoves the whole thing in her mouth inside of a second.
“Mmphankoo.” She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. “So good! You’re my hero.”
“Sorry I don’t have more,” I say.
“It’ll tide me over.” Clem eyes me, catching me glancing toward where the azdaha vanished at the far end of the arena. Questions swirl in her gaze as our stares collide. “Have you ever seen a monster like that?”
“Azdaha,” I correct absently.
She makes a noise in her throat as we stumble our way across the blood-soaked sands. “So are we going to talk about how in the realms you stopped that ugly reptilian lizard from eating you there at the end? Because it sure looked like you had some kind of control over it.”
The azdaha hadn’t been ugly. It’d been beautiful in a savagely elegant sort of way. A prince of beasts with its quintet of vicious horns, talon-tipped wings, and deadly spines. Even with its tattered wings and half-starved form, I’d found it utterly mesmerizing.
And the intelligence in its eyes... that brighttetherlinking us...
“I don’t know,” I mumble, feeling gooseflesh prickle on my skin. “It had to be they activated the runes on its collar or something.”
Her face is skeptical, but it’s the truth. I havenoidea why in the stars that azdaha hadn’t taken a chunk out of me before the gong sounded. Either way, I’m alive, Clem’s alive, and right now, that’s all that matters. Because it means we have a chance to escape.
I turn to her urgently before we reach the others. “Clem, you know this whole bride selection thing is fucked, right? Peoplediedtoday.” I lower my voice. “I don’t know about you, but I want to live, so I’m going to get out of here. Come with me.”
She gnaws her lip, eyes shadowed, and gives a single nod. “All right.”
Chapter Seven
After the gladiatrix massacre, we were granted a day of blessed reprieve to recover. I don’t know if that’s because of the crown prince’s skewed notion of generosity or because something even more sinister is to come. Either way, I’m on tenterhooks, expecting the royal guards to arrive and demand the surrender of my dagger. But no one comes except Clem’s handmaiden, with the message that she’d started her monthly courses and was bedridden with cramps. I don’t envy her, but at least she can get some rest.
I have only one goal in my head: survive whatever is next.
Which is a celebration ball, or so my handmaidens say, and right in line with my expectations of this shit show. Both my handmaidens have become much friendlier after the combat trial, likely because I’d survived and consequently, they still have a job. I had not been a favorite to win, per the wagers that had been flying around the palace. The favorite had been Helena, the Regulus woman who had cornered me and tried to stab me on the sands. She’s said to be the main contender for the prince’s hand. She can have him, for all I care.
Some of the women had survived their wounds in the colosseum and had been sent home. Others had not. Parvi had made it, thankfully, though it probably would have served her better to go home tosafety. I almost wish I had been injured, come to think of it. I just want to get out of here with Clem and return to Coban in one piece.
I’d spent a large part of the previous night on my balcony, searching for routes of escape, but guards were stationed everywhere, seemingly on every single corner. And even if I could find a way to leave the palace, I have no portal to get back home. And I would not survive a two-week trek through an unforgiving desert without adequate protection and supplies.
A quiet knock on the balcony door interrupts my thoughts. Curious, I unlock it, only realizing my stupidity when it’s already half open. It could be anyone out there. And I don’t even have my dagger; it’s currently tucked away under the mattress on my bed.
But it isn’t justanyone. Prince Roshan stares back at me, dark hair tumbling over his brow, with that crooked smirk that only seems to appear when we’re alone firmly in place. My stupid pulse trips over itself as those brown eyes spark with heat at the sight of my tiny sleeping shorts and bare legs visible beneath my open robe. A dark flush crests his cheekbones when I pull the sides together.
“Is this a bad time?” he asks, his voice slightly husky.
“No. How did you get up here?” I ask, glancing toward the ground. The balcony has to be at least fifty feet up.
“I have my ways. May we speak?”
I nod uncertainly, still flummoxed at the sight of the prince on my bedchamber’s balcony. Perhaps he’s good at climbing, or maybe he has his own special princely portal magic. But even so, that would require a runecaster...
“Do you want to go inside?” I mumble.
“Let’s stay out here. Less chance of being overheard,” he says in a low voice. “Are you well?”
“I didn’t get eaten by a sandsdamned azdaha, so there’s that,” I hiss. “Where did it even come from?”
