Another woman gets hit right in the lower back, and falls face first to the ground in a puff of dirt.
A new set of arrows explodes from both sides of us. Aelia tugs me to one side of a pillar, though it does nothing to save us from the other direction. We drop into a crouch, narrowly avoiding a few arrows that land inches above us and drop onto our heads.
Marcella sweeps in right behind us. As we lunge forward to race to the next pillar for cover, a weight slams into the back of my head. Shoving my face straight into the dirt before the pressure disappears, and I try to lift my head.
“GET. DOWN!” Marcella barks.
I press my cheek flat to the ground, meeting Aelia’s wide eyes as she coughs in the cloud of dirt surrounding us. When I stretch my neck to look at the path before us, my cheek still flush with the ground, we’re a few feet away from the woman who was struck in the back by an arrow. She is dragging herself forward by the elbows. Leaving behind a trail of blood in the dirt.
As arrow after arrow explodes from the arena ahead of us, I watch another woman get struck in the side of the neck. I feel a rattle shake the ground as she falls. A weight that sinks just as vividly in my heart.
Head down.The lady’s maid told me he wanted me to keep my headdown.
“Now crawl the rest of the way!” Marcella shouts.
When I lift just enough to pull my elbows underneath my chest, Marcella crawls past me. Aelia follows after her, and then I do.
Did Marcella just save us?
I try to ignore the screams as other women are hit by arrows. Keeping my head down, I force myself to continue toward the finish line. Arrows whizz overhead, some stirring my hair with how close they fly.
We manage to crawl by the woman shot in the neck. My breath catches in my throat as I catch her distant, wide-eyed gaze. The pool of blood around her is large enough that my elbow drags through the edge of it.
I move faster, catching up to Aelia and crawling beside her. Marcella is a bit ahead of us as she approaches the woman who took an arrow in the lower back, struggling to drag herself to the finish line.
It’s hard to tell if she’s bleeding. Blood is splattered all along the dirt arena, with arrows littering the floor. But Marcella grabs the woman’s foot, shouting something I can’t hear over the explosion of arrows above us.
Aelia and I flatten ourselves to the ground, her blue eyes meeting mine. She must see the panic, the fear in my gaze. She grabs my fingers and squeezes tightly.
I nod, trying to force back the tears threatening to erupt.
Arrows fall on our heads, our backs, our legs. When the overhead assault stops, Aelia and I lift our heads.
Marcella lurches over the woman with the arrow in her back several feet ahead. Her knee slams into the woman’s upper back, and not even the chaos around us can deafen the woman’s scream as Marcella grabs the arrow and rips it out of her back.
The lead lady’s maid had said the armor wasnearlyimpenetrable. Perhaps only enough to protect us from lethal hits. Though, it does nothing to stop anything from striking our heads, throats, or hands.
As Marcella tosses the arrow to the side, the section of the arena they are in triggers its next shower of arrows.
“Marcella!” I scream.
She barely has enough time to drop and roll off the woman. But an arrow still slices straight across her cheek as she lands on her back, ripping open the skin and drawing fresh blood.
Aelia and I crawl forward as the woman Marcella pulled the arrow from turns to her. As soon as I see her profile, I recognize her from the gardens—Beatrice.
“Are you alright?” Aelia asks as we stop near their boots.
Marcella growls something under her breath and flips ontoher stomach. “Keep moving!”
When I look up past Marcella and Beatrice, my shoulders somewhat relax. We’re so close to the finish.
That is, of this section in the arena. Beyond it, some women are jumping from stone platform to platform, causing the heights of the surrounding ones to shift.
Fueled by my determination to break free from the arrows, the four of us crawl the rest of the way forward. Once we’re clear of the dirt arena, we all shakily stand.
The entire ground is made up of the square podiums, all the same length and width. But all of which are a few inches taller or shorter than the ones around it.
The muscles in my arms are already burning with exhaustion. Aelia and I are working on slowing our breaths when Marcella steps forward onto the closest square podium.
