I kept my eyes on the Ambush Master as the soldier led me off, his hand an unyielding clamp around my bicep. A muscle ticked in Blake’s jaw, but he held my eyes as they carted me backward.
“You’re not dead yet, Rubi,” he said, before turning swiftly on his heel and walking away.
There is light in every darkness.
Once amid the crowd of candidates, the guard shoved me hard enough that I sprawled on the sand, gritty and cold against my cheek and palms.
I squinted against the late-afternoon light to see the guards slam the metal gate shut with a loud clang, trapping us in the Arena.
“An Azure!”
“What by the god of war is a woman doing here?!”
The finely dressed male yang Bonding candidates were shouting around me. I scrambled to my feet, trying to ignore the fingers pointed at me. I swiftly tucked my long braid down the back of my dress so it couldn’t be grabbed. The crowd of faces in the stands became a blur, their features indistinguishable as they merged into one mass of people. The dull roar of their excitement became the white noise of this waking nightmare. The air was thick with the scent of damp sandy slush and sweat, mixed with the faint aroma of blood and fear. My mouth filled with the taste of metal, the tang of adrenaline and anticipation.
There was a loud snicker. “The tygers can feast on her instead of us. A fed tyger is a happy one.” A muscled giant towered over me, his frame dwarfing the men around him. Beneath his steely hair, his face was twisted into a sneer, eyes cold and calculating. Both the arrogance in his expression and the lavishness of his garments told me he was from one of the wealthier clans.
He leaned in and pushed me with a massive hand, making me stumble backward on the shifting sand. “This is no place for weaklings, Azure yin. You insult us all by your presence.”
The brass-haired man next to him said, “Ire, she’s not worth it.” Then he shifted on his feet, almost bouncing with joy. “I’ve been waiting for this day for so long.”
Ire glared at him. “Don’t tell me what to do.”
At that moment, the trumpets blared. A male voice boomed through the coliseum, “Welcome to the Bonding ceremony of the great tygers!”
The candidates and crowd roared in response. I tilted my head up toward the royal booth, marked by a seal and flags with their sigil hanging proudly. It was raised high on painted pillars, draped in banners emblazoned with the roaring silver tyger that symbolized this dominion’s power. At its center, King Uzar sat upon a black-lacquered throne, his presence as imposing as thesteel that shaped his rule. Beside him was his only child, Princess Malissa. I had heard of her beauty. Her platinum hair was pulled into a long braid like molten light, and her light green eyes narrowed with disgust as they swept over the crowd. People said she had a face that could stop an army. Radiant skin, sharp cheekbones, full lips.
She was also a yin, and the only female tyger rider. But she wasnotthe heir. In the Silver Dominion, they refused to pass power to yins, following only the male line.
Armed guards flanked the royal family, hands resting on the hilts of their curved blades. Around them, nobles draped in embroidered silk and glittering with jewels clustered in a careful semicircle, whispering behind gilded fans.
“Which five mighty yangs shall join the ranks of His Majesty King Uzar’s Tyger Warriors?” the announcer’s voice rang out.
Five. There were only five tygers who were un-Bonded. My head whipped around. There were more than two hundred men standing in the Arena with me.
A deafening roar erupted from the crowd, and the ground trembled. They had released the tygers.
My heart pounded in my ears, and my adrenaline spiked with the urge torun. But I stood my ground, unsure of the best move. I saw a few men wet themselves. But there were also those whose faces were filled with ecstasy, like that of the brass-haired man, as if they were in the presence of something divine, arms outstretched to be chosen.
There were many more tygers than five. At least thirty, most of them wearing tack in the king’s black and silver. Those must have been already Bonded by Tyger Warriors.
My throat closed up.
Had they loosed the entire ambush of tygers upon us?
Of course the bloodthirsty crowd must have their spectacle.
The first tyger pounced. It fell upon an older man and dragged him away, screams echoing through the coliseum. Chaos ignited. Men started yelling, scattering in panic. They were tripping and stumbling, running for the gate, which was now barred. Blake’s voice from the evening before came to me:Don’t run.As I observed the chaos, I saw that those who fled were the quickest to be taken down. The tygers loved the chase. I watched as a tyger knocked a young man over and walked over him unheeding, its claws leaving gashes in the man’s tender flesh as he screamed.
My hands were shaking, my legs stiff with fear, unable to move from the spot I stood frozen in. I kept my eyes wide, taking in the violence around me, even as terror pounded through me. All around, there were screams and roars, the sound of claws and teeth tearing through flesh.
The air around me shifted, and I realized with rising panic that a few of the tygers were beginning to surround me, snarling and growling. I stood alone.
You’ll have to trust that I know what I’m doing.
Blake Axefire was a brute and a liar. This wasn’t a Bonding ceremony. It was a slaughter. And there was no way I was making it out alive.
9
