Page 93 of House of the Iron Reaper

“Oh.” I give a slow nod, shoulders sagging. “I understand.”

I want desperately to see them before my fight, to feel their company ease away my nerves, but it cannot be helped. I will try to spy them in the crowd and hope it is enough to quell the unease stoking in my stomach

“But Novalie left you a gift,” Aythora continues, leading me over to one of the benches.

My heart flutters. A small vial of bahk sits on the bench, along with a note. I recognise the bahk—it is the same as the one I believed made me stronger as a child. I smile at it, picking up the note.

Fight, it says simply. I think of my first match, Novalie screaming from the stands in front of everyone that I need to fight. That I am not permitted to die.

Taking a deep breath, I uncork it and swallow in one gulp. It does not taste as foul as I remember, almost sweet, but still familiar. I look at the empty vial before turning to Aythora.

“I’m ready.”

Somewhere on the other side of the tunnel, the crowd roars and their boots stamp the ground. I only know this from the sand trickling above me. I cannot hear them over the sound of my own breathing, my own heartbeat, somehow in my ears and throat at the same time.

This is it.

I have stepped out of this tunnel before but with the safety of the mask. The assurance that, no matter what happened, they will never know it’s me. It was a wall between the city and I and I cannot have it anymore. No, rather I do not want it.

Coalsburgh needs to know Iron dragons still fight proudly.

I step into the arena.

The crowd is a blur of silver tunics and reaper masks with skeleton hands over their eyes. The sound comes all in at once, like I have surfaced after being underwater, and I nearly stagger under the volume of it.

“Iron Reaper! Iron Reaper! Iron Reaper!”

I blink up at them, bare-faced, and the cries wither. Confusion ripples through them, masks pushed up off faces to stare back down at me. I curl my hands into fists, fighting not to squirm under the gaze of more eyes than I can count, breath quickening.

“Deyanara!”

Novalie’s voice pierces the air. My head whips around to see her in the stands of House Glass.

“Deyanara!” she cheers, standing with her fists in the air.

“Deyanara!” Ronan’s voice joins the fray, bellowing across the arena. He stands beside her, clapping and whooping.

Something drips onto my face. I touch my cheek and pull back to see rain water on the pads of my fingers. I look up but the night is clear as black glass, no cloud in sight.

We never really leave.

I squeeze my hand into a fist and raise it above my head, a grin splitting my face. The crowd can cheer if they choose, it matters not—I have the something better.

Novalie and Ronan bounce up and down, so stark against the rest of House Glass clapping politely that it’s comedic.

I greet the doomkin they drag in with a smile on my face.

The cage cleaves a trail through the sand as the dragons jump up, waiting for the wardens signal. Behind the bars, something crimson undulates like fluid and I catch the flash of bleached white, like bone. It should inspire fear but I can still hear Ronan and Novalie and all I feel is an addictive kind of anticipation.

I suck in a lungful of salt-tinged air and ready myself.

The warden gives the signal. The dragons soar upward. The doomkin is released.

It pours out of the cage like a thick syrup, the deep red of old blood, before forming into something akin to an oversized slug. A bone white skull is pushed to the surface, sitting at its head. It towers just a few heads taller than myself but its body moves constantly, rippling thickly.

I raise my fists and the world falls away from around me. We face each other across the arena.

It starts towards me, quicker than I expected but not as quick as I’m used to. I smile—perhaps this will not be as difficult as I feared.