But there’s nothing. Just the dark smother of dead senses, suffocating me.
All around us, the crowd jumps to their feet, sensing the end. I can hear Maven above me, cheering with all the rest.
“Finish them off!” he yells. It still surprises me to hear such malice in his voice. But when I look up, his eyes meeting mine through the shield and steam, there’s nothing but anger and rage and evil.
Rhambos takes aim, a long, jagged pipe in hand. Death has come.
Over the din, I hear a roar of triumph: Ptolemus. He and Evangeline step back from a swirling orb of water, and the cloudy figure deep within. Cal. The water boils, and his body strains, trying to break free, but it’s no use. He’s going to drown.
Behind me, almost in my ear, Arven laughs to himself. “Who has the advantage?” he sneers to himself, repeating his words from Training.
My muscles ache and twitch, begging for it to be over. I just want to lie down, to admit defeat, to die. They called me a liar, a trickster, and they were right.
I have one more trick left up my sleeve.
Rhambos takes aim, setting his feet in the sand, and I know what I must do. He hurls his spear with such strength it seems to burn the air. I drop, throwing myself to the sand.
A sickening squelch tells me my plan has worked and the scream of electricity surging back to life tells me I might win.
Behind me, Arven collapses, a pipe speared through his middle.
“I have the advantage,” I tell his corpse.
When I get back to my feet, thunder and lightning and sparks and shocks and everything I can possibly control spits from my body. The crowd screams aloud, Maven above them all.
“Kill her! KILL HER!” he roars, pointing down at me through the dome. “SHOOT HER!”
Bullets dig into the dome, sparking and splintering against the electric shield, but it holds firm. It was supposed to protect them, but it is electric, it is lightning, it is mine, and the shield protects me now.
The crowd gasps, not believing their eyes. Red blood drips from my wounds, and lightning trembles in my skin, declaring what I am for everyone. Overhead, the video screens go dark. But I’ve already been seen. They can’t stop what’s already happened.
Rhambos takes a quivering step back, his breath catching in his throat. I don’t give him a chance to take another.
Silver and Red, and stronger than both.
My lightning streaks through him, boiling his blood, frying his nerves, until he collapses in a twitching pile of meat.
Osanos drops next as my sparks run over him. The liquid orb splashes to the ground, and Cal collapses to the sand, spitting up water with hacking coughs.
Despite the jagged metal spikes punching up through the sand, trying to run me through, I break into a sprint, dodging and vaulting over every obstacle. They trained me for this. It’s their own fault. They helped make their own doom.
Evangeline waves a hand, sending a steel beam flying at my head. I slide beneath it, knees skimming across the ground, before coming up beside her, daggered bolts of lightning in my hands.
She calls up a sword from the swirling metal, forging a blade. My lightning breaks against it, shocking through the iron, but still she duels. The metal shifts and splits all around us, trying to fight me. Even her spiders return to tear me down, but they aren’t enough. She isn’t enough.
Another blast of lightning knocks her blades away and sends her sprawling, trying to escape my wrath. She won’t.
“Not a trick,” she breathes, taken off guard. Her eyes fly between my hands as she backs away, bits of metal floating between us in a hasty shield. “Not a lie.”
I can taste red blood in my mouth, sharp and metallic and strangely wonderful. I spit it out for all to see. Overhead, the blue sky darkens through the shielded dome. Black clouds gather, heavy and full with rain. The storm is coming.
“You said you’d kill me if I ever got in your way.” It feels so good to throw her words back in her face. “Here’s your chance.”
Her chest rises and falls, heaving with each breath. She’s tired. She’s wounded. And the steel behind her eyes is almost gone, giving way to fear.
She lunges, and I move to block her attack, but it never comes. Instead, she runs. She runs from me, sprinting at the closest gate she can find. I pound after her, running to hunt her down, but Cal’s roar of frustration stops me in my tracks.
Osanos is on his feet again, dueling with renewed strength, while Ptolemus dances around them, looking for his opening. Cal is no good against nymphs, not with his fire. I remember how easily bested Maven was in his own training so long ago.
My hand closes around the nymph’s wrist, shocking him through his skin, forcing him to turn his anger on me. The water feels like a hammer, knocking me backward into the sand. It crashes and crashes, making it impossible to breathe. For the first time since I entered the arena, the cold hand of fear clenches around my heart. Now that we have a chance of winning, of living, I’m so afraid to lose. My lungs scream for air and I can’t help but open my mouth, letting the water choke me. It stings like fire, like death.
The tiniest spark runs through me, and it’s enough, shocking through the water and up into Osanos. He yelps, jumping back long enough to let me scramble free, slipping through the wet sand. Air sears my lungs as I gasp for breath, but there’s no time to enjoy it. Osanos is on me again; this time his hands are around my neck, holding me under the swirling foot of water.
But I’m ready for him. The fool is stupid enough to touch me, to put his skin against mine. When I let the lightning go, shocking through flesh and water, he screams like a boiling teakettle and flops backward. As the water falls away, draining into the sand, I know he’s truly dead.
When I rise, soaking wet, shaking with adrenaline, fear, strength, my eyes fly to Cal. He’s slashed and bruised, bleeding all over, but his arms rage with bright red fire, and Ptolemus cowers at his feet. He raises his hands in defeat, begging for mercy.
“Kill him, Cal,” I snarl, wanting to see him bleed. Above us, the lightning shield pulses again, surging with my anger. If only it was Evangeline. If only I could do it myself. “He tried to kill us. Kill him.”
Cal doesn’t move, breathing hard through his teeth. He looks so torn, eager for vengeance, consumed by the thrill of battle, but also steadily fading back to the calm, thoughtful man he used to be. The man he can’t be anymore.
But a man’s nature is not so easily changed. He steps back, flames fading away.
“I won’t.”
The silence presses down, a wonderful change from the screaming, jeering crowd who wanted us dead moments ago. But when I look up, I realize they aren’t staring. They aren’t seeing Cal’s mercy or my ability. They aren’t even there at all. The great arena has emptied, leaving no witnesses to our victory. The king sent them away, to hide the truth of what we have done so he can supplant it with his own lies.
From his box, Maven begins to clap.
“Well done,” he shouts, moving to the edge of the arena. He peers at us through the shield, his mother close at his shoulder.
The sound hurts more than any knife, making me cringe. It echoes over the empty structure, until marching feet, boots on stone and sand, drown him out.
Security, Sentinels, soldiers, all of them pour onto the sand from every gate. There are hundreds, thousands, too many to fight. Too many to run from. We won the battle, but we lost the war.