“Wait!” I shouted at the people fleeing, running into the dark channel, but it was too late.
Their shrieks echoed as they hit the spell, flying back, their bones crunching to the ground.
Headlights came into view, blinding me.
Holy shit.
Heavily reinforced, iron-clad SUVs, with guards running along the side, came down the passage, extending back at least six or seven cars. The top of each was armed with a long gun and another soldier, pointing it at us, the symbol HDF on the front.
Instead of freeing these people, I realized I had led them straight into a trap.
We had nowhere to run. Nowhere to go.
I had failed everyone.
Blood and gore covered the floors as dozens were shot dead until the soldiers regained control, rounding us up like cattle.
More than eighty new HDF guards descended on us, guns pointed at our heads, and anyone who didn’t comply was killed or pistol-whipped into submission.
A guard primed a handgun at my temple as I watched a soldier open the door of a hummer, saluting the man inside. The familiar figure climbed out, his eyes latching on to mine instantly, a dainty woman accompanied him.
“Well, well...” Istvan’s voice iced my spinal column. “Why am I not surprised you are at the center of this.” Istvan strolled to me, surrounded by armed guards. The new soldiers were clean, meticulous, and robotic in their movement, reminding me of the night in the square. Their demeanor only highlighted the difference between them and the guards down here, and the change that was happening and would happen to these fresh faces as well.
Markos stopped right in front of me, his eyes glinting as they rolled over me. “I feel a strange pride in knowing you don’t give up. That I raised you to be a fighter.”
“You didn’t raise me,” I snarled, the soldier behind me pressing the barrel of his rifle harder to the back of my head. “My father raised me. Everything I am is because of him.”
We both knew it was a lie. As much as I despised Istvan, he made sure Caden and I weren’t just trained and educated, but could scheme, strategize, and play the game of the cutthroat elite.
He probably never considered his teachings would turn against him.
Istvan gazed down at me with a snarl. “Truer than you even know,” he mumbled, tugging at the cuffs of his new uniform trimmed in gold, similar to the ones we had been sewing. Even more medals decorated his chest and arms, like he was awarding himself more every day. He used them to intimidate and make people believe he was beyond reproach.
He was right; he had taught me a lot. The tricks to influence and change perceptions. Propaganda.
Most people could easily be swayed and not even know they were, instantly bowing, letting you take over. Letting you control their lives, their minds, because of a perceived idea that you knew more and could “save them.”
All smokescreen, lies, and theater.
“Shrewd. Resourceful. Strong. If only you had been born as my son.” He peered down his nose at me. “What a general you would have made.”
“You speak as if those things are coveted. That I would desire them.” A derisive laugh came up my throat. “Males think they are the greatest beings, the highest level achievable. The strongest and the most powerful. Even more so with shiny awards they give themselves on their puffed-up chest. When those things would just limit me.”
You have no idea what I’m capable of. I glared at him. Hell, I didn’t even know what I was capable of.
Istvan’s back straightened, his chin rising at my statement. “We’ll see, my dear.” His lip lifted. “Good thing I changed the Games to tonight.”
Acid sunk my stomach. Tonight?
A tick in the back of my head made me wonder how he was even able to get here so fast if they were called because of our revolt. HDF was over forty-five minutes away on these roads. There was no way unless they happened to be coming here anyway. And if they were coming here anyway, why would he have so many soldiers with him?
“You will see, you and your insurgents here, exactly what happens to those who go against me.” He leaned in closer. “Show me how far you can push those limits, Brexley. How far you will go to survive.”
Chapter 8
Fire crackled and sputtered from the pits, taunting and beckoning us closer. Energy clashed and struck the walls like cymbals. Lights shone down on the arena, the stage. Seats filled up for tonight’s performance.
“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”
Shakespeare was a little too on the nose for me right now. But it’s all we were to Istvan. Chess pieces and bit actors. A game in life, entertainment in death.
My gaze shot to Rosie, imagining this was not how she saw her last performance going. She stood only a few spots down, her eyes glazed, her head still bleeding. She struggled to stay on her feet, but she was alive.
For now.
I knew someone was going to die tonight. Glowering up at Istvan, his arms behind his back, smugness over his features. I realized how well he had done his research. He knew every player he wanted in the arena to be pitted against each other.
Scorpion, Ash, Killian, Kek, Maddox, Birdie, Wesley, Kitty, Hanna, Rosie, and Lukas.
Istvan didn’t pick them by accident. Every one of them was personal, meant to hurt and punish me. This was the ultimate game of survival, showing the truth of people’s character. Who you really were when it came down to life and death?
“How far, Brexley, are you willing to go to survive?”
The stadium was filled with inmates and all the HDF soldiers, the energy a strange mix of hunger, fear, excitement, and horror. There were no songs for blood, no chants for death, but the prisoners up in the stands knew how easy it would be for them to be thrown in with us if they fought back, if they vocally retaliated.
They happily made us the sacrifice to appease the god before them and so played along.
Figures moved from the doorway behind Istvan’s private balcony. Olena and four others came from the shadows up to the railing, gazing down at us, covered in their finery and entitlement.
As if I ran into a wall, everything stopped. My head spun, and it took me longer than usual to understand. To grasp the people near Istvan. To make the connection.
Olena was next to Istvan, looping her arm in his, with a conceited smile painting her red lips. Caden moved in on the other side of her, his arms behind him, his face expressionless. The jolt of seeing my old best friend wearing the new HDF uniform, the marker on his breast and arm declaring he was only a rank below Istvan, should have been enough to tip everything sideways.
He wasn’t. It was the three on the other side of Istvan, two men and a woman.
“Ty vole!” Fuck! Shit! No way! Lukas’s entire body jerked, stumbling back, a hiss sliding through his teeth. His green eyes filled with shock and confusion. His gaze locked on the stunning blonde woman up on the balcony.
The same bright green eyes looked back at him.
The lover of Prague’s leader.
Sonya.
Lukas’s mother.
And standing next to her was the Prime Minister Leon. My brain couldn’t even connect the dots before the fourth person stepped up into view, arrogance perfuming off him, almost knocking me off my feet.
“Iain.” Killian breathed out his name, his expression a mix of shock, disgust, and bewilderment.
The cute young guard I taunted and teased when Killian first had me locked up in the palace stood at the railing, peering down with smugness. The one I so easily brushed off as naïve and sweet. The way he looked at me now, I realized it had all been an act.
The boy who blushed around me was a lie.
“It was you.” Killian snarled. “You were the spy. You blew up my palace.”
Iain smirked, his head dipping with pride and affirmation.
My jaw dropped. Iain was the one who planted the bombs?
It made sense. He was close enough no one questioned his motives or presence. Someone who almost wasn’t seen or thought about because of his rank and shy demeanor. He purposely made himself part of the background, unnoticed and unquestioned.
Iain’s mouth curled into a cruel smile. “Your arrogance made you blind, lord.” He spit on the title. “You thought yourself so smart, so above the rest. Always ten steps ahead of everyone else, dismissing anyone you deemed below you. Well, look who is beneath me now.”
Killian’s jaw tightened. “Why? You throw your lot in with humans? You really think the fae are going to be all right with a human taking over?”
“No. That’s why they have me.” Sonya spoke. She didn’t look much over thirty, with creamy skin and caramel blonde hair. Her bright green eye popped like emeralds. The more I looked at her, the more I saw Lukas.
“They might not take a human, but they will take another noble fae, descended from Queen Aneira’s court, sitting on your throne.” She touched Leon’s arm.
Pieces started to snap into a picture.