“We need to move,” he replied.
He planted a hand low on my spine and we began slipping through that muck with more speed and grace than I could have managed on my own. Even with my exceptional swimming-in-dirt skills. I caught sight of the two male sols as we scooted past. Siret let out a growling curse as we reached the end of the pit and our path to safety. I was not at all surprised to see that there was a six-foot mud wall we needed to climb to make it out. Sols designed this obstacle course of death by order of the gods, and both the sols and the gods were massive assholes.
“Obstacle course of assholeness,” I grunted out, launching myself onto the mud wall.
I started scrambling up, using the thick sludge as leverage, wedging my hands in tight. A hard shove under my ass had me flying up the side, and over onto the flat ground.
“Assholeness is not a word,” Siret called up after me as I sprawled out across the hard-packed dirt.
I breathed heavily for a beat before remembering that I was in the middle of some kind of death-trial, so there was every chance that I was currently sharing space with something that could kill me. I lurched to my feet, spinning around as I took it all in. It seemed as though the coast was clear for the moment, so I scurried to the edge of the pit, ready to help Siret out.
Naturally, he didn’t need my help.
He almost looked bored as he easily hauled himself up the short distance to drop down next to me. He was completely covered in mud, except for the roots of his hair and a few patches on his face. I knew I looked exactly the same because I could feel the tightness on my skin and clothing as the mud dried. I could say goodbye to my second purple dress.
Noises below had both of us staring down into the pit. Aedan and Johnny were almost at the edge now, but so were the blacktips. I still couldn’t see much of them, except those crazily lethal-looking tips, and the fact that they seemed to move together as a pack, the mud shifting in an even fashion around them as they churned through the pit.
“Are we going to help them?” I wheezed, still trying to get my breath back.
Aedan was halfway up the wall now, while Johnny couldn’t seem to get a good enough grip, his heavier frame dragging him back to the bottom.
Siret shrugged, before standing. “This is a competition, Rocks. I don’t think you quite get how that works.”
I stood also, my hands slipping against my muddy hips as I attempted to make a stance. “Just because the gods want us all to kill each other, doesn’t mean that we should all scramble to get a stab in first.” I then went to spin myself around, prepared to lean over and drag up the sols, but before I could, a heavy hand landed on my arm and Aedan hauled me off the side and back into the pit.
My shriek was cut off as I crashed into Johnny: the big sol caught some of my fall as we both tumbled into the mud. Mud which was filled with blacktips. I let out another shriek as I felt the first sting of their bites. I still couldn’t see them clearly, but I sensed that they weren’t large. There were dozens of them, though, and they attacked as a pack. They worked together in a way that told me they could eat a dweller up in no time at all.
I sank in deeper as I fought them off, mud covering my face and filling my mouth. A sliver of panic was starting to overtake all the other emotions I was currently experiencing, drowning out my worry, fear and pain. I couldn’t breathe. I was being eaten alive. Surely those two things were decent enough reasons to have a panic attack. Spots were dancing across my vision as I fought my attackers and the mud around me was starting to feel hot. Hot and stiff, actually. It was hardening, almost like clay when it was baked. Was Siret doing something?
He had to be. He was hitting the blacktips with some god powers. It was the only explanation.
As the mud continued to heat up, the blacktips started to drop away, and I was able to rise toward the surface. When I broke through the top layer, I clawed at my mouth and face, spitting out mud so that I could suck air into my screaming lungs. The blacktips had been left below in the hardened ground, and it didn’t feel as if any of them were still attached to me. The pain from the biting continued on though—and since all of those cuts were now filled with dirt, they had basically just signed me up for a full body infection.
I crawled on top of the mud as it hardened further, until it was solid enough for me to rise, my legs only a little shaky. The higher I rose, the hotter the air got around me. By the time I was standing, it felt like I was in an oven. Ignoring that weirdness, I searched for Siret.
He was nowhere to be seen.
I started moving cautiously back toward the edge of the wall, but I tripped over something after only a few steps. My horrified cry was low as I found myself facing a half-chewed arm. It was just the arm, sticking up above the hardened mud. I could see the flesh and bone in places where the blacktips had gnawed on it.
Sobs rocked my chest as I tried to roll away from the limb. Away from the knowledge that I had most likely killed Johnny by landing on him. Aedan! That asshole had tried to kill us both! A heavy thump next to my head had me scrambling backwards until a familiar voice halted me.
“Willa.”
Changing trajectories, I launched myself at Siret, who was now crouched beside me. I crawled into his lap and wrapped myself around him. Relieved gasps were rocking through me as I murmured, “I don’t know what you did, but thank you for saving me.”
He stood without another word, an arm banded beneath my thighs. My legs wrapped around him as I settled in closer. It felt right. My soul fragment was content and I tried my hardest not to cry. As some of the hysteria died off, though, I realised that Siret’s body was trembling and hot to the touch. Lifting my head up from where I had buried it in his neck, I met a pair of green eyes shot through with darkness. Black tendrils crawled ominously across his irises, transforming his entire face.
“I didn’t save you, Willa.”
It took me a micro-click to register what he had said. I was too busy focusing on the gravelled nature of his voice. It was rough. Flat. Angry and biting.
I swallowed hard, tasting the mud which still coated my mouth and throat. “What do you mean? Who saved me?”
Some of his hardness faltered, and for a beat he almost looked vulnerable. “I don’t know. You fell and I was coming in after you when a blast of heat shot me out of the pit and halfway across the arena. By the time I got back over here … I found you like this.”
He swore loudly as his dark gaze snapped across to the god-box. “Either one of them saved you, or else … you saved yourself.”