Page 83 of Night of Death and Flowers

The girl runs to Calista, tears streaming down her face, twigs and skeletal leaves sticking out of her curls. I breathe in the scent of blood, and my eyes trickle to the girl’s stomach, and the dark crimson seeping through her robes.

The girl looks me up and down, and my nostrils flare at her tears. “Help me,” she pleads, then crumples to the ground.

The boy reaches the girl, then drops to his knees beside her. She lies on the ground, grasping at her stomach.

“Who hurt you?” I boom. “Was it an elder? Tell me!”

The traitor covers the girl with his arms, as if to shield her from me.

Rage splits through every pore as I glare at him, wondering if I could gauge his eyes from his face before my touch turned him to ash. My sudden interest must have been apparent on my face, because he quickly averts his eyes.

Calista frowns. “Leave her alone. She’s dying!”

“That’s what people do, Poison.” I force my way to their side. “Who stabbed you, girl?”

“Alaric,” she cries, and I groan under my breath. Her eyes roll around as her lids close, a cold sweat forming against her forehead.

“Leave her,” I command, but they lift her robes, then tear her dress beneath it, revealing her bloodied abdomen.

“I’m not going anywhere. She lives close to our house. I’m not going to leave her to die alone.”

I glance down, exhaling slowly as I assess the sacrifice’s blanched face. She’s lost too much blood. “You can’t save her.”

Something changes in Calista’s eyes before she gazes down at the girl. “I’m going to help you.”

The last moments of a mortal’s life are the most private and intrusive of times, where one can glimpse a mortal’s true self. But Calista doesn’t seem to care. Instead, she runs a hand over the girl’s forehead, slicking away the sweat, and pushing back some stray strands bouncing over the sacrifice’s eyes.

“It’s okay,” Cali says with a softness I’ve not heard before. “You’re going to be okay. The pain will go away soon.”

I watch as the girl concedes to death, her muscles relaxing as decay magic seeps into her bones, ash consuming her until she is gone.

“She was barely eighteen,” she says, her voice croaky, bloodshot eyes narrowed on me. “A child!”

I shake my head. “She reminded you of your sister, that is all,” I say, recalling their similar, soft features. “We cannot waste time.”

“This,” she states, her shaky tone increasing an octave, as she points at the sacrifice’s body, “is the reality of your disgusting tournament.”

“Your sister’s death will be your reality unless you pull yourself together.”

“You let us almost die back there.” She shakes her head, then pushes past me. “You put my sister on this island, and you have still failed.”

“I helped you! I showed you that you are not powerless.”

She scoffs. “Is that what that was? Because you sure seemed to enjoy the show.”

“Think me the villain,” I say. “I do not care.”

“Good, because that makes two of us.”

THIRTY-TWO

Calista

We cut our way through thickets of vines and bramble and follow Death into the forest. My boots crunch over pieces of bone, either from an animal or a person.

We walk over the uneven, mossy mattress, to the bridge over the river. Then, he leads into another slice of forest.

I should feel guilty for shouting at Drake, but it’s so hard to do so when he didn’t go after Ari. He knows me well enough to know I would never want him to choose my life over my sister’s.

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