Page 44 of Bloodguard

Well, except Luther mouthing “shark” instead of “water,” but coming from fucking farmlands, he’d likely never even seen one of these monsters before.

And had I not included those royal humans in all the sporty fun, the lords wouldn’t have tossed in the eels. The eels were my reward for a job too well done.

The lords are always generous that way.

Bastards.

Ripples shoot across the water. Given their speed and the broader current they create, they’re made by another shark. The eels move smoothly, skimming through the water in S-shaped trajectories.

“Move, Leith.MOVE!”

It’s Maeve I hear. She’s right.I can’t let my baby sister down.

From where I float, the ledge appears, ten, maybe twelve feet above me. I can’t exactly scale it and escape. There are too many guards and too many beings with magic. If I so much as try, every battle before this one won’t have mattered.

Neither will the way my friendship ended with Sullivan.

Deserters face a death worse than the arena.

But, while I can’t leave the arena, there’s nothing that says Imustfight what’s in here.

I only have to stay alive.

Stiffly, I try to move, and my body protests in spasms. It doesn’t like me any better when I try a second time. It punishes me with searing pain and a terrible throbbing that reaches my head in mad bursts.

I manage to turn onto my stomach and dip my legs vertically. I almost dare a stroke when an eel spirals from the water in a terrifying leap, its maw open and targeting my face.

I raise the wooden sword—it’s all I have. But as the eel reaches me, a wave lifts like a hand and slaps the eel away.

What is this?

The wave appeared in front of me and didn’t move me with it. If anything, it kept me protected. Which is unnerving—but not as much as the eel at this moment.

My gaze shifts from side to side. The eel recovers quickly and comes after me again. Another joins it. Like before, a large wave slaps the first eel. A shorter wave forms right after, shielding me and striking the second.

The shark I felt coming after me before the eels appeared inexplicably spins in circles, disoriented by the miniature whirlpool it has created and is now trapped in.

Murmurs reverberate through the crowd. Something else is here. Something that may be on my side.

The ripples batting my legs warn that a second shark is approaching. By the heaviness in the current, it feels like the largest among them. Another eel surfaces, quickly swimming away from the shark’s path, not wanting to meet its wrath.

I hold out my wooden sword, keen on jabbing it in the eyes or another vulnerable spot if given the chance.

What happens next can’t be explained. Not by me, and certainly not by the crowd going silent in awe. The eel that slithers past the shark reappears beside it.

Its tail smacks the shark all over its head and body, any place it can find, in awkward, unnatural motions. The shark cants its head and snaps its jaws, sinking its teeth into the prey that dared assault it.

I don’t lie in wait for those teeth to connect. Not after how incapacitated the last eel shock left me.

I push myself out of the water. There’s a small crevice I grasp tightly, feet scrambling against the slick wall of the arena as jolts of energy course through me in waves.

I swing from left to right, trying to find someplace to rest my foot before I lose my grip.

My toe catches on another indentation along the wall, offering me a small reprieve and enough time to find another section that will better support my weight.

“Hang on!” Maeve hollers. “Whatever you do, don’t let go.”

Yeah. Easier said. I’m mere inches from the ledge, but it might as well be miles. Each jolt from those eels makes me wobble on my already unstable footing.

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