Page 18 of House of Lilith

As soon as the third drop falls and I see the little concentric circles it creates, I feel their echo deep inside my body.

My fingers and toes tingling, I quickly get my knife out of its holster and slice into my forearm. The blade thirstily drinks up all the blood, the otherwise hidden carvings in it coming to life, glowing with a soft, blue hue.

I watch them, feeling warm blood drip down my skin. By doing this, I’m renewing my bond with my knife, so I can use my Blood Magic on the drops it has drunk.

For a second, I think how bad it would be for me to have to use this, for people toseeme using it.

But I shrug it off. What will be, will be. No point fretting over it rightnow.

Having completed all my rituals, I let myself get lost in my own thoughts for a second. Thinking of the competition I’m about to go through and all the stakes that come with it.

Win, I want to win, now more than ever. It’ll be much sooner than I thought, me becoming Princess, and I want to enter that era of my life having earned my future people’s respect.

It’s at that exact moment that I hear a sharp knock at my door. Max, here to escort me to the Arena. With rushed movements, I grab the thick leather bracelet off the table and I use it to cover up my scars.

*

As soon as we walk out of Lilith Tower, we get swallowed by the crowd waiting to see the players off. It's thickest around the Dame Gothel statue, but even here, it's suffocating. There are students chanting my fiance’s name and I throw a little glance at him, my lips curling into a smile. He looks so serious and handsome in his own charcoal silversilk uniform, it almost makes me forget about the world around us.

Until I see a light frown scrunch up his forehead and he gestures for the spectators to get the fuck out of our way. They do, parting into two mostly neat rows by the sides of the gravel path that we’re starting on. I look up, my eyes scanning the sky.

There it is, in the distance. The top of the huge glass dome of the Arena we’re about to fight in.

“Excited?” I hear Max ask.

I turn to look at him and I give him a nod, smiling and taking a deep breath. Everything is falling into place.

We keep making our way through the crowd and past the Dame Gothel statue. It was only last night we had the little welcome party here. Today, it’s where the food and merch stalls start.

It makes me feel excited, seeing all the bright colors and interesting knick knacks. Literally every stall has the scarves, green and gold for Grimm, red and silver for Fiáin Academy.

Letting myself get distracted by the cacophony of sounds, smells and sights, I don’t look up from the trinkets until we’re almost in front of the Arena.

I have to crane my neck to properly take it all in. While the glass dome is a modern addition, one that rids the staff of the need to use magic to keep the elements out, the rest of the Arena is ancient. I slow to a stop, feeling Max side-eye me impatiently. But I normally never have time to come here, so I take a moment to admire the well-preserved but seemingly crumbling arches in the style of the Colosseum, trying to picture what it looked like to people centuries ago. Some say the Arena is older than the underground part of the castle, but I never believed that. If it weren’t for the castle’s magical heart, these grounds would never have caught the Originals’ eyes.

We keep walking, reaching the fork in the path right in front of the Arena. If we went right, we’d be led to the massive metal-studded double door that is the main entrance.

Instead, we take the path to the left and soon find ourselves to the back of the Arena, approaching one of the staff waiting to let us through the entrance reserved for the players.

“Go around the left and you’ll see the Grimm Academy entrance,” the petite girl tells us as she opens the much smaller door for us. “And good luck,” she says and throws Max a shy smile.

We make our way through the curving hallway until I see another staff member waving us over. “Hurry up, it’s about to begin,” he tells us.

We do as he says, seeing a whole crowd of Grimm students waiting at the end of the hallway. Right behind them is the door to what we call the waiting room, where players usually get ready for their competitions in the Arena. And to the right, there's the door into the Ring. I spot Nikolay watching us approach.

“Ready to kick some butts?” my brother asks with a smile.

“Always,” Max replies.

“Good luck, Nick,” I say in a serious voice, my attention still on his high spirits.

A little too high, they are. I look around, stealing glances of the other players. And we’re all skilled. After all, there’s thousands of students at Grimm Academy and the three of us have made it into the top one hundred. But some of the other people here, they look downright terrifying. Scars across their bodies, frowns that could turn you to stone, fists clenching in a way that makes you imagine eyes being squeezed out of their sockets.

And who knows what kind of powers the other team is about to showcase. I guess that’s why Nikolay’s attitude is rubbing me the wrong way.

But it’s at that exact moment that the door opens and the silence of the hallway immediately gets switched out for loud, unbridled chatting of thousands of people inside the Arena.

As if out of nowhere, de Groot appears in the doorway, throws a glance at us and motions for us to follow.

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