Page 31 of Ironhold, Trial Four

Or will I? If it is truly a question of my life or his, will I be able to hold back? Part of the reason Alaric has been pulling away from me has been to make a possibility like this easier to deal with.

Tears sting my eyes just at the prospect of it. Maybe I won’t have to fight Alaric. Maybe he will fall somewhere else in the combat, or maybe Rowan will be the one to take him on rather than me if it comes down to my team against Alaric and Zara. That is not a prospect that makes any of it better, though.

I need a place to think it all through, so I head to the one place within Ironhold where I feel comfortable and safe. I go to the beast pens. There is something welcoming about these scents and the sounds of the creatures, even though I cannot connect to themsince I'm cut off from my power. I can't feel their presence the way I normally would, But I would still rather be among them than anywhere else.

I head for the pen containing the shadow cat. This late, Stefano is not around, but that doesn't make a lot of difference. The shadow cat will still be pleased to see me. Except… will it? If I no longer have my abilities to control it, will it behave as a friend towards me, or will it see me as prey?

That thought makes me hesitate, on the fringes of thebeast pens, where the great Ironhide and the thunderhooves are bedded down for the night. I'm somewhere in that hesitation, a figure steps out of the shadows.

Callus advances on me, smiling. “I didn't think you'd ever be alone.”

“And I thought you wouldn't be stupid enough to attack me out here,” I say.

“Why? Are you going to summon all the animals to fight me? But you can't, can you? Someone tampered with your dampener. Someone left you helpless.”

I back away from him carefully. “Aren’t you taking a risk coming after me down here?”

“You think that if I kill you, I'll be punished for it?” he laughs. “Who will even know?”

“Someone will have seen you leaving the dining hall,” I insist, looking around as I do so for anything that might help me against him. “Or someone might see you on your way back. We're due to fight tomorrow anyway, so why not leave this until then?”

I'm saying anything I need to right now to buy a little more time. If I can find a way to escape or get help, there may still be a way out of this for me.

“Because tomorrow there's a chance I won't face you directly,” Callus says. “I've seen you in the way you hide behind others. The men you've been spending time around ever since I got here. The woman who saved your life earlier. Who's to say that you won't hang back and hope that one of them can kill me?And there's always the chance that one of the others kills you before I can get to you. Vex seems to be certain that he will do it. No, it's better to finish things here.”

“And how do you plan to get away with it?” I ask. “If I drop dead suddenly, do you think they won't suspect you?”

“Suspecting and proving are two different things,” Callus says. “In any case once I kill you I will feed you to your precious beasts. As far as any of them is concerned, you came down here without the means to control them, and you paid for it with your life. Maybe some of them will question that story but no one important.”

It feels as though he's thought this through with the coldness and calculation of a killer. I can imagine the way he stalked his other victims now, hunting them down, arrangingmoments when he could kill them without being seen or suspected. I can see the hatred in his eyes but also thelack of emotion of someone determined to finish a job.

“We have talked long enough,” Callus declares. “Now it is time for us to finish this. You might as well surrender to me, Lyra. At least I'll make it quick that way.”

He says that as if killing me is a mercy, as if it's an inevitability that I can only hope to get over quickly. Maybe he really believes it is, but I still believe there must be some way out of this. I keep backing away from him, and when he lunges at me I dodge, heading between the beast pens and the cages.

Callus follows, moving quickly. “You can't avoid me forever, Lyra. One touch is all it will take.”

“Help!” I call out, hoping that maybe Stefano is close enough to hear me. But it seems he is not sleeping in the beast pens tonight. The master of beasts has his own rooms elsewhere in the fortress, and now there is no one to hear me except the animals.

I run among their cages, and some of them swipe at mejust as they do at Callus. A scorpion’s stinger misses me by only inches, a cat's claw scrapes along bars near me. Any animal that touches Callus recoils as if it has been burned. He keeps advancing on me, and I keep retreating. My hope is that if I can keep going I can find a way back to the door then run ahead of him back out into the throng of people. Even he won't dare to attack me there.

But it is amaze among thecages and the pens. The cages seem to be rearranged regularly, so that the animals needed for the games are near to the exit. It means I don't know my way among them, and quickly I find myself boxed in, caught in a dead end with Callus advancing on me slowly, as if he knows he has all the time in the world to get to me.

“Nowhere to run now,” he says.

I dart towards him, feinting one way and then going the other, hoping that I can get past him and resume my escape. He seems to anticipate the move though andhis hand clamps onto my arm.

Instantly I feel my strength draining. I fight to break free, but I don't have the strength to do it anymore. His hand rises above my head, the same dark glow as before surrounding his hand, so that the rest of the world seems to blur beyond him. I go to try and call out for help again, but the words won't come. I'm caught there, and my life is flowing out of me, little by little.

I fall to my knees with Callus standing over me, looking down without a shred of mercy. Instead, satisfaction covers his face; it's obvious he's wanted this since the moment he arrived, and now he has the chance to finish me.

“Just give in,” he says. “Let the last of your life flow into me. Then I will get out of here and it will be done.”

I keep fighting, keep struggling to live, but it's only slowing down the inevitable. My life is draining into the endless pit ofhis power. I can't breathe now, can't feel. The world is closing in around me.

This is the end for me. I'm going to die here, and that thought sends my mind spinning out to others. I think of my village and my mother, so far away. I have been cut off from both, with no way back. They probably won't even hear that I've died. I think of the strength and protectiveness of Rowan. And I think of Alaric. Beautiful, sharp edged Alaric.

I see him in my mind's eye, so clear that I could imagine him standing there. I want to reach out to him I want to tell him that I love him. I want to do all those things, but I don't have the strength. I fall to my sideand Callus follows me down determined to finish his cruel work.

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