Page 46 of The King of Frost and Shadows

I quickly got to my feet, smelling worse than ever before. I needed Nightbane to calm down. I didn’t want him harmed again because of me.

Nightbane lunged, taking the guard down on his back.

I rushed over and touched the wolf’s back, whispering, “I’m okay.” A faint, warm pulse came from inside me and filtered right through my hand toward the dog.

Nightbane whined, but he followed my hand as I moved him away from the guard.

“Get the cù-sìth off me!” the guard exclaimed.

Another guard moved to retrieve him, but Nightbane snarled and bared his teeth again.

I needed to step away before he got in more trouble. “Listen to them. I’ll be fine,” I assured him then hurried out the door.

A loud, thunderousbooechoed like a storm rolling in, and I looked up. When they’d mentioned the Unseelie would be watching the gauntlet, I’d imagined a handful of people showing up. Nothing had prepared me for the massive space hidden behind the castle. Rows upon rows of spectators were there, from young children to adults.

It was an actual gladiator-style arena, the prisoners and me standing in the dirt at the bottom. The jagged mountaintop jutted behind us above the stands. Everywhere I looked, there were more and more people. Worse, Tavish was in the front row, sitting right in front of me.

Our eyes locked, and my chest squeezed uncomfortably. Darkness edged around him, and his expression twisted into what could either be anger or remorse. He faintly mouthed the words, “Stay alive,” telling me everything.

Tears burned my eyes, and I took a shaky breath and tore my gaze away to look at the arena before I could fall apart.

Darkness cloaked everything except the small area where the prisoners stood. We couldn’t strategize before the game began. No doubt, another thing Eldrin had planned.

Eldrin flew upward, his expression brighter than I’d ever seen it. “After twelve years, we’re having our second gauntlet due to theSeelieprincess attempting to escape and attacking our people, including ourking.” He spun slowly, ensuring each person got to see his face. “For this heinous crime, the gauntlet is the only acceptable restitution, per our king and the Unseelie people. That said, we’ve decided on an actual prize.”

“Prize?” the man with pale-blue hair asked. “In the lastgauntlet, you had to kill a certain number of people to live. Is it not the same this time?”

A knot formed in my chest. Whatever this was, it couldn’t be good.

“No.” Eldrin’s shadows curled around him. “In this gauntlet, whoever entertains us the most wins. The number of kills doesn’t matter so much as who you kill and how each kill is performed. The more shocking, the more drawn out, the more gruesome, and the prisoner will have their sentence reduced, meaning some of you could be free by the end of the three games … if you survive.”

My heart skipped a beat. They wanted the deaths to be vicious, and I could feel each prisoner’s gaze land on me.

My gaze went straight to Tavish, whose face had blanched.

The crowd went wild and began chanting, “Kill the sunscorched,” over and over.

In other words, the person who killed me and survived would win.

Eldrin had added an even bigger target on my back as if I didn’t have a neon sign as it was.

“For those who don’t know, the prisoners’ wings are chained so they can’t fly, and the chain suppresses their magic. This first stage of the gauntlet is about punishing them and making them survive like meremortals.Now, it’s time. Set the clock for an hour,” Eldrin called and turned with a sneer on his face. Then he lifted his hand, and a horn blew a mere few feet away.

Just like that, the darkness faded, revealing hell.

15

LIRA

Ihadn’t realized how massive the space was until the full obstacle course came into sight. Though the area was still dark, the moon rose high in the first clear sky I’d seen in ages, illuminating the entire coliseum.

The ground was rock and dirt and shaped in a perfect oval.

I swallowed, taking in a massive fifty-foot-tall tower on our right. I wasn’t sure how the darkness had obscured it, yet despite its height, it wasn’t even half the size of the stadium.

Directly across from us sat an enormous axe gauntlet trial with double-sided axes swinging in different patterns. There was no way I would have tempted fate and tried to navigate that obstacle for any sort of protection, but then the moonlight glinted off the blade of a sword that was tied with other weapons right smack in the middle of the course. Weapons for protection. Something I needed.

I edged back to hide in the darkness as the people in front of me gave me dirty looks then took off, no doubtdesperate to get a weapon to protect themselves and come back to kill me. I wasn’t a threat to them.

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