Page 48 of The King of Frost and Shadows

His breathwhooshedout of him, and he stumbled back, taken off guard. Then, his feet began sinking.

I froze, realizing what I’d done.

I’d kicked him into the quicksand. I’d moved to help him when another man turned to look at us.

“Aron!” the sinking guy called out. “Help me.”

“I’ll help you all right.” Aron chuckled, strode up, and sliced the man’s throat with the dagger. “This death is better than one by that quicksand.”

“Allies,” the man gargled as he clasped his hands around his throat like that would stop him from bleeding out. Black blood trickled between his fingers and ran down his arms as death overtook him.

My body became heavy as I realized I’d caused the man to die. But if I continued to stand there, I’d die alongside him.

The nape of my neck buzzed like I could feel the prisoners’ gazes around me. I didn’t bother to glance at them, not wanting to acknowledge them or allow them to see my fear. Instead, I ducked, spun, and raced toward the side of the arena to keep my distance.

“The princess ismine!” Aron bellowed. “Her death will be at my hand.”

I watched the ground in front of me for dark rocks and traps, listening to the pounding of the man’s boots as he chased me. The other two men were still focused on the weapons on the platform, so I shifted direction and ran toward the outline now that it had sprung from the ground, and I edged around the men.

Aron was only a few steps behind, so I ran right like I was going to land on the platform. Just as my foot hit the edge of the line where I could see it would spring forward, I spun left. Aron ran onto the platform. I’d hoped that with his speed, he’d get off it before it launched since the others had needed to pull the rope first, but with my sudden disappearance, he stumbled over his feet. His right boot got stuck in the rope, and when he yanked to break free, the trap sprang.

The rope sent his body jolting up instead of toward the tower, but when the rope finally snapped, he soared forty feet into the center of the stadium in front of the spectators. He tried to flap his wings, but the chains still bound them, and he plunged to the ground. He clung to his dagger as the other weapons landed in front of the two men who’d been trying to reach them.

My heart lunged into my throat as Aron’s body thudded to the ground, and the dagger sliced into his side. He didn’t move, but his chest rose and fell.

This cache of weapons had three of each weapon—swords, daggers, slingshots, bows and arrows, and short swords.

I moved toward the gigantic rock, hoping I could hide near it for a few minutes as I formed a plan. I’d seen a slingshot like this before, though I couldn’t remember where and hoped I could figure out how to use it.

When I focused on my destination, a rancid, salty taste filled my mouth. A man was using two other bodies to climb the rock toward the weapons. He used one body to lean on while pulling the other body up to move toward the center of the rock. Blood coated the rock over the entire track he’d taken while two men and one woman below cheered at his progress.

I’d never seen anything so revolting in my life. He had no respect for the bodies of the people who had died. But I was guilty of helping to kill two people today, so I wasn’t much better.

The walls closed in on me as the horror of what I’d done sank in, but I had to push it away. Falling apart would only get me killed sooner.

I moved around the rock, cold wafting from it into my skin. I paused and touched it lightly then realized what it was—ice with edges made into frozen spikes. I had no doubt someone had used their magic to create this.

More things exploded, and a person to my left screamed in torment.

I snapped my head around to see that a man had been sliced in two while walking on the wooden plank through the swinging axe blades. A sword had shot up from underneath him, stabbing him between the legs, and then an axe had sliced into him. The axe kept moving, slowing down only marginally as it chopped through the body. Blood andguts hit the wood and dripped onto the ground below, where someone was neck-deep in quicksand.

That had to be why the other person had tried to make it across the plank. It was either that or die trying to take a shortcut.

Everywhere I turned, I saw death, blood, torture, and chaos. The sounds were deafening. If we’d all just stayed in the entry area and refused to fight one another, things would’ve been different. There wouldn’t be all this destruction and death, but that had been the point of the incentive for a reduced sentence and the directive to gain a weapon before attacking. Eldrin wanted us to fight each other and wanted this devastation.

The remaining prisoners had separated into small groups, leaving me to fend for myself.

I needed to do something to gain an advantage, so I scanned the area and noticed that the eight people who had climbed up the tower were watching the chaos from above.

For me to make it up there, they had to come down from their safe haven and fight for weapons.

I edged between the axe gauntlet and the frozen rock, noticing a couple of small pieces of black rock that had exploded just moments ago. I bent, gently picked a few up, and placed them in my slingshot.

Let’s see if my plan works.

I swung my arm, spinning the sling over my head. At first, the motion felt strange, but then something natural kicked in. I homed in on the blue-haired man who’d spoken out in the hallway and flipped my wrist forward.

The rock soared from the sling to the tower, hitting it below the railing of the top platform. The rock exploded, and the tower shook, stone crumbling from the blast.

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