Page 76 of Dance of the Phoenix
My heart beat hard in my chest as I saw the Minotaur cornering Cassidy against the arena’s wall.Sing,I willed in my head.Sing, Cassidy, before he it—
The Minotaur raised its halberd to the side of Cassidy’s head.
I watched in horror as it cut in a precise horizontal line, literally cutting her head in half.
Her severed head rolled to the floor.
Cassidy couldn’t use her singing Gift anymore.
The Minotaur roared in victory.
It didn’t compute.
None of it.
Why didn’t Cassidy sing? Why didn’t she fight back when she had an opening?
“No!”
I whipped my head to Isora, who jumped to her feet, watching the arena with terror. Slowly, I returned my gaze to the battle and saw as the griffin flew down on Zoey, who’d slipped on the floor and found herself down with her chest far too bare for an attack.
And the griffin used that to dig its talons into Zoey’s chest, making her back arch as blood trickled down from her mouth, and it plucked her heart out.
This couldn’t be happening.
It made zero sense.
Even when Renaldi announced, “And the winner of this round is the Atalon League!” none of it felt real.
Zoey and Cassidy couldn’t be dead.
How could they be dead when just this morning, Zoey talked and laughed with everyone?
How could they be dead when just earlier, I saw Magnus give Cassidy a pep talk?
Ragnor’s hold on me tightened. “You can leave,” he told me quietly, face grim. “You don’t have to watch the rest of it.”
I shook my head. I needed to watch. If my friends were dying, bearing witness was the least I could do. I couldn’t look away.
I had to watch, even though it killed me that Logan, Cassidy, Zoey, and Eleanor were dead.
All in the span of a couple of hours.
All because of this Hecatomb, because of Atalon and Ragnor.
And because of me.
The fourth battle was between two vampires of the Atalon League I didn’t recognize called Petra and Caleb, and the Rayne Troop Commander Haneul Kang and Yelene, the Common Troop member.
The battle started like any other. Petra and Caleb were on the offense, moving together to separate Haneul and Yelene from one another. But Haneul, whose Gift was his deep connection with his hawk, made the bird attack the Atalon League pair while he put some distance between them and him.
While Petra and Caleb were distracted by Haneul’s hawk, Yelene launched an attack on Caleb, targeting him specifically, which told me he must’ve been the Common in the pair. Haneul made his hawk focusonly on Petra while Yelene battled with Caleb, fighting for who got more punches and kicks in.
Then the tides changed.
Petra, who’d been trying to get the hawk off her up until then, suddenly jumped.
And didn’t land.
