Page 80 of Of Spindles and Nightfall
In the middle stood a large platform that wound upward several meters, scattered with weapons.
She gasped. Zarathos’s sword rested amidst the collection. But why? They must have taken it from him.
The bobcat-headed felyrix beside her sneered, his beady eyes locked on her. “Wait until I get a weapon, little vampire princess. You’ll be the first to go.”
It seemed the exiled remnants of Kingdom Nocturne hadn’t forgotten, or forgiven, what the vampires had done to them so long ago. Both the werewolf and now this creature had come for her the moment they were able.
He took a step toward the stack of weapons.
The floor of the pit gave way beneath his feet. A brief terrified scream echoed around the arena, followed by the sickening squelch of flesh meeting steel.
Aryana gripped the spike nearest her, eyes wide with horror as the ground collapsed beside her… and stopped.
She exhaled, relief rushing in like a tide. Only a single section had fallen, like the wedge of a pie. It stopped right before the small island with Zarathos’s sword. The truth was painfully clear: she and the others stood on a ledge, and the ground between them and the weapons was a false floor, one that dropped into an even deeper pit lined with sharp death spikes waiting to impale the unlucky.
The demon’s body twitched on the sharp points till it stopped moving, the scent of fresh blood drifting up to her. Above them, the crowd around the arena screamed with delight.
“Welcome, kalators, to the Demon Trials,” the demon announcer from the opening ceremony yelled. He sat above them at the forefront of the stands in a little box that jutted out from where the spectators had packed into the stands. His magically enhanced voice blared across the arena. “You will see everything is not as it seems and we are already one down. Poor soul.” The demon smiled. “Cross the pit, grab a weapon, and you will be able to not only sleep in peace tonight, but your champions will wield the weapon you retrieve into the trials.”
Shit. So die trying or risk more torture. Aryana was sure that the champions would no doubt level retribution against their kalators if they didn’t recover a weapon for them.
From the sections missing, the area in the center that held the weapons appeared to be perfectly circular. If she wanted Zarathos’s sword, she’d have to find a way across.
Another demon, an owl-headed creature with a human body, whose wings were tied back, burst into top speed, trying to outrun the crumbling floor. For a moment it seemed as if she might make it, but the ground collapsing caught up with her and she plummeted downward with a piercing shriek. The sound of tearing flesh caused Aryana to flinch. The stench of blood and death inside the pit grew more pungent.
A hunched goblin with large jowls and narrowed eyes had given up on the thought of the weapons and was moving acrossthe ledge to the other kalators. He grabbed a creature with the upper body of a ram and lower body of a snake by the scruff of the neck and threw it out onto the floor, where it collapsed.
Another one down.
The goblin set his eyes on the next in line. Neri.
Something fierce and protective arose in Aryana. Jesir was between her and Neri. She moved forward, balancing on the small space of the ledge, holding onto the spikes and inching around them. When she reached Jesir, she gave him a threatening look.
“Don’t move.”
He threw up his hands. “By all means, shuffle along.” He wedged himself between the spikes to allow her to pass.
The demon continued to close the distance between him and Neri.
Neri’s eye widened when she saw Aryana heading toward her. The scent of fear drifting off of her was driving the other demons into an uproar.
“Back off, vampire. The human is mine,” the goblin snarled.
“Searching for a snack during the Demon Trials. Sounds like a good way to get yourself killed,” Aryana said. “Leave the human alone.”
“You’re one to talk. Don’t tell me you don’t want her for your own.”
As Neri screamed and pressed herself between the spikes, Aryana sprang past her, aiming for the attacker. She gripped the spike and swung her legs around, catching the demon in a wound on his side.He gasped and fell backward, tumbling over the ledge and striking the spikes below.
Aryana spun and squatted next to Neri.
Neri jerked away, though there was nowhere to go. “Get back, vampire. I’m not your treat.”
“I’m not going to eat you. I’m saving your life.”
Her good eye narrowed. “Why?”
Gods,thatwould be such a long story. “Just stay here with me and let me think.”
