Page 16 of Lost

The creature struggled with its chain, frantically pulling at it, spinning around as if to try to untangle itself. This only made the crowd even more excited. He had beaten it. Lord Cyr had fooled the monster into tying itself into a knot from which it couldn’t escape.

The Fae set his spear down on the ground and approached, gracefully leaping onto the rock and landing beside the tangled beast. It was bigger than he was, but it couldn’t lash out at him with any kind of force. It was stuck. Cyr reached into the creature’s crown as it snapped its jaw and tried to free itself. With a concentrated look on his face, he worked at the gemstone stuck in there and tried to dislodge it with his bare hands.

Then everything turned.

The Souldirge’s body flared bright blue, blinding Cyr who was way too close to it and too busy trying to free the gemstone to protect his eyes. The Fae screamed and let go of the gem, staggered, and fell flat on his arse on the rock. While Cyr rubbed his eyes, the Souldirge dug its claws into the rock it was on, prepared itself, and then thrust outwardly with all its might.

A metallic snap rung out, and in an instant, the monster was free. It had pulled the chain’s restraints right out of the ice rock. The crowd gasped. My father sat upright while Cyr’s parents rushed toward the edge of the balcony. They were yelling, waving, frantically calling for someone to help their son, to stop this, to restrain that monster before it could hurt their child.

Not only had the creature freed itself—I had to wonder whether it had actually been stuck to begin with, or if it had deliberately lured the overconfident Fae into a trap.

Lord Bailen called for healers and soldiers to enter the arena, to subdue the Souldirge, but none of them dared get close to this thing now that it was free and could easily move about the place. Its attention, however, wasn’t on the Fae around the edge of the arena or the courtiers on the stand, but on Lord Cyr.

When his sight returned, and he saw the creature looming above him, all of the bravado fell away from him, like ice melting under a flame. On his hands and feet, he tried to crawl backwards, away from the Souldirge, but there wasn’t much room for him to move around. Eventually, he reached the edge of the rock, and while some would have been happy to take the short fall to the ground, Cyr seemed to think better of it.

Instead, he started to scream for help.

The creature wasn’t interested in helping him, though. Its lower jaw distended, and it lunged at him, biting deeply into his leg. Cyr screamed again, only this time, there was pain in his cry. I couldn’t help myself. I jumped up, set Tallin down on my chair, and rushed over to the edge of the balcony.

Before anyone could say otherwise, I was up and over the edge. A moment later, I landed on the ground with a hard thud. The entire court gasped, their voices rising to fever pitch. Some of the soldiers on the edge of the arena started to move toward me, as if they wanted to protect me, but I didn’t want protection—I wanted to deal with the creature tearing a hole in Lord Cyr’s leg.

As much of an idiot as I thought he was, I didn’t want to see him actually get eaten.

“Princess!” said one of the soldiers, “You can’t be down here! Return to the balcony!”

“I’m trying to help you!” I snapped, and I started my run toward the Souldirge, who instantly turned its eyes—and then its bloody mouth—up at me.

“It’s too dangerous!” the guards called out. “Please, step away from the creature!”

I didn’t listen to them. I couldn’t listen to them. I was done sitting around, watching, and waiting. There was a dangerous monster on the loose, and as long as I felt like I could do something about it, I was going to act.

“Hey!” I called out to it, “That’s right, big boy,look at me. You don’t want him; I’m the one you want to bite.”

Winding back my right arm, I drew a trickle of ambient magic into me, enough to charge a ball of energy I could hurl at the Souldirge. The telekinetic strike hit the monster across the side of the face, and while it wasn’t enough to hurt it, the blast was strong enough to make it forget Lord Cyr, leap off the rock, and come for me.

Turning around, I started to run again, realizing quickly that I hadn’t thought this far ahead, and I wasn’t sure where to run to next. I had to lure the creature into some kind of trap. The soldiers were waiting, struggling to mount a defense against a creature as lethal and as quick as this one, but they were coming up short. Even the supposed handlers couldn’t get close enough to it.

The monster at my back came galloping after me on all fours. I could hear it panting, breathing down my neck, and evensalivating.It wanted to eat me, and if I wasn’t careful, it was going to. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the double doors at the other end of the arena start to open, I turned sharply, skidding across the ground, and headed toward it. Someone was coming through from the other side—not more soldiers, though; it was the last contestant.

Valerian.

I watched him push the doors open by himself. When he saw me running toward him, he moved aside slightly to let me through. I wasn’t privy to his strategy, though—he wasn’t armed, and he wasn’t charging any magic, either. “You had better have a plan,” I yelled, “Because otherwise this thing is going to eat us both!”

“Slide,” he barked.

“Slide?”

“Slide!”

I threw myself to the smooth, marble ground and slid toward the gap in the door, sailing into the waiting room where contestants would sit before the start of their trial. I turned myself around even as I continued to slide in time to watch Valerian take a defensive stance and extend his hands toward the creature that was barreling toward him.

I felt a pulse of something like magic ripple out of him. Just as the Souldirge was about to pounce on him, closing the distance between the two of them, it dug its claws into the ground to stop itself in its tracks. The monster came to a screeching halt a few feet away from Valerian, who hadn’t moved an inch.

When I finally stopped sliding, I stood, and approached. Without looking at me, Valerian shot one of his hands back.

“Don’t,” he warned, his voice deep, and gruff, his silvery hair waving gently with the breeze caused by the Souldirge’s abrupt stop.

I saw him take a step toward the creature.

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