Dawn of Ash (Imdalind, #6)(23)

Head bowed, Damek turned from me, opening the next flap wide and welcoming me into the large, open underbelly of the stadium.

The heavy canvas of the receiving room had dulled the sounds of the pits, but now that I was on this side, they were crippling roars of excitement and catcalling, hundreds of Trpaslíks screaming in joy and frustration. The sound was beautiful, unlike the begging of the ones outside. This was joyous and soothing. The sounds of death always were.

“How many have fought today?” I asked as the now cowering guard caught up with me, his heels clacking loudly against the stones that had been used to cover the ground. The underside of the risers stretched above us like an ancient wood and steel bridge.

I was glad I had chosen to leave my fur. It was warmer in here, the heat mixing with the smell of blood and feces that reminded me of what I had been raised in, what my father had taught me to love.

What I had learned to love.

“There have been over twenty, Ovailia…” he began, and I stopped, fixing him with a hard look that, considering the way his shoulders pulled into his chin, hit him hard in the gut. “My lady, he is in his usual box.”

A cheer went up from the stadium I walked below, a loud and riotous scream thundering behind it along with a few moans of defeat.

“I hope the take was good.”

I didn’t even have to ask if my father had won or if he had bet. He always did, and he was always right. For the centuries that the Trpaslíks had been fighting in the pits, he had been right. It was how he had kept his guard so well trained. He only picked the winners.

If I remembered correctly, even Cail had killed ten men without the use of Edmund’s ?tít in the pits.

Everyone had to prove themselves. The more you proved yourself, the higher you were in the ranks of the Trpaslíks’ magic.

“Earlier, he won over twenty thousand Euros,” Damek answered, his voice eager again.

Without so much as a glance toward the man, I continued toward one of my father’s other guards, a handsome man who stood outside of one of the many entrances, his body shrouded in a heavy, black cloak.

“Ovailia,” he greeted me as we approached, his voice heavy against the shouts of betting, taunts, and hollers that were leaking from the arena just beyond him.

The exhilaration for the coming match was mounting, infecting me with an eagerness I awarded to Damek’s masked insubordination.

“Sir,” I greeted him, knowing I should have corrected him yet choosing to leave the overly familiar greeting hanging, the single word bristling poor Damek’s insecurities further. “Is he expecting me?”

The man nodded with a smile, moving to the side to let me through before moving back, blocking Damek from entrance. “His majesty does not wish you further entry,” the younger man growled.

Damek’s instantaneous rebuttal was lost amongst the crowd I was moving toward.

Joy swelled at the exchange I was leaving behind. I was glad I wasn’t the only one who was getting fed up with the boundaries Damek had been pushing. After hundreds of years of service, he should know better. No matter. From what I had witnessed, he would be gone in a matter of days, anyway.

As I walked through one of the small hallways that led to the main space, the bones of the structure fell away to reveal rows and rows of metal bleachers, the smell of sweat and blood mixing with the joy and exuberance of the crowd.

I smiled broadly as I moved into the stadium, the wide space open to a white sky. Snow fell gracefully above the heads of the thousands who sat around the pits yet never reached them, as it evaporated in the heat of the inside.

The sound of raucous bidding was deafening as I stood at the highest point in the stadium, rows stretched below me before dropping into a large, open pit where dirt and blood mixed together so seamlessly that, unless you knew what you were looking at, it would be easily mistaken for mud.

“Ovailia!” my father bellowed from below me, his voice an excited boom over the noise I was already inundated by.

Already in good spirits thanks to the entertainment, Edmund smiled with a dangerous grin that, to anyone else, would insight fear. And, while I did feel the shiver of warning, it was the eagerness of danger, of reward, that pulled me forward.

He sat alone, surrounded by pillows and platters of food, his guards flanking him in such a wide berth that he was an island amongst the shiny, silver bleachers. An island that was draped in an ornate cloak I hadn’t seen since before we had been banished from Imdalind the first time.

I recognized the fur-trimmed relic as what he used to wear to council when I was a child. It had been given to him by some king when he had saved their country, or so the history books said. In reality, it was him taking over, a coup he would run from behind the scenes.

Another kingdom we had claimed for our own.

Just like this one.

All he needed was the crown, and he would get it before all this was over.

“Father,” I began, his eyes lighting up at the greeting. “You seem quite comfortable.”

His nefarious smile grew, hand waving to the bare bleacher beside him in an invitation to sit.

Without missing a beat, one of his newly found servants, one of the Chosen, moved forward to place another pillow there, his head bowed low, his hands and arms covered with bruises. He shook as he moved, as if every step was a trial, the shake in his back growing the closer he moved to my father.