Winter Glass (Spindle Fire #2)(43)

The handle flies from her wet grip as she swings, the spiked ball rounding on Heath, smashing into his beautiful face before she has time to reconsider—not handsome, not heroic, but real and strong and so human, always, until now. Now it is twisted and inhuman and it hurts her to look even as he staggers backward, clutches at his bleeding cheek and mouth. The weapon falls into the water by his stumbling feet.

She doesn’t waste any more time. She is all action. There are weapons hidden under the water, she realizes, shaking. She crawls around frantically, feeling with her hands. She had forgotten their audience until this moment. It occurs to her just how much effort was put into making this fight as entertaining as possible for the spectators. Of course. Because if there’s one thing she has learned so far in her training, it is that violence is the food and the fuel of evil. And the queen must keep her minions fed.

All of this is for them—and for her too, meant to drive her to the peak of her dark power. She will only survive, she sees now, if she allows the magic to inhabit her completely. Aurora will only live by eradicating herself. Even now, a kind of coldness has possessed her, numbing her emotions—all the shock and hurt and terror of seeing Heath seem coated in a blazing ring of anger. It would feel so good, so right, to burn away those feelings, to be free of them, to be pure. To be like him. Merciless.

He splashes toward her, just as she is reaching for another object in the water—she pulls up a knife, her fist around the blade, her hand a puddle of blood. She gasps from the shocking, searing pain of it, and the knife drops with a splash. She fumbles for the handle side, and is yanked backward just as she grabs hold. Heath is dragging her through the water. She pulls away and tries to stand. Falls to her knees. Tries to stand again but cannot. Why can’t she stand? A new fear flaps inside her chest. She sits in the water, stares at her left leg, the one Heath grabbed, and sees that something is wrong. Her leg is mangled. Bloody. Standing above her, Heath is holding a bloody ax.

It takes a fraction of a moment for her to understand. To see what he has done. And then for the sensations to flood into her; the agony in her leg is debilitating. She’s sick, swaying, about to faint. Will she ever walk again? Fresh rage rips through her throat in a roar only she and Heath can hear. She can no longer think, can only feel. Fire consumes her; there’s ash in her breath and blurring her eyes.

The ax comes down again and she rolls in a split second across the water, hearing the ax meet the hard stone floor with an ear-shattering clang. He is coming after her. With a speed she didn’t know she possessed, she manages to get back to standing—leaning only on the right leg. She then flings herself at Heath, her drenched hair and clothes spraying water, her left leg dragging helplessly and bloodily at her side. She has grabbed him around the neck. She has the knife at his throat, but he drops the ax and grabs her around the waist. She swivels while still clinging to him, causing him to lose his balance. They both go down.

She only managed to nick his throat, and the knife has fallen, obscured again by the rippling water, which is now tinged with their blood. She is on top of him, but without a weapon. Something moves through her—the tiny kernel of almost-love buried deep within her is breathing new energy into her anger, her hatred, her desire for revenge. How dare he hurt her. How dare he become a monster. How dare he manifest everything she most fears becoming herself.

Around them, the water begins to harden toward ice. It is the cold of her dark magic, pulsing out of her. She reaches into the water and grabs a fistful of it—it becomes icicles as she pulls her hand out, and she flings them at his face.

But it is not enough. He manages to flip her, and now her back is submerged in the water, which is so cold, freezing all around her, about to seal her into its shallow coffin. Somehow he has gotten hold of one of the chains—his or hers, she can’t tell—and thrusts it up under her chin, pinning her once again. She starts to gasp, to lose her breath. She chokes on icy water and saliva. He is strangling her.

She looks into Heath’s eyes and sees no sign of the person he once was—the boy who dreamed of another world, who plotted and studied and mapped the Borderlands, who chased after the dwindling game and expertly brought home catch after catch to keep his extended family alive. All of that seems like another life ago—another world ago. And it was. A dream world. Her vision swirls. Behind Heath’s sweating, dripping, bleeding face swim the masks of the Vultures.

Her breath is gone. Water fills her ears, hardening into ice inside her. She is so cold. Impossibly cold. And weak. She feels herself going limp. Blackness fills her vision.

Death comes.

But only for an instant.

Through the darkness and the muffled sound, a distant whistle pierces.

Suddenly the pressure on her throat is gone. The water softens and warms, though she is still shivering uncontrollably.

Hands wrap around her shoulders, pulling her backward and away.

She blinks, gasping. The skylight above, releasing a faint silver light, seems blinding. Where is Heath? She hears struggling and focuses, focuses. Across the arena, Heath is being dragged back by three Vultures. It takes a minute for her to comprehend that the fight has been called. Malfleur, it seems, saw that her favorite new pet was going to die, and saved Aurora. That can be the only explanation.

All the fury of the fight has seeped out of Aurora’s body. She feels as though she’ll never be able to lift herself out of the shallow water, as if it is mud clinging to her and weighing her down.