Blood Lands (Savage Lands #5)(28)

“You will see, you and your insurgents here, exactly what happens to those who go against me.” He leaned in closer. “Show me how far you can push those limits, Brexley. How far you will go to survive.”





Chapter 8





Fire crackled and sputtered from the pits, taunting and beckoning us closer. Energy clashed and struck the walls like cymbals. Lights shone down on the arena, the stage. Seats filled up for tonight’s performance.

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”

Shakespeare was a little too on the nose for me right now. But it’s all we were to Istvan. Chess pieces and bit actors. A game in life, entertainment in death.

My gaze shot to Rosie, imagining this was not how she saw her last performance going. She stood only a few spots down, her eyes glazed, her head still bleeding. She struggled to stay on her feet, but she was alive.

For now.

I knew someone was going to die tonight. Glowering up at Istvan, his arms behind his back, smugness over his features. I realized how well he had done his research. He knew every player he wanted in the arena to be pitted against each other.

Scorpion, Ash, Killian, Kek, Maddox, Birdie, Wesley, Kitty, Hanna, Rosie, and Lukas.

Istvan didn’t pick them by accident. Every one of them was personal, meant to hurt and punish me. This was the ultimate game of survival, showing the truth of people’s character. Who you really were when it came down to life and death?

“How far, Brexley, are you willing to go to survive?”

The stadium was filled with inmates and all the HDF soldiers, the energy a strange mix of hunger, fear, excitement, and horror. There were no songs for blood, no chants for death, but the prisoners up in the stands knew how easy it would be for them to be thrown in with us if they fought back, if they vocally retaliated.

They happily made us the sacrifice to appease the god before them and so played along.

Figures moved from the doorway behind Istvan’s private balcony. Olena and four others came from the shadows up to the railing, gazing down at us, covered in their finery and entitlement.

As if I ran into a wall, everything stopped. My head spun, and it took me longer than usual to understand. To grasp the people near Istvan. To make the connection.

Olena was next to Istvan, looping her arm in his, with a conceited smile painting her red lips. Caden moved in on the other side of her, his arms behind him, his face expressionless. The jolt of seeing my old best friend wearing the new HDF uniform, the marker on his breast and arm declaring he was only a rank below Istvan, should have been enough to tip everything sideways.

He wasn’t. It was the three on the other side of Istvan, two men and a woman.

“Ty vole!” Fuck! Shit! No way! Lukas’s entire body jerked, stumbling back, a hiss sliding through his teeth. His green eyes filled with shock and confusion. His gaze locked on the stunning blonde woman up on the balcony.

The same bright green eyes looked back at him.

The lover of Prague’s leader.

Sonya.

Lukas’s mother.

And standing next to her was the Prime Minister Leon. My brain couldn’t even connect the dots before the fourth person stepped up into view, arrogance perfuming off him, almost knocking me off my feet.

“Iain.” Killian breathed out his name, his expression a mix of shock, disgust, and bewilderment.

The cute young guard I taunted and teased when Killian first had me locked up in the palace stood at the railing, peering down with smugness. The one I so easily brushed off as naïve and sweet. The way he looked at me now, I realized it had all been an act.

The boy who blushed around me was a lie.

“It was you.” Killian snarled. “You were the spy. You blew up my palace.”

Iain smirked, his head dipping with pride and affirmation.

My jaw dropped. Iain was the one who planted the bombs?

It made sense. He was close enough no one questioned his motives or presence. Someone who almost wasn’t seen or thought about because of his rank and shy demeanor. He purposely made himself part of the background, unnoticed and unquestioned.

Iain’s mouth curled into a cruel smile. “Your arrogance made you blind, lord.” He spit on the title. “You thought yourself so smart, so above the rest. Always ten steps ahead of everyone else, dismissing anyone you deemed below you. Well, look who is beneath me now.”

Killian’s jaw tightened. “Why? You throw your lot in with humans? You really think the fae are going to be all right with a human taking over?”

“No. That’s why they have me.” Sonya spoke. She didn’t look much over thirty, with creamy skin and caramel blonde hair. Her bright green eye popped like emeralds. The more I looked at her, the more I saw Lukas.

“They might not take a human, but they will take another noble fae, descended from Queen Aneira’s court, sitting on your throne.” She touched Leon’s arm.

Pieces started to snap into a picture.

Killian huffed, his head shaking. “The worst foes are those who have no side but their own.”

Sonya let out a peal of laughter.

“That’s rich coming from you.” She leveled her attention on Killian. “The one who murdered the rightful successor to get where he is. The one who came from nothing to become leader of the fae. I know who you are, Killian, and what kind of low-grade thieves you arise from.”