I’m truly awed. “What is that?”
“Once every hundred years, the Light Fae celebrate the creation of Faere with an event called the Festival of Creation. That includes games and actual battles of skill over several days. This is where it all takes place, and we just had ours a few months ago. My mother hides it with magic afterward as she thinks it’s an eyesore, but I’ve temporarily uncovered it as we’ll be practicing inside tonight.”
I glance at Carrick, not liking the sound of battles in a Romanesque coliseum that was known in our history to have some of the bloodiest and most violent engagements known to man. Carrick merely shrugs, clearly willing to see where Deandra is going with his.
She leads us inside the largest archway and up a flight of stairs, which comes out on the lower level of the interior. It’s incredibly dark, and we can only see a few feet ahead of us by the orb of light still hanging over Deandra’s head. We walk down to the first row of seating, which are long rows of marble benches that disappear into the darkness, but I imagine they run the perimeter of the coliseum. Given my observation of the outside, I’m assuming these stands rise upward a few levels as well.
I strain my eyes to see down into the pit below, but I can’t make out anything. I know just from watching the movie Gladiator, it’s probably hard-packed dirt and sits fairly low beneath these seats to prevent people from escaping.
“See,” Deandra says brightly. “We’ll have plenty of room here, no one to watch, and you can light up the sky if you want with that magic of yours, which we’re going to tap.”
“Well, I actually can’t see much at all,” I reply, but she ignores me.
“Ready to get started?” she asks instead.
My senses are telling me that whatever is going to happen is definitely going to be different than anything I’ve tried before when it comes to tapping my powers, and because I don’t have a clue of what’s going on, I’m admittedly a little bit scared. Still, I try to sound nonchalant. “Yeah… sure.”
I am not heartened in any way when I see a wicked gleam in her eyes that makes my stomach bottom out. “Then let’s begin.”
Immediately, I’m surrounded in darkness so black I can’t see my hand right before my face. I drag my foot and it feels like I’m standing on dirt. I turn and immediately see Deandra and Carrick in the front row seats where I had just been standing with them, about forty yards from me, the floating light above them making the area outside its perimeter even darker.
Deandra had transported me into the middle of the pitch-black pit and my heart starts to kick against my chest with apprehension.
Carrick and Deandra are engaged in conversation. I’m sure he’s asking her what the fuck she’s doing, but despite the fact I know Carrick won’t let me be harmed, I break out in a bit of a sweat wondering what’s going to happen.
They’re too far away for me to hear what they’re saying. Rather than use my super hearing skills on Deandra, I instead strain to hear anything that could be near me in the dark because I know danger is going to be part of this little experiment she has planned.
I concentrate hard but it’s utterly silent, which actually scares me a little more than if I had heard something breathing heavily behind me. What if something is stalking me and being incredibly quiet about it?
Whatever the conversation between Carrick and Deandra, it doesn’t last long as they both turn back to the pit and stare down into it. I don’t know if Carrick can see me or not, but I don’t move a muscle. He’s too far away for me to see the exact details of his face to know if he’s pissed or on board with what Deandra has planned, but I can tell by the stiffness of his body that he’s on edge.
And that causes my fear to notch up just a little bit more.
After I inhale deeply through my nose, I let it flow out slowly. I roll my shoulders, trying to loosen myself up. I’m missing my whip right now. In this darkness, I don’t know that I’ve ever felt more vulnerable in my life. I don’t know what’s going to happen, what might come after me, but I immediately start to concentrate on tapping my bubble shield.
In other words, I immediately start thinking defensively.
Suddenly, lights flick on and I’m momentarily blinded. I hold my hand up to shield my eyes, but once they’re accustomed, I take in the fact that just below where Deandra and Carrick are standing is a square opening in the wall covered with a gate made of thick bars. I can’t see what’s inside because it’s dark, but, instinctively, I know something is in there.
I even take a few steps closer, chin jutting forward and eyes narrowing to try to see better. I make it no more than three paces when whatever is in that barred opening starts a low, deep growl that causes the hair on my arms to rise.
Scrambling back a few feet, I look left and right, noting two more barred cages about twenty feet to either side of the original one. As if knowing my attention is on them, whatever is in those cages starts growling, too.
Fuck.
My mind is utterly blank on what to do, but while those cages are closed, I decide to take in the rest of the arena. I slowly turn around, note there are doorways in the pit walls as well as other cages. I have no clue if anything will be coming out, but when I get halfway around, my body locks tight as I see a large pole about a foot in diameter planted deep into the dirt.
And tied to that pole with her hands behind her back is my best friend, Rainey. She’s gagged and can’t speak, but I can hear her cries of fear and pleading. Tears are streaming out of her eyes, only to soak into the cloth gag.
Immediately, I’m filled with fury that Rainey has been brought into this, and my instinct is to run to her so I can release her from the pole. But then I realize that will be futile as I don’t know what to do with her. I can’t bend distance with her as it would kill her, and the pit walls are too high for us to scale or jump.
I’m sure I’ll be ashamed later, but my next instinct is to turn to Carrick for help. Sadly, there’s no time as I hear the screeching of metal and realize those cages behind me are now starting to open.
I wheel back around to face them, putting myself between whatever is going to come out and Rainey. It’s up to me to protect her.
Three of the barred doors are slowly rolling horizontally. I do a quick glance around the rest of the arena, but I don’t see any more cages opening. There are doors and something could be coming out at some point, so I’ll need to keep that in mind.
From the tarry black interior of the first cage where I had heard a low rumbling growl emerges a creature that has to be of Nimeyah’s making. It resembles nothing like what we have on earth, but it seems to be made of different parts of recognizable animals. It’s four-legged with a hunched back and low-slung hips and there’s a ridge of bony spikes running from the base of its neck between its shoulder blades and down to mid-spine. Its tail is that of a scorpion’s, arched up and over the creature with a sharp spike on the end from which drops of something yellow drip. The top portion of its face is squashed inward with bulging eyes, but the lower jaw juts forward with huge canines. Saliva drools from the corners of its mouth as it prowls out of his cage.
At first, I think it sees Rainey and I and intends on coming our way, but incredibly it looks left and then right, eyes peering around for its quarry. It doesn’t seem to see us and I wonder if it’s blind.