My sight blurs as my eyes prickle with heat.
A guard sticks his nose through the barred window of my cell door, taking me from my thoughts. I’m almost thankful.
He clears something thick from his throat, spitting it on the ground. “Put these on,” he orders, pushing a white bundle through the compartment at the bottom of the door.
The mound thumps against the stone floor. When I look back up at the bars, he’s gone.
I sit up and make my way to the pile. I reach for the clothing, hands trembling, because I’ve just received my answer.
Unfolding the mound, one by one, I lay out a white tunic, white pants, and white boots.
Same thing each Offered wears.
I won’t wear it.
I pick up the clothes and toss them into the muddy corner of the cell.
This isn’t my sacrifice. If I’m executed as a traitor, I’ll do so in my Night uniform, not under the guise I’m doing some favor for the people of Bellona to please the Sun.
I stand, staring through the bars in the door, waiting for anyone who might give me some information. Or better, who might open the door so I can punch and stab and kick my way out of here.
No one passes. I’m alone. Weighed down by endless thoughts and memories.
Just me and the stone and the smell of rot and the drip, drip of something not too far off.
But then there’s something else mingling with the sounds of nothingness. Something far worse.
Even from a distance, I know his silhouette, his stride, the tilt of his hat and the way his red sash is pressed, creased like new.
Raevald opens the door to my cell, locking it behind him, two soldiers appearing from nowhere waiting outside.
He looks me up and down, then stares at the soiled, once-white clothing in the corner. “Do the garments not fit?”
I don’t say a word.
He smirks, nodding knowingly.
I run straight for him and throw a punch that misses spectacularly, my knuckles landing into the door for the hundredth time in several hours. Pain and fresh blood burst across my fingers.
He strides toward me, stopping when there’s no space between us, his nose an inch from mine.
I shove him in the chest to push him back, staining his gold sash with a spattering of blood from my knuckles.
He grabs my wrist, twisting my arm so it burns and threatens to tear in two.
I lock my eyes on his, refusing to be intimidated.
“Tt-Tt-Tt—” He clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “Save that for the Coliseum. The crowd will love it.” Still squeezing my wrist so tightly my hand’s going numb, he jerks farther, my elbow burning. “I knew you’d be special. The only one to escape the Night.”
I struggle for words. “Why am I being Offered? On what grounds?”
He laughs under his breath. “Treason, of course. Just like your mother. Funny how things come full circle.”
The High Regent lets go of my wrist. I pull away, rubbing my hand back to life.
Eyes wide, all I can do is stare. Hope I can somehow turn my hate for him into fire, burn him to cinders.
“So, you’re my bastard granddaughter…” His eyes search over me, disgusted, like he’s looking down at an insect he’s about to smash. “So much like your mother.”
And he knows about me too.
Raevald walks across the cell until his sculpted eyebrows, his leathery skin, are in my face again. “I’ve said too much. But … you’ll see. I’d hate to spoil the big ending.”
“You’re not my grandfather. You’ll never be half the man he was.”
“Yes, well, I guess we’ll never know, will we?” He sneers.
I spit in his face. Without expression, he pulls a red handkerchief from his breast pocket and wipes it clean.
Turning on his heels, he leaves.
The door locks.
I slide down the wall, bring my knees to my chest, and curl into myself …
* * *
TIME PASSES AND doesn’t pass. It’s as if I’m in a trance, staring at the grit between the stones in the floor, trying to think of something, anything I can do. What I should have and shouldn’t have done. But there’s nothing. It’s over.
It goes on like that until I snap out of it, the roar of the crowd gathering above, awakening my body and mind.
I jump up, try to see out of the small opening in the door of my cell, but it’s all shadows. All I can do is listen, the sounds of the Coliseum so familiar and at the same time completely foreign, masked with echoes from down here.
One thing is unshakably clear: The Offering is about to begin.
My heart rushes as it beats faster, rapping against my chest, into my neck, pounding at my ears. It won’t stop. It doesn’t stop.
Pounding.
CHAPTER 28
I walk down the hall, hands bound at my waist, a guard on each side jerking me along.
My eyes are drawn down, focused on my boots and how they shuffle with every forced step like they’re someone else’s feet.
My head could explode any minute. My heart, still in pieces, works too hard pounding for its fragments to hold strong.
We reach the door.
Raevald’s voice echoes, magnified, over his speaking-trumpet, but I can’t make out his words, just a string of murmurs, then applause.
Murmurs.
Applause.
I force my ears to work harder, but I’m only able to make out: “Special treat … Offering … the Night … a fine show … unfortunate … traitor … begin!”
I’m thrust through the door.
Applause. Whoops. Hollering. Whistling. Boos.
The Sun blinds me, glinting off the snow. I shade my face with my tied wrists, hiding from the spectators.
Here I am, shuffling along, kicking up snow-covered gravel, taking the long walk to the altar.
Hands still hovering at my forehead, all I see is the white ground, the Sun reflecting into my eyes, until the altar is at my waist, the cold of it pushing through to my skin like ice.
My eyes are pulled to the brown smudge atop the stone; the place where the Offered give their blood is so bloodied, it’s no longer fading back to stone.
It’s then I notice another body. I glance up.
The pounding of my heart stops completely. My heart is nothing, an empty, useless cavern, all blood from it dried out, cracking, falling to dust.
Nico stands before me, blade in hand. Face unreadable. But his eyes. His eyes scream at me to run. To find a way out of this. Fight, Veda, fight! they shout.
“What a show this is going to be!” Raevald speaks from on high, a satisfied humor in his voice.
The crowd erupts with applause.
Raevald motions to Nico now. “As your heir, Mr. Denali will stand by as we Offer this traitorous former Bellonian. But first, he will open the ceremony by performing the altar ritual. Oh, how the Sun will reward Bellona today! Now, I give you your Offering.”
The arena thunders with excitement, but Nico doesn’t so much as flinch. He’s being punished, I know it. I can see it in the way he’s gripping the blade before him, his knuckles white around the handle. Raevald knows we were together, and he’s going to force Nico to watch me die.
And afterward?
What will Nico’s ultimate punishment be? I purge countless horrors from my head just as Raevald’s words from moments ago come bounding back. You’ll see. I’d hate to spoil the big ending.