The entire Top row rang bells and stamped feet, chanting, “Silas. Silas. Silas.” The Middlers joined in too, but for the Bottom’s attendants, the wind shifted. Unlike in the past, when they would follow the others’ leads, they stayed quiet, showing their disapproval. For all the harm Griffin had inflicted on one of his own, the Bottom was still with him. He choked on gratitude.
Griffin stepped forward, lifted his arm, placing it on his chest, his fist over his heart, and bowed to them.
“Careful,” Jori said to him.
Griffin set a hand on his shoulder, showing his loyalty for the prince. “That’s exactly what I’m being, sire.”
Mostly drizzle and mist now, the ground looked like a pigsty. Silas stomped in a circle, his boots leaving a trail of punctures. He had strapped cleats to the soles. The throngs cheered their approval.
Malcolm came to stand with Griffin and Jori. His red hair was so wet from the rain it looked brown. He crossed his arms, leaning on the balcony railing, closely watching the gate. “Think it’s the new one he’ll face?” he asked Griffin.
“Don’t know.” Griffin looked at Maggie, who was also fixated on the gate.
It finally rolled up.
Griffin was relieved for Maggie, for it most definitely wasn’t Rendicryss, although he wasn’t sure Silas would fare much better with this bastard.
The purple draignoch had nearly taken Griffin’s head off last year. The creature still bore the scars from the match on its abdomen and was missing the top of its wing.
Taller than most, and fiercely fast, it sprinted from the keep, snarling and frothing, and was on Silas in seconds.
Silas spun but wasn’t fast enough to get out from underneath its lowering jaw. A fang cut across the top of his helmet, then stabbed, ripping it off, taking it with it as it circled the arena, stretching as far as the massive leg irons would allow, banging into the walls, shaking the stands. The audience enjoyed the show the beast was putting on for them. Squealing with delight as it passed, jumping startled with every jolt it gave.
Unlike Griffin, they hadn’t yet seen the blood dripping down the side of Silas’s face. He shuddered. The pain from the venom left behind was likely driving Silas mad.
The knight stumbled.
The crowd gasped in unison.
The draignoch sprinted toward Silas. He yanked out a white cloth from inside his tunic, pressed it over the tip of the spear, and threw it. The draignoch’s attention followed the white flag, as it always did.
“See that?” Cornwall said to Malcolm. “That’s what I was telling you about. They’re attracted to white.”
Silas pulled his sword and staggered after the monster, trying to sneak up on it from its hindquarters. The draignoch’s tail swung, hitting Silas in the chest, knocking him off his feet. He landed hard on his back. His sword flew across the arena, far out of reach.
The bottom fell out of Griffin’s stomach. He gripped the banister with both hands.
“You planning on leaping down there to help him?” Jori asked. His subsequent laughter stung.
Before Silas could get up, the draignoch pivoted. Its claws stabbed the U in the center of Silas’s chest plate. The crack of punctured metal echoing in the stunned silence was broken by Aofrea’s screams.
Griffin’s breath caught. Cornwall backed away in shock. Malcolm let out a long deep sigh, knowing as Griffin did that this match was long since over.
Griffin cast a wary eye on Silas’s family. Ragnas wrestled with Zac, likely trying to keep him from running down into the ring. Silas’s mother bent over, reaching for her son, screaming his name.
Maggie wrestled away from Xavier. She stormed at the prince. “Why doesn’t the king stop this?”
“Maggie, deaths are upsetting,” Jori said with a placating tone, “but you don’t understand—”
“Oh, I understand all right.” She glared at the king, then hurried to the railing in time to see the draignoch pull its claws out and stab again.
“Griffin . . . ,” Maggie gasped. She was shaking with distress, with ire.
He laid a hand on hers on the banister. “Do you still believe they’re not dangerous?”
She tore her hand away from him. “I understand. They killed many.” Her jaw set defiantly. “But the draignoch didn’t ask to be tossed into the arena. You can’t blame it for defending itself.”
As a knight, he too had been thrown into the ring for price and sport. “No. I suppose I can’t.”
Their eyes met as she looked away from the horror.
Boos. Hisses. Cursing. All manner of hate poured down on Silas as he took his last breath. The Bottom, out of loyalty to Griffin, was the loudest. They started chanting his name—“Griffin! Griffin!”—over and over.
They wanted him to exact revenge. Against the draignoch, against the king, against every aspect of the wretched lives that had been forced upon them. They needed him to.
Maggie stepped away from the rail. His heart sank, worrying she didn’t want to be seen with him. That her kiss meant nothing. That it was simply a kind gesture. Compassion. But that she preferred the company of the prince. Less scarred by life, coffers filled with riches he hung around her neck. It was an obvious choice. But then, he knew Maggie well enough to know she was a great many things, but obvious was not one of them.
King Umbert sucked air through his teeth so loudly Griffin could hear it. He stood up and threw his glass of wine into the ring.
“Worthless. Leave his body. Let the beast feast on it,” the king shouted.
“What?” Griffin blurted. “Sire, Silas is from a noble family!”
“He has dishonored that family in defeat!” the king bellowed. “Now he will pay the price.”
“No!” Ragnas called.
“It is for your sake that I command this, Ragnas, so that your family may be free of this stain! As I say, so shall it be!”
Jori looked as if he’d eaten something sour.
Malcolm hissed a dark laugh. “You expected less?”
Silas’s family rushed for the exit. Others in the Top followed, refusing to watch. Griffin wished he could go with them, but he had already insulted the king today.
The king sat down and sighed. “Lucky day for you, Sir Griffin. Silas was one of your chief competitors. Now he is lunch.”
“Yes, sire,” Griffin answered back, feeling anything but lucky.
Exhausted from his all-night outing with Maggie to the Bottom, his brain fogged. For the first time in his life, he started to question himself. Why was he fighting? Who was he fighting for?
His parents had been avenged many times over. He had achieved the highest honors, but what had it truly gotten him? A room in the castle? A place beside the prince at the dinner table? Where he used to only count on his own wits and hard work to survive, he now was forced to worry over every word he spoke and every action he took, all for the love of a king who would see him massacred on a whim. Defiled for his own amusement.
The revelation left him looking for Maggie, but she wasn’t there. Neither was Xavier.
Griffin leaned on the rail. The draignoch’s chains chinked as it was allowed to gorge on Silas’s corpse. The sounds of ripping flesh and crunching bones were more than Griffin could take. He turned away.
“I . . . don’t want to be eaten,” Cornwall said.