The current pulled him under, out into the crashing chaos of the waterfalls that poured into the arena. He curled into a ball as he slid down a slimy slope, jolting and bouncing between clots of moss until finally he rolled to a stop.
Water hissed to steam all around him on a floor of glittering black. He was aware of dropping into a brand-new, stunned silence, like when he’d entered homeroom that morning. He sat up and stared, and three thousand cloud-white eyes stared back. The crowd, the entire arena, was captivated by the boy who had just gushed out of their giant god’s weeping grimace.
Kane felt like he should pose. Or wave. Or do something. It felt strange to make such an entrance with so little flair. He looked at Adeline, bound to the altar, and her face was the only one absent of awe. The cloud of her black curls rocked as she shook her head. She looked deeply, witheringly annoyed with Kane’s arrival.
The silence ended when the other sacrificial virgins started screaming.
“We’re saved!”
“Our hero!”
“We knew you’d come!”
And, just like that, the plot twist was complete. Kane went from distant spectator to sudden savior. Outrage exploded from the crowd, bathing the court in a dissonant demand for sacrifice. Sacrifice. SACRIFICE!
Shivers rocked his body, rattling his teeth. He had messed up so bad that the worst possible scenario was being realized, and there was nothing he could do to stop it now.
“Kane! The sorcerer!” Adeline shouted.
Up close the man was something between corpse and exoskeleton, his skin scaled in smooth burns, his teeth just rotten pebbles jammed up into gooey gums. He pulled a twisted bone dagger from his sleeve and, locking his white eyes on Kane, rushed toward Adeline. He drew the dagger back, aiming right for her stomach. She flinched, but there was nowhere to go.
Against all his instincts, Kane sprinted after the sorcerer. He was not as fast. His soaked clothes caught with every stride. There was no way he could reach the dagger as it plunged toward Adeline…but…
Kane snatched the rotting robes and yanked as hard as he could. The dagger skewed upward, caught in the hollow of Adeline’s jaw, and then wheeled away as Kane pulled harder. Together they fell to the ground, entrapped in the clinging fabric. Kane grabbed blindly at the knife, finding the sorcerer’s wrist and squeezing hard. The old man spat and whined, and next came the clatter of the dagger hitting the floor. Success! With a kick Kane dislodged himself from the robes, snatched up the weapon, and ran for Adeline.
Pinpricks of blood rolled down her neck like stray jewels, but nothing more. The dagger had only nicked her jaw.
“What are you doing?” she hissed.
“Saving you!”
“Wrong move, Kane.” Adeline flinched as Kane slashed at the chains. “I’m set. You should be—will you please be careful?”
“I’m trying!”
“Well try running!”
“What?”
“Running. Like, with your legs.”
“No, I heard you.”
Just then Adeline thrust her knee into Kane’s stomach, doubling him over in time for the sorcerer’s staff to whistle over his head. It smashed into the altar, shards of skull bouncing across the floor. Adeline had saved Kane, but the sorcerer’s hands fell on him, grabbing his shirt and tossing him into the center of the stage with inhuman strength. Kane landed too hard; his neck snapped back, and his head cracked against the obsidian floor. The dagger skittered away from his twitching hand, and he saw red.
Everything slowed. The sorcerer loomed over him, eyes hard with hate, cloak churning like volcanic smoke. He knelt and dragged a filthy finger across Kane’s upper lip. It came away coated in blood. He brought it to his mouth, sinking the bloody finger between his lips with relish. Then he smiled, showing Kane all his teeth. All five of them.
“Virgin,” the sorcerer said, and another dark twist gathered in the reverie.
He turned to the crowd and thrust the staff into the air.
“VIRGIN!”
The response shook the cavern, the reverie warping to accommodate this new path. The hysterical shrillness of the cheers seemed to fortify the sorcerer. He put a bony hand to his ear and leaned toward one half of the spectators. “Sacrifice!” screamed the men. He did this again, to the other side, which also chanted: “Sacrifice! Sacrifice!” He made a show of deliberating which side had been louder, then shrugged comically and gave each side another chance to outdo the other. It was the cheesy dramatics of a halftime performance at a minor-league sporting event. Kane, in his delirium, found himself wondering if the cheerleaders would be released for the purposes of tossing T-shirts into the crowd.
The sorcerer declared the right side the winner, and the resulting cheer was earsplitting. It ran through Kane, numbing him. He barely felt the sorcerer heaving him up and carrying him a short distance. Idly he wondered if it was getting hotter.
His head rolled to the side, and he could see Adeline. She was yelling at him, but he couldn’t hear her. He was being carried away, toward the other side of the arena. Toward the hearth shaped like a mouth, ready to eat him up.
Adeline did a weird thing then. She grew calm, almost stern, as though she’d made an important decision. Her fingers wrapped around her chains, like she meant to tear them off herself.
The sorcerer jostled Kane, forcing him to look into the hellish flames before him. The mouth filled his vision, and the air vibrated doubly with the shouts of the crowd, now interlaced with a deep tremor from below. Sweat stung Kane’s eyes. He could smell his hair burning. Still, the sorcerer pushed forward, offering him up.
“Sacrifice!” growled the sorcerer.
“SACRIFICE!” roared the crowd.
And with that, Kane was tossed into the fire.
• Eleven •
LIMITS
Kane landed on the ground, flung backward instead of forward. The chanting of the crowd dissolved into confusion. Bewildered, Kane opened his eyes and saw the dagger on the stone beside him, the bloody tip flashing in the firelight. He blinked away his tears and made out the sorcerer desperately clawing toward it as a chain, fastened around his leg, dragged him back.
Kane followed the chain to its source: Adeline, now standing in the center of the arena, legs braced as she used one hand to reel in the sorcerer while the other spooled the chain into a neat coil. The sorcerer, who had been strong enough to lift Kane, was no match for Adeline’s fluid, deliberate movements. He clawed and gasped, as powerless as a caught fish.
“Get away from the fire!” Adeline screamed.
There was nowhere to go. The sorcerer lurched forward, his pupils just pinpricks in the yawning white of his blank eyes. Kane slammed his boot into the man’s hands, bending the brittle fingers like straws. With another kick Kane sent the dagger skittering into the fire, and the man screamed in rage. In a blink he spun toward Adeline. Like a kite caught by the wind, he launched into the air and dove upon her, but she was ready. Maneuvering the chain as easily as one might maneuver a ribbon, Adeline twirled gracefully and whipped out the spooled length in a violent slash. It cracked against the sorcerer, cutting into him like a wire through soft cheese.