CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Jezz
I didn’t think we’d be up to fight in the arena so soon judging by Redfeur’s calculations. He mentioned recently having had a match with a partner who had died in the games. Frankly, I had no idea how he’d lasted this long in these cages. He must have a guardian over his shoulder or something, because this guy was the nicest, most sincere lad I knew! He was soft-hearted, kind, and nothing like the fae warrior type at all. But there he was, talking about his trials while we waited to be dragged toward a huge cheering crowd of dragons.
I could hear them all the way here in the south wing.
Haughty, boisterous, grimy no good dragons in a large coliseum, pinning a pair of two people against a beast or another team of prisoners. The fight always ended in blood and death. There was no other way around it. Redfeur said he was lucky to have been against opponents who had weapons, that way he could steal them and have a way to fend for himself. He mentioned being the assist in the fight, and that it was common for him to have a bigger, brawler teammate. But now that he was paired up with me, he had to find other routes to winning.
Honestly, I felt like extra baggage or something with these chains…
I wasn’t as strong as I could be with them on, and I doubt Lucyna would order them off in a mass gathering of murder-hungry scaled freaks. Deep down I was trying to toughen up and tell myself that I wouldn’t be a burden to Red, and that I could be just as strong and badass as his teamies before me. I had to believe there was a way to win this, as long as we acted as one unit and strategized efficiently….
Looking down at my cuffed wrists tainted with that forsaken Kutra spell, I started fixing scenarios in my head, until Red caught my attention as he said, “Lucyna will be there…” he whispered, the fae soldier crouched over as he scratched the stone floor with a screw, drawing fae spell stuff by his feet. “Usually she never attends the Blood Games, but I guess she wanted to make an exception for you, Jezz.”
“I feel so special,” I said with obvious sarcasm in my voice.
“I can’t help but imagine that the competition would be harder this time around. She seems to really hate you.”
I rolled my eyes. “Trust me, the feeling is mutual. Oooh, I can’t wait for the day that bitch rolls over and dies!” I growled, clenching my fists. “That’d be the day… that’d be the day, you hear me, LUCYNA?!”
“Shhh!” Red shot up and covered my mouth with his hand, eager for me to be quiet. “Let’s not attract attention. I am preoccupied with something important at the moment.”
He withdrew his hand, my eyes growing big as I stared at the mumbo jumbo on the floor. “What is that you’re doing?”
“I’m trying to work a spell.”
“For the fight?”
“Yes. If I could find the right script, I may be able to break the Kutra keeping you chained and weakened.”
I lost my breath, my voice forced in a low whisper. “What?”
He smiled. “Please, don’t get your hopes up. I am still a novice at this compared to my mother. She is a master at the craft, and she insisted we learn the trade, but some spells are harder to break than others. I am also very limited on resources. The spell calls for sawdust, nectar from a Ba tree, and fire. I just need to figure out why and find a decent substitute.”
“Wait, what is your affiliation?”
“Water. What did you think it was?” He chuckled. “Fire?”
I snorted nervously. “Oh, no, I ugh—”
“Is it because my name starts with Red? I get that a lot. But no. One of my brothers is a pyromancer. I am hydro.”
I sighed defeatedly. “Then we are screwed, right? Not like fire is our only problem. We don’t have the rest of the ingredients you need to craft this spell.”
“I’m trying to work my way around the requirements.”
“But we are short on time here. They are going to call us soon.”
“Just give me a sec,” he said softly, crouching back to his work. He looked so intense as he worked, but Redfeur was wasting time. Instead of trying to find a way to free me, he should focus on a plan of fighting in that ring together. Even so, I felt all warm and fuzzy inside for him trying to help me out. He reminded me of Silas, except Silas would have shattered these bars and broken the guardsman’s face in, while threatening him to break the spell.
The thought made me chuckle. I wondered what he was doing right now…
“Hopefully a lot better than me…” I whispered to myself, my gentle voice beckoning Red.
“I’m sorry, what was that?”
I gave him a weak smile. “It was nothing. But seriously, you don’t have to rack your brain on this. We’d do better planning ahead, together.”
“You’d fight better without those on.”
“Yeah, I know, but—”
“AGHHHHH!!!” A loud scream pierced my wolf ears, my body curling stiff as I covered them up. It was a type of blood curdling scream that brought chills up my spine as two guardsmen dragged a woman with missing legs down the hall. They looked like they were bitten off, the teeth marks on her skin from something huge and grizzly.
“Could be a goblin,” Redfeur whispered. “That poor woman.”
My blood heated up as I watched them take her out the huge steel doors in the back. They were going to kill her for sure. She was nothing to them now, nothing but food, after being forced to be a source of entertainment for those bastards!
“There is nothing we can do, Jezz. We are here, and…unfortunately, easily outnumbered.”
“You work on that spell, Red.”
Thankfully for us, there was an announcement from Lucyna that could be heard faintly from the cells. She talked about her father recovering, but something in her voice said otherwise. Maybe he was in worse shape than her, the idea bringing a huge mischievous smile on my face. If that prick died from a crafty goblin attack, then the kingdom would take a serious blow! The fae, the orcs, and the goblins would seize the opportunity to shut down the dragon empire for good!
“Karma, make it happen,” I said to myself, watching over my shoulder as Red crushed gravel from the corner of our cell with bigger rocks, grinding them into dust.
“If this works, I doubt Lucyna could craft another in such short notice. She wouldn’t let her father’s audience wait…” He wiped the sweat from his forehead and mixed it in with the grainy rocks that had the fae spell symbols underneath it. Then he whispered an incantation, and then to my unbridled surprise, the Kutra spell began to flicker from my cuffs!
