The bull gores him.
The crowd lets out a collective groan, laced with amusement. The man’s body thumps to the ground, blood marking the spot of his death.
He’s dead. Just like that. His real body Above is likely being shaken by the people with him who are still awake. Who still love and care about him. Crixus said this would hardly be a fight—it’s mere entertainment.
My ears ring. Some entertainment. The onlookers take pleasure in this, mere minutes after cheering on the reunion of a mother, father, and son.
When watching movies about gladiators, it never quite struck me how disgusting it is that another human could laugh at the death of others. It felt so far removed from real life, settled in a dirty, twisted past. Impossible in present day.
I suppose we’ve been so desensitized by fiction and film that seeing it in real life feels unreal. Detached. A show instead of a slaughter.
The bull wheels around and heads for the two girls. They scream and squeeze each other tighter. They look like sisters.
A spectator climbs over the wall and drops to the sand, shouting and waving his arms. The bull redirects toward the man, and I barely make out the shriek of one of the girls over the crowd.
“Daddy! No!”
“Hey!” I throw my mistblade. It pings off the bull’s shoulder, leaving no mark but getting the creature’s attention. The creature rounds on me and huffs as though to say, Finally, a fight.
The dad runs to the girls and uses himself as a shield. They cling to him desperately as though they’ve not seen each other in months.
I tear my gaze from the odd reunion, unsure what to make of it.
The bull paws the sand.
I stand my ground. “Come and get me, you beast.” I have no weapon now other than my building anger. I abandon Crixus’s advice. He didn’t send me into this Arena to tame the anger. He sent me here to die. All he gave me was a puny dagger.
He doesn’t expect me to come back.
I charge the bull and drop what little restraint I have left. Anger pours into my veins like water from a burst dam. Seconds before we collide, I leap into the air, over the bull’s four-horned head, and land on the other side in a somersault. I regain my feet and spin before the bull realizes he missed.
I’m . . . not exactly sure how I did that.
As the bull regains traction, I catch my breath. Every inhale fuels my anger, my determination. It presses against the underside of my sternum like an inner weapon. It blinds thought. Banishes logic. It takes over my mind, promising power by emotion alone.
The bull rounds on me.
I plant my feet. Lean forward for impact.
The bull charges. Thunder cracks. Fury builds. Then my chest splits open.
Smoke bursts out of my body and propels me into the sky. I hover in the air for a moment. Giant black wings of mist unfurl from my back. The shadows that pour from my chest turn into a spear in my left hand.
I dive toward the ground as the bull reaches where I’d been standing moments earlier. With a shout I plunge the spear through the top of the bull’s skull and into the sand beneath. It splinters on impact.
The bull collapses.
I straighten, and the smoke wings disappear. The bull wiggles for a few disturbing seconds before succumbing to death, pinned to the sand like a bug to foam.
The pressure of emotion vanishes. I gasp for breath and survey the scene before me with fresh eyes.
The bull, dead.
The spear, broken.
The crowd, silent.
Time pauses. Then four men in armor enter the Arena with their own spears made of wood and metal that look very ready and able to stick me through. They surround me, but I have no interest in fighting them. I’ve emptied myself of my conviction and energy.
Whatever just happened has scared them.
Scared me.
The other noxiors cower against the inner wall of the Arena. A soldier holds the dad and two daughters at sword point.
Crixus saunters across the Arena and stops near the circle of foot soldiers. He crosses his arms and regards me.
“Well, well, well. You’ve been keeping secrets.” He smirks, but it doesn’t hide the wariness behind his eyes. “Tirones,” he says to the soldiers. “Bind him. We’re taking him to the Emperor.”
The spell over the crowd breaks at these words. As the soldiers—tirones—lead me away, bound by chains, the people are back to cheering again. They holler in a way that makes them sound far hungrier than when I first walked in.
I’m taken to a cell “to cool off.” I don’t need to cool off. My emotions are drained from doing . . . whatever I did. I made wings. Flew? And then killed an enormous Nightmare bull.
How?
Something tells me this shouldn’t be possible—some knowledge from my life in the Real World. But I can’t pull up details. This Nightmare brain fog is starting to grate on me. I close my eyes, and I think I sleep at some point. Time passes, but there’s no way to determine how much.
