I look back over my shoulder at the mob. Black smoke curls off shoulders and weapons of the attacking citizens, creating a cloud around the commotion. As new as I am to Tenebra, I still recognize the emotions being given free rein to create—and destroy. It’s almost like the Macella was waiting for an excuse to unleash its fury.
Someone swings a club. The Spore on the ground screams.
My body jerks toward her of its own accord.
“Hey!”
No one heeds me. At the very least, the Spore should be taken to Crixus or someone for proper justice. Or questioned. It gives me chills to think people are allowed to enact justice based on the volatility of their emotions.
I shove through the edge of the crowd, peering through the growing nightmist. The figure crouches on the ground, covering her head. A man moves to swing his club again, but I grab his arm, my own wave of anger surging.
This is all the opening the Spore needs. She shoots upright and throws off her cloak. Lightning explodes from her body, shattering the nightmist as though it were made of thin glass. People scream, though I can’t see how the light could hurt them in any way. It didn’t affect me except for a blinding effect.
“Kill her!”
She runs three steps. Someone yanks her by the hair. She tumbles backward. I leap forward and catch her. She twists her body in my arms, ready to fight me off, and I finally see her face.
It’s the same Spore girl from the Arena.
The girl I killed.
Except now she’s alive. Whole.
And ready to claw my eyes out.
I killed her. I stabbed her twice and watched her blood leak out of her body. Watched her skin pale. Watched her eyes go vacant. Heard the cheers from the crowd and received the pat on the back from Luc.
Yet here she is. Alive. How?
I need to know.
The people pull her away from me and claw at her clothes, hair, skin. She tries to bolt. She doesn’t seem to have another lightning burst to help.
“Wait!” I shove my way after her. I haul a man back by his tunic and shoulder a woman with a whip. “Move aside!” I holler.
No one listens.
The masses are too thick. I can’t get through. “We need her alive! The Emperor needs her alive!”
Not even a pause in their assault. So much for respect for the Emperor—or even their little Icarus hero.
I roar and release my own emotions mentally, transporting myself back into Luc’s atrium. The saber-toothed tiger forms with a swirl of nightmist, as large as a horse and more solid than my first attempt.
Without thinking, I jump onto its back. As though reading my mind, it lunges into the crowd and tosses aside a vendor with a shove of its head. Someone notices it and screams.
The tiger snaps at her.
We bound into the center and step on a person or two to get there. Oops. I reach down and haul the Spore girl onto the tiger by the back of her tunic. She flops over his back, unsteady on her stomach but I don’t slow. One of her hands grips my tunic, perhaps accepting that she’s going to get caught by someone.
The tiger clears the crowd with a great bound, then shoots out of the Macella Quarter. It’s all I can do to hold on. The Spore girl’s nails dig through the material into my skin. She squirms, and I urge the tiger on in case the Spore decides to leap off its back.
I have too many questions to let her get away, but I have no idea where to go, having explored only a small portion of the coliseum. The tiger takes no directing, even when I want him to go one way over another. He is on his own path, darting down a set of stairs, into a tunnel inside the wall, out again and into an alleyway, past apartments that stretch to the sky in the stone walls.
The tiger finally stops in a shadowed alcove beneath an arch, where a small fountain bubbles. It laps at the liquid. No one is around.
The girl tumbles to the ground. I slide from the tiger’s back and meet a sword tip pointed between my eyes. She’s not holding it, but it seems connected to her mind—her fury. Just like the tiger is connected to mine.
I put my hands up in defense.
She takes me in, scanning from toe to head. When her eyes land on my face, she blinks.
“You?”
I get straight to the point despite the weapon poised at eye level.
“How are you alive?”
Her mouth quirks. “How are you not stabbing me again right now?”
“You have me at sword point this time.” And I’m not stabbing her because I’m not consumed with anger. Does that mean the Spore fumes are rubbing off on me? Can that happen so quickly after one shared ride astride a tiger? I still smell the burning tar, but it’s not as strong.
The tiger finishes its drink and then eyes us. Its gaze lands on the girl and her magical sword. It rumbles a low growl in its throat. I pet it behind the ears, and the growl turns into a purr.
I take a discreet step backward, both for her sake and mine. “We have to start somewhere.”
“All right.” The sword lowers and goes point-down but doesn’t return to its scabbard. “Thank you for getting me out of the Macella in one piece.”
