If I had it my way, I wouldn’t kill another person, Spore or citizen, ever. “The Emperor is training me.” I have to believe it’s possible to become safe. Controlled.
“To be frank, that was my job.”
Ah, so it comes down to ego. Luc walked on Crixus’s turf by training me, and Crixus doesn’t like it. “I think I prefer the Emperor’s teaching methods to your practice of handing me a spear and shoving me in an arena.”
“You were safe.”
“Safe like the noxior who was eaten by the giant snake?” He opens his mouth to reply, but my irritation—or is it desperation?—grows, and as much as Crixus annoys me, I don’t want to prove him right by losing control and attacking him.
I pound against the door and chains. It’s not going to accomplish much, but it feels good. Then I see the enormous ancient padlock tucked behind the crank and chains. I turn to Crixus, breathing hard, and my voice comes out in an utterly different tone. Serious. Pleading.
“Let me out, Crixus.”
He stands there, arms crossed, unchanged. There’s nothing more I can do at this point except hope he bends. I’m a citizen—I have this right.
“Say please.” I think he means it as one final jab, but it comes out flat.
I’m tempted to say please with my fist.
“Please,” I spit out.
He pulls a key from a cord around his neck that was tucked beneath his tunic. He opens the lock. This time when I turn the crank it needs only a nudge before gaining momentum, and the doors swing open with unearthly shrieks.
Billows of fire greet me.
I hesitate. Behind me, Crixus chuckles.
“I just walk through them?” What about being a citizen has suddenly made me immune to these flames? I feel no different.
“As long as you have your citizenship scroll with you.”
I pat my belt. The scroll is tucked tight. Okay then. One hesitant step and the flames dart away from my sandaled foot. I take another step. The fire seems hungry but reluctantly slinks backward. A strange sensation of power fills me. My strides turn confident. The flames part.
And then I’m out.
Out of the coliseum and into the wild, deadly night.
This is a different location from where I entered after the Spore battle. No broad cobbled road here. A dusty path winds into a section of abandoned houses, like an invitation to step from dusk into full night. A haunting promise of deep shadows. Otherworldly. It brings me back to when I first arrived at the coliseum with barely the blood left in my veins.
“Get out before they get in.” Crixus doesn’t bother to clarify who they are.
I take the final step, and he hauls the doors closed. I thought he’d come with me. Luc’s lackey and all that. Or it’s just a stroke of good luck.
I turn and face the darkness like I would a nightbeast in the Arena. I enter it at a jog. The jolt against my shoulder keeps me alert. I could be going in the complete wrong direction, but I have to move.
Once I’m several yards from the coliseum, I call out, quietly against the threat of the shadows, “Stranna!”
The Spores don’t live in the coliseum. Stranna arrived at the Arena on a giant phoenix, which tells me she probably flew a distance. I try to remember which direction she originally came from, but there’s no sun or mountains to navigate by.
I unsheathe my kris dagger. I need something—anything—to help me find her. I rack my brain for any piece of information she might have given me during our brief conversation. Anything Luc might have said when he first told me about the Spores.
Nothing.
“How do I find her?” I speak the words to the sky, as if they’ll float up through this dark misty ceiling of Nightmare, into the Real World, and up to the heavens. As if God would hear. He never heard me before when I asked him to drag Mom out of her depression and wake her up.
But is that true?
It’s almost like hearing Nole in my head—challenging my bitterness. I mean, if you want to get technical, Mom eventually got out of it, with the help of Nole’s reading to her and the small family church she found. But by then it was too late. For me, anyway. Her indifference and darkness had already cracked my heart beyond repair. We never really had a relationship after that.
Nole would say that’s my fault.
“Shut up and help me find her!” I shout, not sure if I’m talking about Mom or Stranna.
Soft footsteps break the silence behind me. Close.
“For night’s sake, Crixus!” I whirl, dagger in hand. The footsteps stop, and I see the source. It’s not Crixus. It’s a hunting dog. Floppy ears, long nose, spry and strong legs. Its colors are a mixture of blacks and dark grays, but immediately I know he’s mine. I made him. He’s a little transparent and missing a tail, but he wags his bottom as if he has one anyway.
“Can you take me to her?” I ask.
He pants. I’m about to slide my kris dagger back into its sheath when I see the dried blood on it from the last and only time I used it. Stranna’s blood. My stomach turns, but I’m thankful I was careless and didn’t clean my weapon.
I hold it out to the dog. Eager to please, he sniffs the weapon thoroughly, leaving a smear of snot on the silver. Then he sets off, smelling the air and following a scent only he can detect.
I’ve seen this work in movies, but I didn’t expect it to really work here. Or maybe it isn’t working and he’s detecting a Nightmare hotdog stand or something. Then again, maybe he’s acting the way I want him to act because he isn’t a real dog at all. He’s a nightbeast, and when I created him, I was thinking desperately about finding Stranna.
But it’s the only hope I have.
I follow the padding of his paws on the path, keeping track of our trail so I can find my way back to the coliseum later. Hours have already passed here in Tenebra. I have many, many more to endure before I wake up again to see what damage has been done from Stranna’s and my wounds, from the sun, and maybe even from raiders who find us in the abandoned car. I can only pray we’re both alive when I wake. I don’t want to be responsible for Stranna’s true death.
