Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 131875 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 659(@200wpm)___ 528(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131875 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 659(@200wpm)___ 528(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
The soldiers did draw their swords and began to brandish them at anyone who wouldn’t listen. Which no one did. She had to close her eyes as it quickly turned to pandemonium. As if the guards had been looking for an excuse to start skewering attendees.
“Hurry,” Theo yelled.
Then, they were running. Through the crowd, away from the death that her mere presence had elicited, and toward the coliseum door.
Constantine shouldered his way inside, pulling them the rest of the way through the entrance. It was only marginally better inside. People still screamed and tried to get to Kerrigan, but there were fewer of them, and there weren’t armed guards. Just drunk attendees, eager to see the outcome of the final fight.
“Kerrigan!” a voice called over the others.
Every other person had been yelling Red, her arena name, into the crowd.
“Wait!” she called.
“There’s no waiting, love,” Theo said, edging her forward.
“Kerrigan, wait!”
Kerrigan turned around, walking backward and hoping Theo would guide her, which he did. “Cleora?”
“I’m here!” the woman yelled. She held up her hand, swamped in the masses. “You can’t go out there. We need to talk!”
“What? I have to fight!”
Theo grabbed her arm. “They’re mobbing back there. We’re going to get caught in it. Come on.”
“Cleo?”
Cleora looked exasperated as she was pulled farther and farther into the crush of the crowd. Her blonde hair came down out of its careful braid and brushed against her clearly irritated face. “I can’t get to you!”
No. There was a chasm a mile wide between them full with people who would kill Kerrigan just because they were so invested in her. It made little sense to her, and yet it was reality. Cleora had something important to tell her, and there was no way for them to be alone.
“She’s here!” Cleora yelled as they were pulled farther apart.
“What?” Kerrigan asked in confusion.
“She’s here!”
Then, they were too far away that Kerrigan couldn’t even see her white-blonde hair. She was here. Was that what she’d said? It had been hard to tell over the screaming.
Theo yanked her back around, and then there was no more room to consider it. She jogged to keep up with the other gladiators until they were safely several floors below the audience. And still, it sounded as if the crowd were in the room with them. The walls shook with the enthusiasm and stomping of feet. Everything felt as if it might come down around them. She could barely hear herself think.
“It’s time,” Constantine told her. “We’ll be up above.”
Her hand went to the cloak.
But Constantine stopped her. “Not until you’re out there. You know how to make an appearance.”
“Thank you.”
Danae was there then, throwing herself into Kerrigan’s arms. “Don’t die, please. I would miss you too much.”
“There’s only one other option.”
“I know,” Danae said. She slunk back toward her father. “You’ll figure it out.”
And it brought it all right back.
Fordham was on the other side of this door. Their fight was finally here. Weeks into the tournament, and now, she’d have to face him. As she had known she would from the start. There was no advantage in this fight. And she had no idea what direction it would go. Only that she felt sick at the prospect.
Constantine and Danae backed up as the gate clinked upward. She stepped into the arena with the name Red on everyone’s tongues. The sun was just lowering on the horizon. A bloody sunset for their final bloody bout.
Fordham wasn’t in the arena yet. So, she’d been announced first. Good. She strode up to the center of the pitch and let everyone soak in the Andine colors of her cloak. The statement that she was making by wearing it. The statement she would make once she drew it aside. A tether of discomfort ran through the drunk crowd. They knew the consequences of rebellion better than anyone. They’d all been beaten down by it. Yet all she had was this moment of glory. She had to use it for what it was.
Kerrigan turned then to face Vulsan, and the world crashed down around her.
Ringing filled her ears.
Her hand stilled on the top of her cloak as it fluttered in the gentle breeze.
Everything screeched to a colossal halt.
What Cleora had said in the midst of that mayhem finally made sense. Clicked into place in her brain in a way that she couldn’t understand when she had been shoved through a crowd.
She’s here.
And she was here.
Her mother was in attendance today.
33
The Final Fight
Keres Andromadix sat on the throne beside her husband. Her red hair was a flame around her face. Soft freckles dotted her skin. The palest white and gold-trimmed toga draped across her figure in the most flattering of fashions.
She looked like a goddess.
She looked like Kerrigan.
Though she couldn’t make out the color of her mother’s eyes, the shape of her mouth, or the lift of her nose, Kerrigan saw a mirror image of herself. It had to be obvious to everyone else. Vulsan must see it. Did the crowd? Did the senators? Did the world?