When It Reigns (Cursed Reigns, #1)

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

Shade yanked the gate open and pushed through the double doors to a monstrous commotion of chanting Ravos demons in black robes who were banging against barbed wire walls that caged them in the stands of an expansive amphitheater. He rounded the cyclical shape of the rising chairs and climbed a set of stairs until he reached the top, overlooking the seats and the arena at the base of the dome.

Shade joined his parents on the throne of bones positioned next to their identical seating, leaving me to stand awkwardly next to him without a place to sit. Queen Radarys sent a malicious grin in my direction, half of her mouth distorted by the bone mask covering one side of her face. She spoke to Shade while keeping her eyes on me. 

"You are both just in time. The tournament is about to start," she purred, placing her hand on her husband's forearm.

King Kristos stood, and the noise ceased before he'd even risen to his full height. The fearsome, red-eyed sea of demons turned their pale, ashen faces to their ruler as he announced, "The true demons who ostracized and denounced us for our real nature will die by our hands and pay for banishing us to a life of misery in this forsaken kingdom. Tonight, we watch as they are killed and feasted upon, the unlucky ones cursed to turn into the very creatures they vow their hatred to!"

The eerily pale demons in the rows in front of ours twisted around in their black robes and hissed at me, baring fangs budding with venom as the crowd roared with vicious shouts.

I took an involuntary step back as Shade muttered under his breath, "They will see you as weak. Do not open yourself up to be an easy target."

"Monster," one of the demons taunted as another raspy voice accused, "Death to the slaughterer."

The hair raised along the back of my neck, and I felt for the throwing star on my wrist out of pure instinct.

"They are not wrong. You are about to prove them right," Shade said, adjusting himself on the throne as he looked at my wrists and back up at me. Having made his point, he sent his gaze down toward the ring in the middle of the domed room as the gears grinded, lifting the steel doors on either side of the arena with massive groans.

I clasped my hands together and tracked his line of sight, blood draining from my face as I swayed into Shade's chair. Clutching the armrest, the blood roared in my ears and drowned out the jeering crowd of demons as I watched a Draconian enter the arena through one of the gates.

The Draconian sent her wild, slanted eyes above her, shooting them at the demons surrounding her in the rising stands. Her short, black hair had grown longer since the last time I'd seen her, and her hazel eyes had lost their luster. She was thin and frail, and ragged clothes hung from her malnourished frame as she wielded a heavy longsword that she didn't know how to use.

"Penn!" I yelled, throwing myself at the railing blocking the royal family from their citizens.

Penn's head snapped up to me as a horde of three Cursed demons flew from the open gate opposite her. Their unhinged jaws gnashed in unrestrained hunger and their sharp fangs dripped venomous droplets onto the wooden floorboards as they soared across the enclosure. Penn used both hands to slash the sword in an arc and managed to lodge it in the ribcage of the first demon to reach her. She pulled the sword back, and the demon yelped and shied away, baring its fangs as it slunk behind its companions. The black blood oozing from the gash burned holes in the floor where it pooled.

Penn froze as the demons narrowed in on her with giddy shrieks that made me shudder. She raised the sword as they descended and I latched onto a bone on Shade's throne, urging, "Stop the match! She's going to be killed!"

Shade shifted away from me in his seat and his lips thinned as he glowered. "That is the aim. We are making a point of what happens to the Nyrial Draconians who have betrayed us. She deserves to be put to death."