I tried to focus on the fights, watching a group that had been fighting together all morning disperse.
It was the reason I hated day two the most. This was the first tournament I was a bystander for, but even a century later, I remembered what it was like to be down in the pit fighting.
The switch between friends and enemies hit a nerve as everyone went for vengeance. Friends turned on friends. Family stabbed each other in the back.
There was so much blood, so much death, so many hacked bodies that made it hard to believe that riders were supposed to be civilized.
“What’s the point of killing each other?” Nollie asked, her voice so soft, it was jarring. We were hours into the fighting now, the pit almost completely covered in blood and gore to show for it.
I didn’t answer her, didn’t trust myself to, so I kept staring back at the projection.
“You know you have to humor me now,” she snapped. “You can’t keep ignoring me.”
“What makes you say that?” I asked.
So much for ignoring her.
“Because I’ll tell Elion you let me go last night if you don’t.”
I turned to look at her then, and fuck, I shouldn’t have. She was so Suns-damn breathtaking. Her eyes were mostly gray save for a thin blue band around her outer irises that made her gaze striking. But it was in the rest of her features that had my knees weak. Everything was so perfect, her face molded so seamlessly I couldn’t find any flaws. It was all soft and delicate, but I swore she was hiding a fierceness under her skin.
“You’ll get yourself in trouble,” I deadpanned, wanting to know what she was trying to pull off right now. Elion would fucking flay me alive if he found out I let her go, but she would suffer too.
She shrugged, keeping her expression neutral as she met my gaze. “I don’t really have a lot to lose,” she said. “And I might just think it’s worth it to watch you go down with me.”
I ground my jaw as I realized she was serious. She didn’t seem to care about the amount of danger she was putting herself in. Last night with the burning, that was nothing compared to what Elion was capable of, and the idea of her being behind his brutality had my gut wrenching.
“What do you want to know?” I asked, knowing I was already folding.
“Why is it so brutal? If everyone survives when the suns sets, wouldn’t they want their friends to live too?”
Her question hit a nerve in me because it was exactly what I thought when I was fighting down there. I couldn’t understand why winning justified killing the people you loved. After I fought, I realized that it was better to have no one in my life.
There was only one rider that I cared about anyway—Jaxs—but I was convinced he was a mutation from thedrakin line. He was too kind, too caring, too damn nice that I was terrified one of these days, it would get him killed. He was also the only other person I’d known that hadn’t turned on their so-called-friends during the Vargothi.
“Fear changes people,” I finally settled on because it was the truth.
She rolled her eyes. “That’s the shittiest non-answer ever.”
I ran my fingers through my hair, watching as her gaze momentarily snagged on the movement.
“They’re fighting for the champion title,” I clarified.
“So the winner becomes the new leader?” she asked, but I was already shaking my head before she finished her question.
“Elion declares the leader, and he can change who it is at any time, regardless of the tournament.”
I watched her face shift through thoughts as she decided on what to ask me next. She pulled her lip between her teeth, and I couldn’t look away. This was exactly why I didn’t want to talk to her because the more I did, the deeper I was digging my own grave.
The word for what I was feeling was screaming at me, and I knew it was my dragon that was sending it down our bond. She already figured out what Nollie meant to me…
“So they’re scared they won’t get to decide if they can breed or not?” she asked, pulling me back to our conversation.
I shook my head. “There’s probably a few riders who find incentive in that, but most just want sanctuary from the burning tomorrow.”
“Burning?” she repeated, her voice shaking.
I nodded, but didn’t elaborate. If I couldn’t get her to run by tomorrow, she was going to see it anyway.
