Page 39 of Starside

I smell like them.

Covered in their blood and guts, I smell like them.

Up ahead, I catch a flash of red hair. Kira. She’s on her hands and knees, crawling to the other side of the bridge, arms shaking.

“Forty-two have passed!” someone yells. It’s one of Cadoc’s friends, calling to the others.

Before I can think better of it, I drag my hands through the blood and guts at my feet, then bolt toward Kira, shoes slipping, skin hot with the beast’s blood, until I’m at her side.

There isn’t time to explain. I smear the red on her head, on her arms, down her sides. She gasps, but once she sees my face, she stills.

Trust, I think. So, that’s what that looks like.

The beast hurtling toward her changes its path.

“Go.”

The creatures that ran down the length of the bridge are now turning back around. They’re hungry for more. I drag us to the side, rolling, and a foot the size of my body barely misses us.

Another person isn’t so lucky. A challenger just short of the gates gets crushed, bones snapping like twigs.

Blood. Mortal blood everywhere, and we slip in it, falling, sliding, taking each other down. I try to grip anything, anything, but the stone is slippery, and—

A hand.

No. A handle.

Zane’s ax.

He’s right ahead of us. “Forty-six have made it through,” he says, just as Valen runs past us, making it through the gates. “Make that forty-seven.”

Three spots left.

But we’re here, just feet shy of the entrance. We race forward. Kira’s through first. Zane’s next. I leap—

And am dragged back by my braid, that’s gone loose from its pins. My head rings as it bounces off the stone. One of Cadoc’s friends. I’m too late. He’s about to walk through. He’s about to be the fiftieth.

All of this … for nothing.

I watch from the ground as Zane does the unthinkable. He strides back through the gates—and shoves the man off the side of the bridge.

I look up at him, stunned. Zane just reaches out a hand. “Everyone deserves a chance to die a brutal death,” he says.

I take his hand.

And we both walk through the gates.

9

Walking into Starside is like stepping into a diamond. Everything glimmers. The sheen of magic is a paint, a lustrous stroke over us all. Even the sun feels different—the heat revitalizing, instead of draining. I tilt my face up to the sky to revel in its warmth, only to be met with a shock of the brightest blue I’ve ever known.

My lips part in wonder. The sky isn’t gray on this side. It’s the color of the morning glories my mother had in her book of dried flowers, collected over generations.

With a world-shuddering tremor, the gates begin to close behind us. There are challengers still on the bridge. Most are bleeding out. Screaming.

“Fifty days,” Zane says, watching the intricate designs of the metal as they perfectly lock together.

“What?”