Page 23 of Can you take it?

“Lovely. The troubadours will write songs about the two of you,” he stated. “And what’s the other?”

“A weapon attached to her head,” I said proudly. I’d seen her fierceness and I wasn’t going to doubt it now just because there were other, larger creatures around us. “There’s no one I’d rather ride into battle on than her,” I declared as my chest filled with emotion. “You’ll see.”

“I hope so,” he grumbled under his breath. “Now come out to the back arena. I set up a few practice exercises to get you and her familiar with the game before you play.”

I gently guided Thistle to follow him. “Now here’re the rules,” Walter began.

“First, tell me the first play Anna makes on the field and her most used moves.”

Walter looked at me with a stoic look of realization. “You’re going to kill her, aren’t you?”

I swallowed, feeling it linger in my throat like rocks. “I’m going to try. I can’t let her get ahold of the rest of her powers and I can’t let her take over for Kaohs. There’s no telling what would happen. Artemi are too powerful to be that evil.”

“I don’t know that she’s evil,” Walter interjected. “And Kaohs is a god. She won’t be as powerful as him…right?”

I shrugged. “There’s no way to know. She has all the power of the strongest Artemi line to exist; that can’t be good. Besides, you heard how she talked about Zef. The reason she’s here, dead in the first place, is because my mother mistook her powers to be Cal’s. What if she hurt Cal after everything we’ve both done to keep her safe?”

Walter huffed. “Mendax will never let anything happen to Caly as long as he is around.”

I held Walter’s stare. “Even with my powers as a SunTamer and Mendax’s as a Smoke Slayer, they are no match for a regular Artemi, let alone the daughter of the Titan Artemi. If she wanted to hurt them, there’s not much that could stop her.” I readjusted, checking to make sure Thistle wasn’t having any trouble carrying me. She wasn’t. She was a beautiful little brick house. Had my legs not been so long, we wouldn’t have had any issues. “That’s why we have to stop her before she has her full powers.” It pained me more than I could admit, but there was no other way around it. Anna couldn’t get the pendant.

Walter shook his head absently. “I still can’t believe she is Caly’s sister. I have a hard time believing her to be evil though. Granted, her powers are already pretty strong and terrifying, but she has always flown under the radar here. No one even knows she’s Artemi. She’s always been pretty nice.”

I glared at him as we moved into the small practice arena. “No offense, but you are Unseelie, and this is your prized resting place. You’re not exactly an angel either. You’re just biased because she’s Eletha’s sister and the Shepherd of Tartarus has you begging like a puppy.”

To my surprise, he didn’t argue but instead nodded slowly. “You know, I’ll never stop wanting her, but with you being here, it’s becoming more and more obvious that she’s never going to forget what happened between us and let us move on. It feels like since I arrived here, she only pushes me farther away, no matter how gentle and patient I am with her.” He closed the large doors to the arena. “Circle each barrel once.” I nodded, directing Thistle toward the row of five barrels and braced myself on her, attempting to lift my legs to lighten her load and prepare for the speed I knew she kept hidden. “Maybe you two are different people now? You said it happened years and years ago. People change. Maybe you’re in love with what you used to have, you know?” My body was seesawing on the saddle as I tried to balance my weight and not weigh her down before her sprint. I know it looked ten times more stupid than it felt, and it felt really stupid.

“Yeah, maybe.” Walter’s jaw clenched, and a coldness overcast his features. It was so easy to forget he came from darkness sometimes until flashes like that appeared.

About ten minutes into our practice, I began to really worry.

“Come on! Move, please,” I begged the stubborn mare for the thousandth time. She had refused to move two steps toward the barrels since we had entered, instead choosing to put her ears back and not budge in any direction. Panic and frustration overtook me as I jumped from her back.

Or I would have had my ankles not still been tied together. The sound of the barn door opening was salt in my wound.

“Son of a bitch!” My back was on the dirt floor of the arena, my pelvis raised because my legs were still wrapped around the thick floricorn’s neck. She snorted a laugh at my expense. “Oh, fuck me,” I said to her from the ground as my back began to slide against the loose dirt as she moved. At least she had the decency to move her neck to the left, so my torso dragged across the ground, keeping her from trampling me. Though at this point, hearing the titters of laughter behind me, a good trampling held more appeal than it ought to. The mare continued her slow circles of each barrel until all five showed the skid marks of my body in the dirt surrounding them. As she dragged me back to the starting mark, Walter graciously interrupted his wheezing laughter to untie my legs.

I stood and my eyelids dropped closed, hearing metal and leather clank together behind me.

“You don’t have to play, you know. Hand over my pendant and I’ll make sure you get a nice, cozy, permanent room in Eromreven,” said Anna atop her veiny ox of a horse.

Her voice forced a wave of silky discomfort through my chest and into my pelvis. Nothing that evil had any right to possess a voice that sounded like that.

“Yes, I’d just love a permanent—” I turned to her, ready to let some of my frustrations out on the witch, but like any witch worth her weight, the sight of her knocked the breath from my lungs. She sat atop the dark beast of a horse in a full suit of dark metallic armor, completely at ease. The armor looked several sizes too big and bulky for her small frame; however, it somehow also looked perfect on her. Anna’s delicate face was the only thing sticking out from the chain mail hood aside from a small piece of pink hair. “Spot here,” I finished. Her cheeks held a dewy, rosy glow that seemed to speak directly to my heroic tendencies because all I wanted to do was talk her out of playing this game so she would be safe, which was stupid on so many levels, mostly because I was attempting to kill her.

Her cheeks brightened. “Shame this is your last day here. You would have been an interesting one to watch. I love watching the Seelies turn just as wicked as everyone else here. Especially the judgy ones who think they are better than everyone else. It’s like watching a baby take its first steps.” Little did she know that it had already started with me about to murder her. “I think you and I could have been friends—maybe more, in another world.” She spoke the words so earnestly, I almost believed she found truth in them.

“I doubt we would have been friends, but you’re right: it is a shame. A terrible shame that you have let the corrupt darkness of this place taint you when you could have been something so good in a world already full of evil. I will ask you one more time, Adrianna: Will you not take on your duty to the Fates and Artemi in Moirai?”

Her dark brows lowered as her mouth clenched. “Perhaps you are right; we wouldn’t have been friends. You are stupid and righteous in your beliefs of what is right and wrong. Who are you to decide whether or not I am worthy of my powers?”

“All right, let’s keep this⁠—”

“Stay out of this Walter. This doesn’t concern you,” she said to him, her eyes remained locked to mine.

“Actually, it does, Anna. Eli is my friend and—” he began. “And what?” Eletha’s sharp voice cracked like a whip as she walked inside the arena. “Pray tell me why having a friend like you matters? You know nothing about having a friend’s back. You only know about leaving them when they need you the most.”

Hurt lashed across Walter’s face. “I didn’t leave you, Eletha. You returned here, and I do have his back. You act like you have Anna’s back, but you don’t. How many times have you sent Mendax back and not once did you ever get his help for her? He bonded to Calypso when she held Anna’s powers inside of her. He could have helped.”