Page 22 of Gilded Curses

“So, the hourglass is also supposed to be an eight to indicate there should have been eight original buildings and not seven.”

Desmond threw his arms in the air. “Now you’re getting it!”

Oh, she was getting it all right. She was getting the murderous impulse to carve his eyes out and shove them up his nose. “Do the arrows mean anything?”

“Well, they were showing you that you were getting closer to the end, little witch. X marks the spot, after all.”

This man really believed they’d laid out good clues for them to follow. He was more insane than Sahira had originally thought, and considering she believed he was batshit crazy, this wasn’t a good sign.

“Why did the buildings and towns have fewer things as we progressed through The Tournament?” Orin said the words The Tournament like they left a bad taste in his mouth.

“We weren’t going to continue to make it easy for you,” Sheree said.

Sahira barely managed to keep from gawking at the woman. Easy! Nothing about their journey had been easy. Nothing!

She’d agonized over what those symbols meant and which direction they should go when they left Belda’s town. Uncertainty had plagued every step of their journey across the Barren Lands and through those other towns, and these scumbags had the nerve to believe they’d made it clear for them and that it was easy.

Her fangs tingled with the compulsion to rip out all their throats as she downed some more wine in the hopes of dulling her fury. It didn’t help.

CHAPTER TWENTY

“Now what?” Orin asked. “Do we get to leave?”

“Of course,” Desmond said a little too loudly. “But first, you must give us a chance to celebrate you! You are our first winners, and we’ve waited centuries for you!”

Sahira believed him as much as she did that the sky would turn green and fall on them.

“All of this… all of it was for a tournament?” Elsa asked.

Desmond waved a hand at the dwindling number of slaves. Most had already been selected by those sitting at the table. Evidently, there was a hierarchy to these elite immortals, as the ones toward the end of the table were the last to get their chance to choose.

“It is also for fun,” Desmond said. “We wager on everyone finally brave enough to venture into what you call the Barren Lands.”

“And what do you call them?” Orin inquired as he sipped his wine.

If it wasn’t for the tension in the thigh beneath her hand, she could almost believe he was as relaxed as he portrayed, but she knew the truth.

“Round one.”

“So, you place bets and exchange servants every time someone leaves Belda’s town?” Sahira asked.

She really wanted to call them slaves because that’s what they were to these ruling monsters who, in some ways, were more twisted than the Lord who once ruled Dragonia. At least that maniac was corrupted by the power of a throne that didn’t belong to him.

These lunatics enjoyed tormenting people and watching them die. And worse, they saw nothing wrong with it. They wanted entertainment, and the Cursed Realm’s immortals provided it.

Her head throbbed, and she looked to the servants lining the walls as they led the last slaves away. The dagadon were all so exuberant when they emerged from the tunnel of skulls, but they couldn’t all think this was good. They couldn’t all enjoy watching so many suffer and die.

Could they?

“We thought the scarog beetles would drive more immortals from Belda’s town. Instead, they accepted that some of them would die once a year,” Desmond said.

“Denial that it could actually be them was a motivating factor,” Renaldo said.

Sahira resisted rubbing her temples as their words hammered at her skull.

“How do you control those things?” Zeth asked. “How do you get them to come in and leave like they do?”

When Desmond waved a finger at him like he had at Sahira, Zeth’s claws scraped the table.