Assuming he got home safely.
But what would he do if he figured out where I was? I didn’t want him taking off on a wild revenge mission, or attempting a prison break. He needed my guidance to undertake anything insane.
“Oh! The thing is awake.”
Revna’s singsong voice pulled me out of my stupor, and I realized I had to switch into survival mode again. As the numbing spell grew weaker, I could feel myself bouncing painfully over the stones.
Revna walked beside me, smiling placidly down. There was no one else with us besides the High Elf guard who dragged my bound wrists. At last, my legs were thawing a bit, and I could better feel the stones beneath me.
“I can walk!” I shouted. “You can stop dragging me.”
The guard ignored me, not even a glance back in my direction.
I scrambled to stand on my tingling legs with a jolt of panic. For a few moments, I was locked in a tug of war with the guard. But after an awkward tussle, I managed to get to my feet, glowering eye to eye with the guard. An arctic wind whipped over the parapets, stinging my cheeks and rushing through my silver hair.
It was only at that moment that I felt the sharp pain in my hand, that I looked down at my finger. I felt myself going dizzy—
Revna pivoted. “I’m sorry,” she cooed. “We had to take the whole finger off. It was frankly disgusting.”
With horror whirling in my mind, I stared at the bloody nub where my ring finger had once been. When I glanced back over the long, curving walkway, I saw a long stream of crimson. In fact, the nub was still pumping blood onto the stones at my feet. My knees went weak.
I wanted to call Skalei, cut my bonds, and carve a permanent reminder of what Revna had taken from me across her pretty face. But now that I’d lifted my gaze from my mutilated hand, I took in the view around me.
On one side, the city of Boston spread out. And on the other—the walkway encircled an enormous amphitheater of white stone, with seats cascading down. The floor of the amphitheater was as dark as the night sky.
Tugging on the rope, the guard dragged me through a gate, into the top row of the amphitheater.
So, this was what loomed over Beacon Hill, on top of the Citadel. It was like a pale colosseum, ringed by spires like the rocks of a Neolithic stone circle.
I sucked in a sharp breath as I realized that, all around the amphitheater, High Elves filled the seats. It felt as if a thousand golden eyes were on me, all of them lit up with anticipation.
This did not bode well. I didn’t imagine I was in for a comfortable evening, here among a legion of my enemies.
I tried to reach for my shoe—it was definitely time for my vergr stone—but the guard yanked the rope so hard that I stumbled on the top step. I struggled to keep up as he dragged me down the steps, one row after another. All around me, the High Elves stared as I trailed blood behind me.
When we arrived at the lowest row of the arena, Revna turned to me, her eyes flashing with malice. The wind toyed with her pale hair. “Is it true that your kind can see in the dark? I suppose it’s a needed adaptation when you live in caves. I suppose you’ve grown used to all the disease down there as well, and the corpses piling up around you.”
A flash of white-hot anger flamed in my chest, but I ignored her, staring at the floor of the amphitheater. Jet black, it looked like a piece of the night sky had dropped to the earth and filled the arena.
“Oh, do you understand now? That’s where your life ends.” Revna batted her eyelashes, and I imagined stabbing her in the eye.
But before I did anything rash, I needed to understand the layout of the place. As I scanned the entire amphitheater, I spotted a dais just below us. There, a tall elf stood, dressed in thick golden robes. By his gleaming, spindly crown, I recognized him as King Gorm, the ruler of the High Elves. Head of the very family responsible for everything that had happened to my people. And now his attention was on me. I wondered if he knew who I was. I’d assassinated six High Elves from his kingdom—men accused of maliciously spreading disease in the Shadow Caverns.
“Revna,” he called up to us, his musical voice floating on the icy wind, “have you brought the thief?”
Thief. Not assassin. Good.
“Yes, Father,” she said.
“And you have the ring?”
Revna held up the gold ring, which was still covered in my blood.
“Excellent,” said the elf king. “The Night Elf has committed theft, murder, and extensive property damage—crimes that must be punished, here, before New Elfheim.”
I clenched my jaw, unwilling to show the fear that now welled in my heart. High Elves surrounded me on all sides in seats of stone and ice. They glared at me, their amber eyes eerie in the moonlight.
“Cave scum!” shouted one.
“Throw her into the depths!” screamed another. “We don’t want her filthy kind here.”
But I was hardly listening as the guard pulled me further down, to the ground floor of the amphitheater itself, below King Gorm’s dais. The rope bit into my skin as he pulled me, and I considered calling forth Skalei—but again I hesitated. I’d only have one shot at that.
I gritted my teeth, fighting against the guard with all my might, but he was so much bigger than me, stronger.
Gray granite encircled the black floor, and the guard was careful to stay away from the edge. I stared at the dark expanse now just inches from me, trying to make sense of its strange surface. It looked solid, pitch black and smooth as ice. Some type of volcanic rock, I guessed. Obsidian, maybe. I wondered why the guard seemed so careful not to go near it.
And while it seemed obvious that they planned to kill me—that my execution was the reason they’d all assembled in the middle of the night—there was no gallows, no bloodstained chopping block, no hooded executioner ready to lop off my head.
The king raised his arms, and the crowd quieted. “Are you ready!”
The crowd cheered. They, at least, seemed to know what was going on.
“Opna!” King Gorm shouted.
The obsidian floor shimmered, and my blood froze as I finally understood what I was looking at. What I’d thought to be solid rock was actually a magical illusion. I stood at the edge of a bottomless chasm so deep that even my Night Elf eyes couldn’t penetrate its depths.
There was no question in my mind what it was. This had to be the Well of Wyrd—quite literally the edge of the world.
Chapter 8
Marroc
I threw myself again and again at the bars of my cell.
The curse burned wildly within me. Infernally hot, it scalded my bones, seared the muscles of my heart. Every nerve ending screamed for me to stop, but I ignored the pain. It couldn’t kill me. Not when I was already dead.
I’d seen it happen. The king’s daughter had sliced my ring from the Night Elf’s finger. And now, I knew what they had planned.
They were about to make a terrible mistake.
So far, I was breaking my body more than the bars. Hot ichor poured from my shoulder, smoking with the curse. But I blocked out the pain, desperate to get to her. No matter what it did to me, I had to break through. My soul depended on it.
My lungs heaved as I threw myself across the cell with all my strength. At last, with a great crack, the bars broke free from their moorings, crashing to the stone floor so hard that the walls shook. I leapt over them, rushing down the hallway like a storm wind.