Page 5 of A Lick of Flame

“No!” a woman shouts.

“That can’t be!” someone else yells before everyone starts shouting at once.

I stand, and the shouting reaches a crescendo. Fae are leaning over the railing, shouting…demanding answers. All eyes are on me.

“Look! By the gods, but it’s impossible!”

“No!”

“It’s magic! A conjuring.”

Voices blend one into the other as I look up at the blue sky. “Delphine.” I reach out with my mind. “Delphine,” I try again, closing my eyes for a second or two.

I get…nothing. Not a whisper.

“Look at his back!” I hear more shouting.

“It can’t be!” There is shock and disbelief laced into every word.

“It’s a trick!” The voice is filled with anger.

“Seize him!” One of the guards points at me.

“Kill him! Kill him! Kill him!” The audience starts to chant. “Devil! Devil! Devil!” they spit. Gone is the reverence. They say it like a curse.

“We need to escape,” I tell the wyvern as I leap onto his back once again.

He makes a growling noise that I recognize as grudging acceptance. I instinctively know that the beast is male. A juvenile, not yet at full power, or they would not have been able to capture him.

I pet his sleek scales once with my hand. “We can make it,” I tell him. I get a rumble in return. The beast doesn’t like our sudden and unlikely friendship. He doesn’t trust the fae, especially a beastfae. I can’t say I blame him. My kind have sunk so low that I hardly recognize my own people and what we have become.

I need to escape so that I can right wrongs.

“Guards!” a booming male voice from high up in the stadium shouts. “Seize him! Get in there. Secure the beast.”

The maddening clatter of chains and the harsh scrape of metal against metal fills the stadium as the heavy cage door covering the hallway, from which I had recently emerged, slowly lifts once again. My eyes dart to the assembly of guards gathered at the entrance. They’re clad in armor, weapons at the ready, prepared to attack as soon as they gain entry.

“Over there,” I tell the wyvern, forming a picture in my mind of how we need to escape. I pray to the gods that my idea will prove to be a success because I can see no other escape.

There are colorful flags hanging over the main entrance to the pit. My only hope is that the worm can reach high enough to get to them. He would be able to use them to escape the pit…and then the stadium itself, may the gods be willing.

The beast makes a rumbling noise and slithers in that direction. I hold tight, trying to find purchase on his scales. I grab onto the ridge on the edge of one of the hard, smooth sheets. They gleam so brightly that I can almost make out my reflection.

“Guards! What are you doing? Attack! Stop them!” the same male voice yells.

I glance over my shoulder. The cage door has been fully raised, but the guards are just standing there, hands clasped white-knuckled on swords and spears. They are afraid of the wyvern worm, and I don’t blame them. These are magicless fae, or “empty” fae, as some like to call them. They have no powers to speak of, which is very lucky for me. With the wyvern’s help, we might just make it out alive.

“Attack them now, or so help me, I will have all of your heads,” the male screams. I glance up and see a heavily decorated general. His face is red, and his hands are waving wildly.

The guards finally gather their nerve and rush at us. Poor bastards! Any who disobey the general will be publicly beheaded or worse. There is no tolerance for insolence. The creature uses his barbed tail to dispatch the first wave of men. He picks up the pace toward the flags. I hold on tight, feeling his muscles contract and expand between my thighs as he slithers with a speed that is startling.

Then he raises himself up and up, aiming for one of the flags. If he can reach and wrap himself around, we’ll be able to scale the sheer walls, which seem impossibly high from here.

I hear shouts from behind me.

Four guards have jumped onto the thick back of the worm, with more about to do the same. They’re weighing him down.

The beast wiggles and thrashes a few times, and two fae fall, screaming as they do. The wyvern darts up higher, and my thighs lose purchase on his slick scales. I grit my teeth, holding on with all my might. Holding on until my arms are shaking from fatigue. The worm reaches a flag and wraps around it. He flicks his tail, sending several more fae to an almost certain death. Once he gets to the top, I am able to get back up into a sitting position.

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