Page 66 of Court of Lies and Deceit

I soak up the terror in his eyes like a fucking psycho as he drops the key into my waiting palm. But it just feels so good. This power. This absolute power I have over him right now. It’s intoxicating.

White lightning crackles through the air.

The kneeling man jerks as it hits him in the back. His eyes go wide and his body spasms before he topples to the side. He hitsthe ground with a thud, sending a small cloud of sand swirling up.

Draven glances down at him as he steps over his unconscious body to reach me. His golden eyes burn like wildfire when he meets my gaze. My heart flips as he leans closer and places his lips right next to my ear.

“Fuck, you’re hot when you threaten people,” he murmurs in my ear.

Pleasure crackles down my spine and heat floods my veins.

“If you’re done eye-fucking each other, we still have a job to do,” Isera’s voice comes from somewhere to my left.

A different kind of heat sears my cheeks as I remember that we’re not alone. In fact, we’re in a packed arena full of people watching us.

Clearing my throat, I take a step back to put some distance between me and Draven. He gives me a sly smile but then turns so that we are all facing the same way. Or rather, the same section of the audience.

We won the battle, but there is still no way out of this room unless the audience turns one of the walls for us again.

Standing there side by side, we stare up expectantly at the crowd. The ones who were waving yellow banners are glaring down at us as if they want to murder us. But the rest look more uncertain. A few of them look like they’re about to give us an applause, or at least cheer, but then they glance hesitantly at the others. We gave them a nice show. But we’re still outsiders.

When no one opens any of the walls for us, Isera lets out an annoyed sigh under her breath. Her eyes begin to glow again as she summons her magic.

Ice crackles and glints in the bright sunlight as she creates steps along the stone wall that the Yellow Faction came from. Then she gives the crowd an elaborate bow, which seems tosurprise them as much as us, before she jerks her chin at us to follow.

A few scattered cheers of approval come from the crowd as we jog up the ice steps and up onto the top of the stone wall.

From up here, I can see the layout of the entire arena. Countless rooms and corridors fill the entire sand ground, except the very middle, where a round space has been left empty. It’s impossible to tell from this distance, but I assume there is a door somewhere in that space.

While Isera forms another staircase on the other side of the wall, I quickly sweep my gaze over all the rooms in search of the other teams. A jolt shoots through me when I realize how close both the red team and the blue team are to our location. The White Faction is on the other side of the arena, but the green one is about halfway between us and them.

And all of them jerk their heads up to stare at us where we’re standing on top of the wall.

“Let’s go,” Isera says, and hurries down the ice steps as soon as they are finished.

We dart down after her.

“Azaroth’s flame,” Galen exclaims as we reach the room below where he, Alistair, and Lyra were pacing like restless wolves. “What the hell happened?”

“We got the key,” Draven replies, and nods to me.

A grin spreads across my mouth as I hold it up. They all stare at it.

“It’s white,” Alistair says.

“Uhm, yes,” I reply, frowning at his strange tone. “It’s…” I trail off as realization finally slams into me before I manage to end with a miserable, “White. The key is white.”

A collective groan escapes us all. Because the key we started with is also white.

Shoving the useless key into one of my new belt pouches, I rake a frustrated hand through my hair. “After all of that, the key is fucking white.”

“So now we have two white keys,” Alistair summarizes rather superfluously.

“Yeah.”

“Guys,” Isera interrupts. Her eyes are fixed on the openings on the other side of the room.

But she doesn’t need to say anything else, because realization floods my chest like icy water.

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