Page 71 of Court of Lies and Deceit

“I’m sorry,” Isera suddenly whispers from the wall. “I just…” She swallows, looking like she’s still trying to claw her way out of her nightmares and back to reality. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s—” I begin, but then a startling sound cuts me off.

Loud cheering explodes through the air.

I whip my head around, remembering where we are. Large parts of the crowd are cheering and pointing at us, looking as shocked as we are. They apparently didn’t think we would make it out of there.

Alarm shoots up my spine.

The other teams.

Quickly summoning my magic again, I throw it across the arena. It latches on to twenty-four sparks of excitement. And eighteen of those sparks are just one or two rooms away.

All color drains from my face.

I snap my gaze back to my companions.

“They’re coming.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Sand whirls around us as we leap to our feet and sprint the final distance through the corridor towards the room up ahead. From all sides, three teams are converging on us. The crowd roars in excitement.

We skid into the room right as the Green Faction pours in through one of the other openings. They jerk back, seeming surprised to find us for a second. Then wicked grins spread across their lips.

I snap my gaze towards the other opening. “Shit. Another team is coming.”

“Then cut them off before they can flank us.” Isera shoots a block of ice at the Green Faction. “Alistair.”

“Yeah, I know,” he replies, but I can hear the exhaustion still lacing his voice.

He hasn’t recovered fully after all the energy he had to expend to melt the wall, but he still summons his magic and shoots a torrent at the Green Faction in order to block their flames before they can melt Isera’s ice attacks.

“Help them,” Draven orders, jerking his chin from Galen and Lyra to Alistair and Isera. Then his gaze slides to me. “We’ll intercept the other team.”

Before we can even see them nod in confirmation, we take off towards the other opening. If we get trapped between two teams who block the only exits, this is going to go to hell very quickly. We need to make it out into the corridor and stop the other team from reaching the room. We’ll have a better chance if we face them in a narrow corridor where they can’t surround us.

The crowd cheers and screams above us, creating a deafening noise that drowns out the sounds of the fight we just left. With my magic still attached, I can feel our opponents’ excitement spike as they reach the corridor from the other side.

“They’re here,” I press out as Draven and I skid into the corridor.

And just as my magic had already told me, we find another team jogging into the corridor from the opening on the other side. The Red Faction. They trail to a halt when they see us.

Light from the bright sun above gleams against the white stone of the statues that line this entire corridor. Fae warriors in imposing armor stand carved from stone, watching impassively as our two teams face each other.

“We should—” Draven begins.

The wall to our left flips.

Yelps and clanks from weapons fill the air as three people in blue fighting leathers are shoved into our corridor by the spinning wall. They stumble, crashing into each other from the force of the shove, before hitting the wall inside our corridor and steadying themselves.

To our left, the wall continues spinning back and forth. And through those gaps when it moves, I can see the final three members of the Blue Faction, who are still standing in the corridor running parallel to ours. They stare at the rapidly spinning wall, looking stunned.

For a moment, nothing happens.

All of us just stare at each other.

Then Draven throws a blast of wind at the three people from the Blue Faction.

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