Page 72 of Ava's Legacy of the Dragons
"Where are we?"
"In a place you will never escape from!"
The guard really knew how to be discouraging. They forced Ava down a staircase on the mountainside, and two more warriors stayed close behind them to eliminate any last possibility of escape.
Ava didn't need to look across the area to understand what their destination was. Elora had definitely meant arena literally.
The mountainside stretched to a plateau, and beyond that it went steeply downhill. And on this plateau, an oval structure had been erected, its edges forming rows of seats and a large sandy area in the center. There was a grandstand, meter-high poles, iron chains, and a cage that could have fit ten people crammed inside. But it was empty.
She froze, because "fighting for your freedom" took on a bitter taste. A taste of danger.
Mortal danger.
All the blood drained from her face. "What are you planning to do with me?"
The guards laughed maliciously and forced her down the steps. For the first time, Ava was glad that she was being held, because she couldn't take her eyes off the battlefield. She stumbled several times, and if the guards hadn't held her tightly in their midst, she would probably have broken all her bones.
Although that prospect had something going for it... Would broken bones prevent her from being brought into this arena and having to prove herself in combat?
"Who do I have to fight against?"
"You'd like to know that, wouldn't you?" The guard shook his head, snorting. "I advised you to treat her with respect. You wouldn't listen. This is what you get."
"As if playing the good little lamb would have done me any good!" She glared at him angrily. "Why are you doing this? Why are you so cruel?"
He gave a laugh that sounded bitter and disillusioned. "Us, cruel? Don't you know how the king deals with those gifted with magic? How he has them murdered without giving them a chance to show that there's good in them?"
"You're doing exactly the same thing to me right now!"
"We have no choice!"
"There's always a choice! You can't erase evil with evil! Or is your reign of terror supposed to follow the king's?"
He snorted dismissively. "Our plans are none of your business."
She shook her head in disbelief, but one thing comforted her. And it would give her a little boost to rub it in the guards' faces. "At least you didn't get the dragon egg."
The guard gave her an ugly grin, a merciless glimmer in his eyes. "Who says we were after it?"
She froze. She broke out in a cold sweat as the men pushed her on without mercy. Had Elora's goal from the beginning been to capture Ava and... kill her?
"What does the mage have against me?"
Ignoring her question, the guards brought her to the arena, then pushed her through a side door into a shadowy corridor until they reached a barred door. One of the guards unlocked it, another shoved Ava in, and they securely locked the door while Ava fell into the sand.
She quickly scrambled to her feet and looked around. She was standing in the cage she had seen fromabove. The one at the edge of the sandy competition area that had only one other exit: The path into the arena.
"Have fun." Laughing, the guards started their way back.
Ava jumped to the barred door and rattled it. "You can't do this!"
"How naive you are, Guardian." It sounded like he'd spat the last word on the ground. "We can do so much more."
Ava shook the bars and followed them with her eyes until they were out of sight. When they had disappeared, she released her fingers from the ice-cold metal and turned to face the battlefield. Only now did she feel the icy wind that blew unhindered through the bars and had already turned her hands to ice.
One thing was irrefutably clear: If she didn't soon get the opportunity to fight for her life, she would freeze to death.
The hours passed and Ava's lips turned blue. She kept moving to stay warm, turning round and round and jumping up and down. Her chances were bad enough; she didn't need to be frozen stiff on top of that. Nevertheless, her limbs were getting heavier.
