Page 100 of To Wake a Kingdom

“It’s okay, Princess. I hope it helped,” he said softly. Without another word, he stood and walked away.

Chapter Forty

Thecrowdwasroaringso loudly I could hear it from my cage. What had them so worked up already? Maybe Mare had found another mouse to trap in her maze, but I knew I couldn’t be that lucky.

Guards lined up outside my bars, and dread climbed into my throat. Whatever the crowd was screaming about waited for me.

I wasn’t sure how many days it had been since my brawl with the large blonde woman. My rewards had evaporated long ago, and I’d eaten only sporadically. I’d finished the water from Maida yesterday, nursing the contents like a deer with her foal.

Nothing but snarled hair and shivering skin, I ached with a bone-deep exhaustion. I couldn’t fight anymore, even against a princess who didn’t know which end of the sword to hold. Maybe whatever Mare had plucked from the dark recesses of her imagination would finally be my undoing. She had promised me a spectacular finish, and I prayed she had finally grown tired of me.

The guards unlocked my cage and hauled me to my feet.

“Please, I need something to eat.” My voice was cracked lines in the pavement after an earthquake.

They ignored me, and my tears flowed freely as I stumbled between them. My legs were covered in dried blood, and my side throbbed even after Maida’s healing. He never came back after that day.

As we approached the arena, the noise was a living thing, ferocious and snarling. Only something monstrous could have revved the crowd up in this way. Pressure built behind my eyes, in my limbs, and in my chest. I wasn’t sure I could look.

They handed me my weapons.My arms were so weak I could barely hang on to the hilt, the tip dragging on the ground. They opened the gate and shoved me inside, where I tripped, landing face-first in the dirt. Upon spotting me, the Fae chanted my name amidst the usual chorus of boos and hisses and jeers. They both loved and despised me.

Pushing up onto my hands and knees, I willed myself to stand, knowing Mare was watching. And that’s when I saw what had whipped everyone into such a state of excitement. A hand punched through my chest and ripped out my bloody, withered heart.

Ronan kneeled on all fours in a cage, chains around his neck, wrists, and ankles, preventing him from standing. Our eyes met across the dusty floor of the arena, and I coasted on a sea of nausea.

No. Not this. Anything but this.

As we stared at one another, the look in his eyes broke what was left of me to be broken. Mare had finally found a way to make me suffer enough.

“Look what I found,” Mare trilled in a sing-song voice, projecting it across the arena. “We caught him trying to rescue you, but he wasn’t quite fast enough.” She laughed, delighted with herself.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I’d lost all sense of time and the world outside in this place, but of course, he’d come for me. I would have come for him, too. Nothing would have stopped me until I’d torn apart the world to find him.

Ronan strained against his chains, fury and fire and rage roiling off warm, muscled skin. His cage wasn’t golden—it was iron, strong and solid. Tired, but thinner than I remembered, he appeared unharmed. At least for now.

Mare took her time, enjoying the crowd’s reaction. They knew who Ronan was to me. It was then I noticed Kianna seated in the chair next to Mare, her eyes wild with terror as her gaze met mine. Mare was going to take the only two people I had left. Again.

“I have another surprise for you, Thorne,” she said, raising her arms in the now-familiar gesture that haunted my dreams. The door in the arena’s corner slid open. The same door that had revealed countless young women, night after night. Women I’d murdered over and over. Only this time, it was not a young woman who walked out.

It was Noah.

I sank to my knees as he stumbled into the arena, blinking at the brightness. Beaten, his face was swollen and bloody, his clothes torn. He saw me and stopped. The world spun out.

“You know the rules, Princess,” Mare said. “A fight to the death. If I suspect either of you isn’t giving it your all, you’ll first watch the other one die in a slow and exceedingly painful way.” Her lambent gaze turned to Ronan. “And then he’ll be next.”Mare tapped a finger against her chin. “The new king’s true love or his oldest childhood friend. Whowillwin?Whois he rooting for?” A wicked grin crept across her face, and the crowd screamed wildly.

Ronan’s eyes darted between me and Noah.

I’ll kill anyone who hurts you.Protective words whispered to me in a darkened bedroom, once upon a time.

Don’t make promises you might not be able to keep, I’d told him.

And this was the promise. Me and his best friend. I couldn’t beat Noah. Even if I were fed and healthy, I couldn’t beat him. He towered over me, all muscle and warrior breeding. I was a hungry, weakened princess with a month of training. Ronan’s gaze met mine and if an entire lifetime of regret could have been folded and flattened into a basket, I would have offered it to him now.

Noah ran a panicked hand through his wild mane of blond hair as Mare clapped her hands once over her head. “Begin!”

The crowd swooped into a bellowed chant, shouting my name with their spittle-coated lips. Right now, they were on my side. They knew me, and our love was a complicated thing. But as soon as I faltered, they’d defect, betting on the horse with the steadier gait.

Noah watched me as I stood and started to circle him. He looked to Ronan and then to me, and I understood with the clarity of chiming silver bells the choice he was being forced to make.

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