Chapter 140: Entering the Stage
It’s one thing to imagine that one is walking toward doom; it’s quite another to actually do it for several uninterrupted hours while the sun insists on reminding you that life continues to exist, the sky continues to burn, and that no matter how noble or terrible your fate might be, you’re still going to sweat through your shirt.
The Northern Cathedral’s attendants had not been joking when they said we would be "escorted."
The two mounted figures in black cassocks led the way, their horses clopping rhythmically through the shattered city, and the rest of us followed like an especially sorry parade of beggars who had been accidentally mistaken for gladiators.
The city itself seemed to shift as we marched. The cobblestones bore scars where spells had gouged them; the walls gaped with holes where bodies had been flung through them; fire still smoked in patches, wafting lazily from collapsed beams.
Once or twice I saw limbs in the rubble, sticking out at angles that would have made any artist faint. No one else looked. Not Salem, striding with the cocksure gait of a man who had apparently decided to audition for "most reckless swordsman alive."
Not Rodrick, still walking though his lungs crackled faintly with every breath. Not the Man in White, who of course glided along as though soot and blood were simply paint on the canvas of a world that had agreed to frame him.
And not even her.
I dared to glance back more than once, each time regretting it instantly. The Lady of Fangs. I couldn’t decide if she was more grotesque or more immaculate, and saints damn me, I think that was the point.
She trailed us with the calm of a queen on promenade, umbrella perched at the perfect angle to shield her pallid skin from the rising sun, Fitch resting back at her side. The fabric of that umbrella might as well have been spun from pure insolence.
Each step she took made the air itself flinch, her perfume carrying the faint tang of old iron, sweetened with something floral and rotted.
Vampires, I reflected sourly, were unfair creatures. Give a corpse sharp enough cheekbones and suddenly everyone forgets that it still smells faintly of mildew.
The streets sloped downward before the horizon broke open before us. The harbor stretched wide, a crescent bite carved into the city’s flank, the sea beyond gleaming faintly in the sun like molten glass.
Ships smoldered along the docks—wreckage from the early nights of chaos—while others floated intact, their sails furled, their crews long gone. And at the harbor’s center, rising out of the water itself like some obscene miracle, was the colosseum.
Ah yes. The grand prize. The crown jewel. A stadium so large it seemed to warp perspective, its circular body anchored into the sea by stone buttresses the size of towers.
The morning light struck its marble walls and banners, turning the whole thing into a blinding halo of opulence. I might have swooned if my stomach hadn’t twisted at the thought of stepping inside it.
Above it, the nobles’ balloons descended in a slow, majestic spiral, their silks catching the sun like jewels. They drifted down toward the terraces on the outer edges of the colosseum, seating themselves comfortably for the slaughter as though they were about to attend an opera.
I imagined them ordering wine, comparing jeweled rings, perhaps even idly betting which of us would scream most impressively before bleeding out in the sand. Truly, the heights of culture.
We reached the bridge. Gods, the bridge. It arched in a long, narrow curve over the harbor’s waters, stretching toward the colosseum’s gates like the tongue of some great beast.
Every footfall echoed louder than the last. Salem whistled low, running his hand along the railing.
"Not bad," he muttered. "I’d give it a seven out of ten so far."
I glared at him. "A seven? We’re about to march to our deaths across a splintering boardwalk and you’re reviewing the architecture?"
He grinned. "Well, it’s no ballroom floor, but I’ve seen worse."
Behind us, Dunny whimpered something incoherent about drowning, while the Naked Knight cheerfully sang a bawdy tune so inappropriate I suspected the bridge itself blushed. Nara stayed silent, ears pressed flat, clutching his robes like a child clings to a blanket.
And me? I kept glancing back. Always back. The Lady of Fangs was still there, umbrella angled perfectly against the sunlight. She did not hurry. She did not strain. She simply walked, her feet clicking daintily against the planks as though she were not crossing to an arena of murder but to a garden party where blood was the wine of choice.
We reached the gates at last. They were monstrous things, carved iron inlaid with silver, tall enough to admit giants. Two attendants of the Cathedral stood waiting. Their hoods concealed their faces, their hands gloved, their voices as lifeless as tolling bells when they spoke.
"Enter," one intoned, and the gates swung wide.
I braced myself for ruin, for rot, for some foul chamber of horrors. What I got instead nearly knocked the breath from me.
Color. Saints above, the color.
The colosseum opened before us in an explosion of banners, silks, and sand. The arena’s pit stretched vast and round, its floor covered in smooth golden grains that glittered under the sun.
High above, balconies layered upon balconies rose in arcs, packed with nobles who leaned forward in their jeweled seats, silks trailing, fans fluttering lazily. The air itself shimmered with perfume and smoke.
Salem whistled again, louder this time. "Now that," he said, "is a ten."
I could only gape. My ribs ached, my legs shook, but my eyes devoured every lurid detail. It was less an arena and more a temple of vanity.
I was still trying to swallow the sight when the air split with magic.
From above the nobles, suspended even higher in a balcony enclosed by pillars and trailing smoke, a flash of light burst forth. The sound that followed was not thunder, not quite, but the amplified boom of a man’s voice, projected by sorcery across every stone and grain of sand.
"Ladies! Lords! Illustrious vermin of all stripes!"
My stomach dropped. Oh gods no. I knew that voice.
The nobles tittered, their fans fluttering as though they had been waiting all night for this moment. I clutched my spear tighter, every muscle in my body stiffening.
And then he stepped forward.
The Auctioneer. That insufferable, flamboyant creature from the auction house before. His robes trailed smoke, his hair gleamed oiled and perfect, his rings caught every mote of light and multiplied it tenfold. He smiled the way only men without souls can smile: wide, radiant, and as hollow as a church bell.
"Welcome!" he cried. "Welcome to the grand culmination of your petty little lives! My darlings, my beloveds, my exquisitely violent children—you’ve done it! You’ve made it to the final sixteen!"
The crowd roared. The nobles clapped their gloved hands daintily.
I wanted to vomit.
"Oh, don’t be modest!" he continued. "Yes, half the city may have been flattened! Yes, tens of thousands may now haunt the alleys as ash and ghosts! But what’s a little civic collapse compared to the joy of entertainment?"
Laughter thundered. My stomach twisted. By the gods, they didn’t care. They truly didn’t. This city would never heal. Every poor soul outside these walls would remember the horror forever, but to the nobles above, it was nothing but spectacle. Rodrick’s hand touched my shoulder gently, steadying me before I could sway with nausea.
The Auctioneer spread his arms, his rings flashing like stars.
"My dearest friends! My glimmering gamblers! My pampered predators! You’ve sat through riots, through fires, through more collapses than most cities endure in a century, all for this moment! And now, the question on every perfumed lip: what do they win? What treasure awaits our delightful little gladiators? What bauble is so radiant it justifies the wholesale flattening of an entire district?—besides the story they’ll tell their grandchildren, of course."
The crowd tittered. A fan snapped shut. He held up a single finger, dramatic as a judge pronouncing a sentence.
"First! A king’s ransom in coin! One million crowns!"
The roar from above nearly rattled the banners from their poles. The Auctioneer basked in it, turning in a slow circle, soaking in the applause as though it were perfume.
"Second," he said, holding up another finger, "a private audience with the prince himself! Yes, yes, the real one—not one of those wax effigies you’ve all been kissing at parties. Flesh, blood, and that smile you’ve all practiced in your mirrors!"
The nobles laughed, fluttering their fans, calling out in mock jealousy. He bowed deeply, milking it for all it was worth. Then, straightening, he let his voice dip low, conspiratorial.
"And third... oh, saints, third." He pressed a hand to his chest as if the drama might rupture his ribs. "A prize rarer than gold, rarer than crowns, rarer even than youth in this audience."
Gasps. Laughter. One old baroness slapped her husband with her fan. The Auctioneer winked.
"Yes, yes, my darling hoarders, you heard correctly. A gift—no, a sacrament—bestowed by none other than the High Priest of the Northern Cathedral himself!"
He let the words hang, fat with suggestion. And then, with a grin sharper than knives, the Auctioneer whipped around and plunged his hand into the smoke behind him.
He pulled. He dragged. And then he revealed—
Lysaria.
My heart stopped.
He emerged slowly, draped in dark layered fabric embroidered with gold, earrings of molten metal catching the light. His skin gleamed sun-kissed, his eyes burned with quiet longing. For one breathless moment, he was beautiful, impossibly beautiful, the kind of beauty that swallows whole worlds.
And then the rot.
Saints above, the rot.
Dark bruises marred his cheeks, ugly gaping shadows beneath his skin. His long hair was disheveled, tangled, his lip trembling with pain he tried to swallow. He swayed faintly, as though even standing was an act of torture.
I gasped. My spear nearly slipped from my hand. Lysaria. My beloved bundle of sin. He was here. Alive. And ruined in ways that made my stomach twist with, pure, unrestricted fury.