The icy hand of early morning slaps my face the instant I step outside. Instead, my sight settles on the altar, the slate pedestal to our right, the large sacred hourglass suspended above. But I can’t begin to pluck a single piece of him from the fray. To find the boy I thought I knew so well within the enemy. I strain my eyes to see past his exterior. “Veda…” My name cuts through the silence as a whisper in my ear. The Sun shines down, casting a fiery ring around us a spotlight illuminating the place where I lie and my executioner crouches over me, his boot at my jaw like a hunter with fresh-killed game.Ī newly hung banner flaps in the wind, the red words IN SUN’S NAME, THE IMPERI WILL PROTECT YOU FROM THE NIGHT distorting with each whipping gust. I can’t stand seeing him.Īs if on cue, the gray clouds break. Tears collect in my own, blurring his image. I know so much and so little of those eyes. At this moment it’s only me and one other-the Imperi officer who holds me with the intensity of his eyes. They lust for this, are entertained by it, feed on and frenzy over it.īut all of that is background noise. I spit it out and blood sprays the snowy ground.Ī child lets out a high-pitched “Off with her head!” Blood trickles thick from my nose down the back of my throat. Long strands of red-tinted hair stick to my forehead and hang over my eyes. I’m numb and frozen and burning all at once. Our audience: the blood-hungry citizens of Bellona. We’re positioned front and center, the main attraction: a girl and her executioner. The Coliseum is strong as always, but today, it’s suffocating, the unbreachable walls yards away yet closing in on us. And below each arch, the stands are crammed, stippled with faces like small dewdrops piled on grass. Each towering arch surrounding me is an ashen rainbow, cracks and all. This time, I’m the cause of all the commotion.ĭown here, the large stone arena orbits me, the traitor, mocking the Sun instead of honoring it. The Coliseum is taller, more menacing, than ever. Snow drifts down, sweeping me with cruel, frosted kisses. His boot-now a vise with the ground-clamps my cheeks between the hard grate of its sole and the sharp, icy gravel beneath me. The snap echoes between the walls of my skull as white-hot pain shoots down my throat and into my ears, pushing water from my eyes.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |