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~ Epilogue ~
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 by Courtney L. Fishell
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review. For more information, address: [email protected]
1
Everly Ghlass
. . .
I could hear the howls of the crowded stadium seeping in from the other side of thick, metal doors. The sound was like a wave crashing against the walls, vibrating the foundation around me. It shook the metal barriers in the narrow hall where twelve players waited to enter the maze. Level one. A labyrinth of dangerous traps, confusing passages, and shifting walls. I took a deep breath, balling my fists as the metallic scent of iron crawled through my nostrils.
Around me stood eleven other players. Nine men and two women. Six of the men looked like they could crush me with one blow, their hardened physiques built for battle. One of the women was so thick with muscle she could have passed for a man and she was eyeing me like I was going to be her next meal. The others, though just as eager as the rest, looked like they were plucked right off the street.
And there I stood, a slender woman of average height, with long hair pulled into a tight, silvery-lavender braid that fell down the center of my back. I knew I didn’t look like much, but Taurus always told me that was an advantage. People thought I looked weak. But I’d been preparing for this race my whole life, even if I didn’t know it. I’d studied it closely in the past weeks, getting to know previous winners and their strategies. It wasn’t about strength. In the end, it was about determination, and I had that in droves.
An announcer roared over the crowds outside on a booming intercom to hype up the onlookers. I couldn’t understand much of what he was saying through the echo in the foyer, but it meant the race was about to begin. Looking around once more, I saw my opponents decked out anything from thin, track suits to leather and light armor. Some had kevlar. I noticed a couple wearing clothes that had slates of metal tucked between the layers to shield vital areas of the body. One man even wore a bulletproof vest that was too big for his scrawny, twitchy frame.
As for me? Once again I was lacking in the fashion department. I wore a pair of black, heavy cotton pants that I’d owned for almost ten years and high boots that laced tightly around my calves. My shirt was nothing fancy. Just a knit sweater, fitted to avoid a tangle and covered with a snug leather vest. I’d made the vest myself with some help from Taurus, and if anything was going to motivate me it was him. If I couldn’t win, I knew I’d never see him again. The fate of the one person that made growing up bearable depended on whether or not I came out of this alive.
There was a loud, electronic blare of the starting bell and suddenly everyone in the passage went rigid with anticipation. They crouched to sprint. I held my stance, watching the heavy metal gate in front of us as the chains began to pull it upwards. As soon as there was enough of a gap, the other players took off into the passage ahead.
Stone walls rose up eight feet on either side, stretching straight ahead to a fork that split off in three different directions. I watched as the group rushed in, narrowing my eyes at the maze in an attempt to study her deadly quirks. Four players sped off to the right, shoving to get past one another. Two of them went on straight ahead and two more broke off to the left. The last few hesitated a moment before two of them split left and right down opposite paths. The remaining player whipped his head from one side to the other, unsure. Just as he finally settled on the forward path, there was a metallic click and down came a row of spikes on a swinging contraption, skewering the man through the gut.
I tensed when I saw the man’s body get lifted off the ground, stuck on the swing like a slab of butchered meat. Blood and innards spilled out when the contraption swung back the other way, throwing his twitching body to the concrete in a heap of torn flesh. This was normal, I told myself. Blood would fill the maze soon enough. I had to be willing to wade in it. Taking another deep breath, I began a brisk walk down the passage toward the fork.
“Looks like we’ve got a scared little straggler,” the announcer said over the mic, his voice much clearer now that I was out of that crowded hall. It was amused, rousing a wave of excited cheers and laughter from the hundreds of onlookers that surrounded the giant maze before me. “This little one won’t last long. Or will she? Place your bets!”
Flaring my nostrils, I blocked out all sound around me and made my way to the first casualty of the competition. His mouth was gasping like a fish out of water, his wide eyes on me. I clenched my jaw and shimmied past the now still swing to the path on the other side. No going back now. It was run or die.
I jogged down the passage, glancing at walls on either side of me in search of cracks or seams that might indicate a trap, but what I saw was layers of aged blood and filth that gave the maze a foul stench. Beneath my feet, the tiled floors were an equally dangerous component. I’d seen spikes and blades rise up to cut opponents in half. Floors were liable to give out and dump players into pools of acid or trap them in rooms filled with hungry wolves. Ceilings could sink down on people and turn them to mash. Maze designers had built walls to smash flesh and bone between them. My heart was racing thinking of the possibilities, but I’d trained myself to see the signs. I’d gone over it in my head again and again. I just needed to think and predict what my surroundings would do.
Just then, I felt a slight vibration course through my boots. I skidded to a stop and leapt back just as blades fanned out from the ground, slicing through the air with a terrifying swish that echoed against the stone. I watched as the blades flew by in rows stretching at least ten feet ahead. I knew I only had a moment to analyze the pattern before some other danger forced me to move on. I soaked in the rhythm of the sharp slabs just as a small crawl space opened up beside me. A tempting alternative, but that was a path for a panicked player and would lead to something worse. Past races taught me that.
I grumbled and took a couple more seconds to find a way across the deadly floors as the announcer’s voice pointed out another death somewhere else in the maze. A giant screen hovering over the stadium displayed the number of participants still in the game. As the crowd hooted with excitement, I made my move.
Leaping over the first row of blades just as they sunk into the floor, I began a zig-zag maneuver through slashing metal, hopping from side to side and over the sharp weapons as quickly and as carefully as possible. I was going to make it. I could see the end of the obstacle and wanted to run for it, but as enticing as that idea was,
I knew the last row of blades was trickier than the rest. Its last move was a rapid shift from one side to the other, and before it began its vertical movement there was a small pause through which I could escape the bladed floors, but I had to wait over the top of another slit in the floor. There was just enough time to execute the maneuver, but damn my pulse was racing.
When the moment came I leaped just as the blade beneath my feet shot up behind me, catching my thigh and sending me rolling across the ground in a sloppy landing. I passed my first obstacle, but it was certainly not my last and the maze had already drawn my blood. It wasn’t serious, but it made everything even more real. No matter what, if I didn’t die in this place, I’d be coming out with more scars than I already had.
2
Everly
. . .
It had only been a couple days since I’d been taken from the orphanage. I’d been plotting to run away for weeks. Now, I didn’t have to. I found myself in a small hotel room somewhere on a quiet strip outside of town. The floors were worn. The windows were clouded. There was a smell like partly burned logs and humidity in the air as if someone was drying wet clothes over an open fire. All these details were so meaningless though. I really didn’t care where I was as long as I wasn’t at the orphanage sharing a room with six other girls anymore.
I barely recognized myself as I stood in front of a dusty mirror. A year ago, my body was shapeless, childish, and unblemished. My skin was smooth. My eyes were bright with curiosity. I was always dramatically average, but not anymore. Now I was something even less than average. Less than human.
Like others my age, I’d become a woman in the past year. My body took on the curves I used to envy in others. My breasts had finally filled out. My face had lost its youthful roundness. I still had that dull, light-brown hair, same as my mother had, but it was longer now, reaching just past my shoulders. However, unlike others, I couldn’t revel in those changes. I was damaged. The flames that destroyed my home and took my parents’ lives also put me in medical care for months and left me marked for the rest of my days.
From the front, the scars only covered one shoulder and crawled slightly up the side of my neck. Marred flesh that had healed over in rough, slightly discolored stretches of ruined skin. A reminder of the horrors I survived that others didn’t.
Turning around to see my back, my reflection was unrecognizable. The burn scars stretched down my left side, across my ribs, and down the outside of my left thigh. I liked scars on people. They told a story. But this? This was a nightmare stamped in a permanent memoir on my flesh. I ran my fingers over the coarse surface, wincing when the memory of the pain hit me like a hammer to my skull. I closed my eyes, my own screams and the smell of my body sizzling under the heat of raw flames rushing back at me. The sound of my mother’s wails and my father’s dying breaths telling me to run.
I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t look at myself and see all those memories rush back at me. I’d seen it all happen so many times and it never got easier. Their screams never got quieter. The smell of their skin burning never dulled and the pain never faded. I could still feel it in my body like it had just happened. I could still recall my mother’s flesh rolling off her arm when I tried to pull her from the fire. It was all so vivid and constant in my head, every odor, sound, and feeling as clear today as it was when it all happened.
I covered my face with my hands and hunched over, coiling up on the floor, knees hugged to my chest as tears began to sting my dry eyes. One instant was all it took for my whole life to turn upside down. One monster with a violent need for destruction and no compassion in his coal heart. It took one breath of fire to wipe out three hundred innocent people. Hatred gathered inside me like a knot that tightened every time I remembered those orange flames devouring my home. My family. Everything I knew. But the hate wasn’t all I felt. There was a self-loathing that was seated heavily in my gut. A pathetic, sorry feeling that weakened me. Why did I survive? The flames devoured everything, but I remained. I’d been helpless, afraid, and meek and now it showed in the marks across my body.
“This must stop,” a deep voice said.
I looked over my scarred shoulder to see a large, burly man with a cloud-grey beard step into the room. Taurus, people called him. He pulled a wool blanket off the chair by the door and sighed, walking it toward my naked body. I wasn’t sure why he decided to adopt me, but he did. He had his pick of younger kids. Prettier girls, if that was his preference. He overlooked all of them and walked into Valley Veil Orphanage like he’d been searching for me specifically. Since he’d taken me out of that place, he’d been nothing but kind and considerate.
“Your tears are precious. No one should see them,” he spoke, wrapping me in the blanket and crouching in front of me.
Taurus was a Pike. Most called them monsters. A few sympathized with the half-bloods. After all, they didn’t choose to be what they were. They were the result of a human woman being impregnated by a Draak without first becoming genetically compatible. Without the bond that made women able to carry a Draak child, the mothers burned in a fire the infants couldn’t control during their birth. What comes from the ashes are Pikes. “Dirty bloods.” Deformed abominations that were a part of both races, but shunned by humans and Draak alike.
He wasn’t like the others, though. He didn’t have that violent, hateful streak that most of them seemed to have from birth. He was a gentle giant, aged enough to make his hair lose color, but not enough to weaken his hardened physique.
While most Pikes were covered in rough, almost reptilian skin, Taurus only had subtle patches of it down his back and along his forehead and jawline. He was scarred in other ways, from events he hadn’t yet told me about, but he spoke with a calm that soothed my anxiety like ice over a bruise. It was his voice that woke me from the trance I’d fallen into over the past year since the fire. It was his tender offer of help that pulled me from the orphanage I tumbled into when my parents were ashes.
“I’ll never be the same,” I muttered, wiping my tears on the blanket and letting my hair fall over my face.
“No,” Taurus agreed. “You won’t. We all change as we grow. You need to decide if these scars will make you weaker or if they’ll make you stronger.”
“Why do you care? You don’t know me. What do you want with me?”
“I saw someone who needed help.”
“But I’ll never marry. No one would want me like this. You’ll be stuck with me forever. You want someone to take care of you? Is that it?”
“I don’t need anyone taking care of me,” Taurus smiled. “And marriage is for women who need the security of a man. Do you need that? I see a girl who can be stronger than any man, if she tried to be.”
“How? I couldn’t even fight the kids at the orphanage. They think I’m a monster.”
“All things different are monstrous. Take it from me. I’ll teach you to overcome this. To use it to be better.”
“Teach me to kill them?” I spoke with hate, my words tense behind my clenched teeth.
“No,” Taurus shook his head. “I’ll teach you not to need revenge on petty people. I’ll teach you to fight for yourself instead of against others.”
“No. Not the kids at the orphanage. Them. The Draak,” I growled.
“Slaying will get you killed,” Taurus said, his voice dropping an octave. “The money you might make is not enough to pay for your life.”
“They did this. They killed everyone,” I muttered, tears stinging my already raw eyes. “They have all that power and they do horrible things with it. My family was good. We never hurt anyone. My parents were loving to everyone they met. How could they be so evil?”
“I’m a Pike. Am I not a testament to the idea that not all of one race is bad?”
“But you were a slayer. I know you hate them as much as I do.”
“It was a job, girl. Nothing more.”
“I don’t care. They come here, to a world that isn’t theirs, and take it? Th
en humans are the subordinates? It makes no sense. They can kill and make rules and be in power and no one does anything. Not really! No one will do a thing about what happened to my home and you know it. I will have these scars forever because of them.”
“The world is cruel.”
“No. They are.”
“Hate has no place here anymore. It has no place in you, either.”
3
Everly
. . .
Draak. Men who could take on the form of a dragon. Their fire could destroy cities. Their tempers were hot and they had little capacity to relate to humans. I hated the species, despite how Taurus always tried to calm my disdain.
The world once belonged to humans, but now it was theirs and we were a second thought. Their breeders. Their sheep. Their play things. Now I was in their race and fighting for their entertainment and the entertainment of thousands of others, humans and Draak alike. None of it seemed entirely real, but I was there and I had to get through it.
All the while, my memories were like a thorn in my side. They were always there, a bit irritating and at times painful, but learning to cope with them made me better than I was as a young girl. I knew how to fight. Physically. Mentally. This was just another fight. I kept thinking about that as I sprinted around a curved passage. I sharpened my senses, searching for more traps, but I’d let my thoughts get the better of me for a moment too long. I didn’t notice the slight give of one of the tiles underfoot. By then, it was too late.
A whine of metal screeched before me and a door came crashing down, blocking the way like a guillotine that would have cut me in half had I been in the way. I turned around to escape the oncoming obstacle, but another barrier dropped down to trap me in a small section of the path. Above me was a metal grate like a cage.
From the walls on either side came a heavy flow of frigid water to flood the chamber. It poured out, filling the room. Looking around, I noticed a green light suddenly illuminate on the wall beside me next to a small door. An electric lock popped as if welcoming me to escape through the exit, but I knew panic was my enemy. Everything was a puzzle. Fear made me want to flee through that enticing escape hatch, but my brain told me not to. I’d seen escape tunnels lined with blades or closed and filled with gas and I wanted no part of that.
Ash Bringer (A Storm of Fire: Paranormal Dragonshifter Romance Book 1) Page 1
