The Other World: Book Two

by Tracey Tobin

  Jacob planted himself close in front of her as the Shadows approached. “You worry about defending yourself,” he told her without taking his eyes off his opponents. “I’ll take them out one by one.”

  She wanted to argue - if for no other reason than it inflamed her to be treated like a delicate piece of porcelain - but he had a sword longer than his arm, and she only had a short dagger. With multiple smaller, faster enemies rather than the one large, distracted one, it would be a miracle if she’d be able to strike any of the hearts.

  They swarmed like sharks, circling the pair and closing in from all angles. Jacob grabbed Tori’s forearm in one hand and swung, using the momentum to whip their bodies in a circle while he held his sword at arm’s length. The move caused Tori to stumble and nearly go head over heels, but three of the Shadows stumbled back while shrieking their rage to the Colosseum. Unfortunately, as with their brethren, their wounds stitched back together almost immediately. One of the other four had gotten in close in the meantime and was the recipient of a sharp jab from the point of Jacob’s sword. This one squealed like a frightened pig. Tori’s heart leaped to see that its body oozed to the floor in a black puddle. He’d gotten one! Perhaps this would go more quickly than she’d imagined. And if they finished the trial quickly she’d have a chance to warn the-

  In the next moment she found herself bouncing and rolling across the arena floor, gasping for the air that had been knocked clean out of her. She wasn’t even sure what had hit her, but the strike had sent her blade skittering away and she felt that she may have cracked a rib or two.

  A voice in her head - or was it actually Jacob calling out her name? - helped propel her back to her feet. She managed to dance away just in time for one of the grizzly-Shadows to lunge at her with shiny black claws slashing in every direction. Pure, mindless instinct had her ducking, rolling, and coming back up with her blood magic surrounding her, her own Maelekanai-like claws splayed out and ready to taste blood. While the Shadow that had attacked her still had its back turned she leaped upon it, grasped its throat with both hands, and crushed her claws inward with all her might.

  The crowd cheered at the spectacle, goading on her violent outburst.

  Fine, you want a show? she growled inside her head, I’ll give you a goddamn show.

  The roar that escaped her throat echoed all across the arena, which sent the Coiyana into an even greater frenzy. Beneath her claws Tori felt the Shadow’s neck dissolve as its head came dislodged from its body. She experienced half a second of victory before the inky-black arms of the creature reached up to grab her, flung her several feet across the hard ground, and began searching for its lost head. Tori was staring at it with her jaw hanging when Jacob’s sword pierced the chest and his voice scolded her: “Heart, remember?! Only the heart!”

  Tori was on her feet a moment later with a grumble on her lips. “What the hell can live without a goddamn head?” she hissed, though mostly to herself.

  At this point she couldn’t tell if the crowd was loving it or hating it. With Tori’s head-popping assist she and her Guardian had now managed to dispatch three of the Shadows. There was a great deal of cheering and yelling going on, but it was impossible to tell from the cacophony whether the Coiyana were cheering for the Shadow’s deaths, or egging the remaining Shadows on. She wondered, half-heartedly, if anyone in the stands was actually rooting for her to win, or if all they cared about was the blood and violence.

  She spotted her dropped dagger and dove for it, rolling back up to her feet with a grace that her human form would never know. She plunged the blade into the chest of the fourth Shadow, which had snaked over her as she danced across the floor. She missed the heart, but put all her strength into pulling the blade sideways and out, which gave her enough time to side-step away and find Jacob’s company again.

  She’d raised her weapon for another attack when an skull-splitting shriek made her flinch and bump backward into Jacob’s shoulder. The Shadow she’d just wounded had its arm extended, pointing at her chest, and was screaming horribly, an absolutely ungodly noise. After a confused moment, Tori looked down and realized that her pendant had fallen out from under her shirt during her acrobatics.

  So much had happened since the last time she’d thought about the pendant that, for a while, Tori had actually forgotten that she was even wearing it. The small clear crystal on its delicate gold chain was quite unique, with an image engraved inside that was so intricate you would have thought it carved by pixies. A broadsword wrapped in vines that were covered in roses: the symbol of the Kynnon Royal Family. The one and only piece of evidence she had of her birth parents, left for her by the Queen when she was mere minutes old. It had been a powerful and wonderful symbol once, but Iryen had given it to the leaders of his Shadow hoards for the past two decades. Tori had actually taken another one from the melted body of the Shadow she’d protected Jiki from during the attack on the Maelekanai village.

  Now the remaining four grizzly-Shadows were staring at hers with hunger dripping off their open jaws. They knew, as did she, that if they could take it from her they would be recognized by their peers as powerful, one to be obeyed.

  “Jacob…” Tori muttered back toward her guardian, her dagger held out straight in front of her. “Bad things are about to happen.”

  Before he could respond they swarmed her all at once, ignoring her companion completely, even as he slashed at them in his panic. Tori shrieked as the crowd cheered. She fell to the ground against the combined weight of four freezing cold, slimy bodies. She was saved from horrible pain and possibly instant death only because all four Shadows were so desperately snatching for the pendant that they seemed to have completely forgotten about the girl wearing it. It was a small mercy, as their weight was rapidly smothering her. She gasped for air, crying out as their weight crushed her. Her arms flailed, her eyes wide. A leg pressed right up against her face. She felt her lungs constricting, her skin turning red as blood. She only had one hand free now, and it beat against the ground rapidly, her wrist nearly snapping from the force.

  In the life-threatening moment it seemed as though an hour passed, but it was only seconds later when the Shadow covering her face screamed and dissolved around Jacob’s sword. In her desperation for a breath of air Tori inhaled a pint of Shadow blood and instantly coughed it back up, gagging and sputtering at the rancid fleshy taste. Somehow she managed to roll over onto her hands and knees, ejecting ichor all over the ground beneath her. She was dizzy and nauseated, and couldn’t think straight. The world was swimming around her. A violent shake of her head helped to clear her vision but made her feel as though she’d been punched in the temples.

  Her body once again free, she thought that Jacob had managed to take out the remaining four Shadows at once while they’d been so distracted by her pendant. But when she heard the crowd continuing to roar and jeer down at them she knew the fight couldn’t possibly be done yet. She struggled to her feet, swiped the dripping Shadow blood from her face, and scanned the area for the battle.

  Her hand touched her chest as she found Jacob. The pendant was gone from around her neck, clutched now in her Guardian’s fist as he took off across the arena, leading the remaining three Shadows away from his princess.

  It was a smart move, from the point of view of rescuing Tori from being crushed or mauled to death.

  It was also extraordinarily stupid, because he was now alone, several dozen yards away from his only companion, focusing more on waving the bait in the Shadow’s faces than on protecting his own flank.

  Tori’s blood went to ice, as if the magic in it could see what was happening even before her brain had caught up to the situation. She put one foot in front of the other, and then again, and then again. She was running, she was certain of it, but it felt as though she was moving through quicksand, unable to gain any speed, unable to close the distance. In the back of her head she imagined hands coming out of the ground and pulling her down and back, refusing to let her gai
n any purchase.

  She thought that she called out to Jacob, but her ears seemed to have shut down so that all she heard was the hammering of her own heart in her chest. He turned, however, able to hear the cry that she herself couldn’t, just in time for the attack to strike him. One of the Shadows slid across the stone, rising up like an oozing black pillar in front of him, and as the Guardian’s sword slid into the heart of the creature between himself and his princess, the other two dropped to the ground, rose up behind him, and shared the joy of stabbing him clean through the stomach.

  The ice turned to fire. Tori felt the air whip through her hair, heard the beating of her feet against the ground, but when she thought back on that moment later she thought that she must have certainly blacked out. For in what felt like the next breath she was at Jacob’s side, her shirt ripped off and pressed to his wounds while the final two Shadows melted to the ground from the pure rage she’d pressed through their chests.

  “Jacob, Jacob,” Tori cooed, forcing a teary smile on her face. “It’s okay, come on, stay awake, I’ve got you, you’re going to be okay.”

  He coughed and put his sword hand over hers, helping her to press the bloodied shirt down harder, though his portion of the pressure was hardly noticeable. He smiled back at her, but it came out as a grimace. “You’re right, I’m okay. Don’t worry about me, princess. I’m absolutely fine.” The statement was punctuated with a vicious cough that made his body shake and ejected a spray of blood from his lips.

  Tori didn’t know what came over her, but as she pressed the now-soaked shirt into Jacob’s abdomen with one hand, she hauled back and slapped him across the face with the other so hard that his head snapped sideways, his opposite cheek striking the ground. By the time he’d reacted to the shock and gathered himself enough to look back at her there were hot, furious tears pouring from her eyes and onto his face.

  “Stop. Being. Stupid,” Tori hissed at her Guardian. She punctuated each word with authority, but her voice hitched, ruining the effect.

  He smiled at her again, and this time it was a genuine smile despite any pain he may have been feeling. “Not if it continues to keep you alive,” he retorted.

  Without her noticing their approach, Heln had appeared with three of his mates, a stretcher and a stack of bandages between them. “We’ll take him from here,” the Coiyana told her.

  Tori took another long moment to hold Jacob’s gaze and then looked up at Heln with a glare of pure venom. Leveled, quiet, but sounding every bit as lethal as she intended, she told the Coiyana, “If he dies, I will fucking kill every one of you.”

  Their eyes locked on each other for what seemed like a very long time. It was only during this silent stare-down that Tori realized the crowd had gone deathly silent. It was so quiet in the giant arena that every Coiyana in the crowd might have heard exactly what she’d just said to Heln.

  Eventually the hunting leader nodded at her, slow and deliberate, and reached a hand out to help her stand. She ignored the offer. Instead she turned and leaned back down to press her head against Jacob’s for a moment before handing him over to the medics. “I command you to heal, fast,” she whispered to him. “That’s a goddamn order.”

  Tori watched as they loaded Jacob onto his stretcher and pressed new bandages to the oozing wounds. She didn’t take her eyes off him until they’d carefully raised him up over the arena wall and out through the giant Colosseum doors. Hardly a breath was heard throughout the cavern until the doors were pulled shut and Tori’s gaze whipped to the Chief. He was sitting in his stone throne, staring back at her, one large paw over his face so that she couldn’t tell whether or not he was smiling. The thought that he even might be enraged her, so she turned away and instead addressed the crowd.

  “Shadows are coming,” she said. She didn’t bother to raise her voice. She knew they would hear. “I don’t know how many, but they will come, and they will find this place, and I don’t even know why I’m telling you because at this point I’d very much like to see every last one of you suffer.”

  Dead silence. She scanned the stands and saw that she had the rapt attention of every last Coiyana there. She couldn’t decipher their faces, but she thought it was a mixture of confusion, shame, and possibly even fear.

  “You’ve been warned,” she added with one last glance back at the Chief.

  With that said she turned and walked toward the end of the arena. A few whispers started to waft down toward her as she settled herself down on the ground beneath her hanging cage and stared resolutely forward at the wall in front of her. By the time the murmurs had filled the entire Colosseum and were on the verge of becoming a cacophony once more, the Chief had waved a finger and her cage and wall had descended, leaving her completely alone in the empty dark.

  Chapter Nine

  She had her eyes closed, knees pulled up to her chest and head down, when the door creaked open and the barrage of light announced Heln’s arrival that night. At least, she was guessing that it was night. At this point she’d completely lost track of any sense of time. She figured it had been six or seven hours since the previous trial.

  She heard the Coiyana approach the cage, heard the clatter of a tray of food being placed on the ground, but she didn’t move or address his presence in any way. Instead she listened to him breathing for a very long time. He stood there, silent but unable to mask the basic sounds made by his living body. She assumed there was something he wished to say, but she refused to ask him, refused to be the one to speak first.

  Was she being childish? Perhaps. She didn’t care. She felt totally justified in being stubborn upon this point. If Heln wished to speak, he was just going to have to suck it up and speak. Only after that would she decide whether or not to respond.

  She counted the seconds and estimated it was nearly ten minutes before Heln cleared his throat - a very gruff, guttural sound, Tori noted. “Your boy has a rather deep dedication to you,” he said.

  For some reason the statement made Tori’s hackles go up. She raised an eyebrow and lifted her head just enough that her response wouldn’t be muffled by her legs. “Two things,” she replied in a very monotone voice. “One, he’s not a boy. And two, of course he’s dedicated. He’s my Royal Guardian.”

  The snuffling noise Heln made was something of a cross between disbelief and humor. When he spoke again, however, his voice was surprisingly gentle. “It is much more than a dedication to his duty, I would wager,” he told her. “Think what you wish though. He is in our healers’ hut as we speak, begging for your release. He asks repeatedly for the Chief to spare you any further trials, and pleads for you to be escorted as far away from here as possible immediately. He offers to remain in the mountains, a hostage as a trade to ensure you will tell no one of our location.”

  Tori rested her forehead on her knees and counted to ten. Her heart felt like it was going to burst. Or perhaps she might vomit. She wasn’t quite sure. You goddamn idiot, she was thinking. But at the same time, You can’t leave me alone like this. Please don’t leave me alone like this.

  She didn’t realize she’d gone past ten and straight up to fifty until Heln spoke again. “The Chief and his council wonder if, perhaps, the Guardian begs for your release because he is not confident in your being able to complete any further trials alone.”

  For a moment her throat felt very tight. A little voice in the back of her head had already been wondering the same thing. She was, after all, useless. Pathetic. Powerless. A complete waste of-

  No… No, Jacob didn’t believe any of that. Not even for a second. Regardless of whatever toxic, evil, poisonous thoughts ran through her own mind, she knew damn well that Jacob believed in her. He had confidence. He had trust.

  “Your Chief and his council are wrong,” she told Heln. She forced her head high to make certain her voice was strong and clear, and she enunciated every word. “My Guardian does not think that I’m weak, or incapable. What he does think is that my power, a power that only I have, is
the only thing standing between this world and Iryen’s rule. What he does think is that you’re all insane to put that power, that only chance to defeat the Shadows, at any kind of pointless risk. He thinks, in other words, that you and your people are all fucking idiots.”

  There was a pregnant pause, and then the room echoed with a deep, hearty, genuine laughter that took Tori completely by surprise. She couldn’t remember seeing Heln truly smile since they’d met, but at that moment it sounded as though he was going to burst a few ribs doubling over with mirth. She blinked into the darkness, confused and terribly curious about how he must look right now.

  “You may very well be right about that, little human princess,” he said when he was finally able to regain his composure. “You definitely may be right about that, yes.”

  Tori couldn’t think of a single response.

  His voice became more serious again then, but she could also hear something different in his tone. She thought he sounded a little sad. Resigned. “Your Guardian was unable to convince the Chief to release you,” he explained, “but there will only be one final trial. It will come as soon as your companions are fit enough to witness. You will fight alone against a single opponent, and if you prevail the three of you will be allowed to walk out of here. After you have received the blood tribute for which you came, of course.”

  Tori’s feelings seemed caught somewhere between elation and terror. “One more fight,” she muttered to herself. “One more opponent.” She squeezed her eyes shut and took several long, deep breaths before opening them again. “Thank you. I guess… I guess that’s really the best I could hope for at this point.”