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Aculus glared at the screen in frustration. The feed they showed from the drone had been edited and he couldn’t tell where Makissa was. He was already insane with worry that Nadzia was out there. Add assassins and he was ready to claw his shell off.

No. She wouldn’t have partnered with Makissa if she didn’t sense something in the female.He tried to have faith.But where is she?He wanted to growl.

Quickly, he typed a message to the heathens.

I saw the direction they were going. Will check, Umerus messaged back.

He barely read it when his attention was drawn to the candidate sprinting toward the arena.

Torment, he groaned to himself.

The likelihood that Nadzia would be among the first to arrive had been slim, despite his faith in her. It was a miracle he’d found her to begin with, and if the goddess carried her safely through this day, that was all he could really ask for. He would play this out and if at the end of the day he had to sacrifice the life he knew to be with her, then he could live with that.

Very well. He stood up straight, steeling himself for what was coming.This will be easier if this is one of the assassins.It was wrong how appealing that option was.

The candidate placed her disrupter on the pedestal in front of the bridge and his hopes this was the enemy wilted. She emptied her flask at the foot of the bridge and it lowered. Confidently the female crossed the bridge and it rose again. With no other candidates to oppose her, she crossed the next bridge, meeting him in the inner circle.

“I am your weakness, yield to me.” The candidate said her line confidently.

That was his cue to fight her, but Aculus hesitated. This was where the tradition always rubbed him wrong. He was supposed to honestly fight a female who’d just struggled to reach the arena and was already tired. And it couldn’t be a mock battle.

“I have no weakness.” He rapped his shell, acting the part of their prideful ancestors, then launched at the female.

Nadzia

Nadzia stared at Makissa lying on the ground in front of her, unable to move an inch.

“Just take her outside the bounds of the playing field,” the female in red armor demanded.

She tried to lift her head to look at the heathen whose voice was familiar, but only managed to set off another round of aftershocks that made her muscles cramp.

“I don’t know what conflict you have with this foreign female, but even I can see she is important. It’s really not my concern, but you better be able to get me to the Premiere Servant,” the candidate that also attacked them insisted.

“Yes. Quickly before the drones come back around.”

It’s Costa!She finally figured out who the masked heathen was.

“That’s another complication. How do I avoid the drones?” the candidate pointed out.

“I’ll show you. Get her,” Costa said impatiently.

Somehow it didn’t shock her Costa would bribe one of the candidates to sabotage her, but even this seemed harsh.

Does she have any clue what dumping me in the middle of nowhere will do?Paralyzed by the disrupter blast, she’d be at the mercy of the hot sun and wild animals.Maybe she does.Nadzia struggled to get up.

Her eyes widened when the candidate placed her disrupter against Makissa’s temple and pulled the trigger repeatedly. She wanted to scream as her friend convulsed and something burst inside her eyes then grew dark.

They killed her!Horror filled her.

“What did you do?” Costa shouted.

The candidate was suddenly an overgrown iguana. It whipped its tail, knocking the disrupter from Costa’s hands.

It’s them, the Jurou Biljana.

She stared at the vile reptile. These were the people who’d tortured her sister. The grotesque creature had putrid green scaly skin, spikes running up his back, claws, and yellow menacing eyes with slitted pupils. She knew they were evil but never expected them to look so foul.

“Youwill carry her and lead me where the drones will not follow. Now move.” The scaly bastard pointed its weapon at Costa as it morphed back into an Osivoire woman.