Page 44 of Dance of the Phoenix (Cloak of the Vampire #3)

Aileen

“Please welcome Zoey Rittman and Cassidy Jones from the Rayne League!”

I watched Zoey and Cassidy step into the arena to the noise of the crowd’s endless cheers. They seemed confident and self-assured, which should’ve made me relax but had the opposite effect.

“Are they good?” I asked Ragnor just when Renaldi announced, “Welcome Fareez Goshenan and Demetria Holsten!”

Ragnor nodded. “They are good,” he said, face set in a dark expression. It seemed as if he was restraining himself from saying anything more.

It did not give me the assurance I desperately needed.

When Renaldi started the battle, I was almost too afraid to watch. But when Cassidy and Zoey moved seamlessly together, creating openings and attacking with full force, I relaxed a little. Maybe they were good. Maybe I was worried for naught.

Those were my thoughts until Demetria used her Gift.

From the entrance where Demetria and Fareez had stepped into the arena, two large mythological monsters appeared. They were live sculptures, made of marble, of a large griffin and an eight-foot-tall Minotaur.

Demetria’s Gift was to bring the sculptures she made to life.

And those sculptures had the exact properties of the mythological creatures they were crafted after.

The Minotaur, holding a mace, charged at Cassidy, whose green eyes were wide with shock and terror. She held her hands up over her face to brace for impact, knowing she didn’t have enough time to move away—the Minotaur was too fast.

It crashed into her, throwing her a few feet away.

In the meantime, the griffin flew through the arena in circles, its eyes on Zoey, who was now locked in a battle with Fareez, who not only held his own but gave as good as he got. The griffin probably watched for an opening to attack.

My heart beat hard in my chest as I saw the Minotaur cornering Cassidy against the arena’s wall. Sing, I willed in my head. Sing, Cassidy, before he it—

The Minotaur raised its halberd to the side of Cassidy’s head.

I watched in horror as it cut in a precise horizontal line, literally cutting her head in half.

Her severed head rolled to the floor.

Cassidy couldn’t use her singing Gift anymore.

The Minotaur roared in victory.

It didn’t compute.

None of it.

Why didn’t Cassidy sing? Why didn’t she fight back when she had an opening?

“ No !”

I whipped my head to Isora, who jumped to her feet, watching the arena with terror. Slowly, I returned my gaze to the battle and saw as the griffin flew down on Zoey, who’d slipped on the floor and found herself down with her chest far too bare for an attack.

And the griffin used that to dig its talons into Zoey’s chest, making her back arch as blood trickled down from her mouth, and it plucked her heart out.

This couldn’t be happening.

It made zero sense.

Even when Renaldi announced, “And the winner of this round is the Atalon League!” none of it felt real.

Zoey and Cassidy couldn’t be dead.

How could they be dead when just this morning, Zoey talked and laughed with everyone?

How could they be dead when just earlier, I saw Magnus give Cassidy a pep talk?

Ragnor’s hold on me tightened. “You can leave,” he told me quietly, face grim. “You don’t have to watch the rest of it.”

I shook my head. I needed to watch. If my friends were dying, bearing witness was the least I could do. I couldn’t look away.

I had to watch, even though it killed me that Logan, Cassidy, Zoey, and Eleanor were dead.

All in the span of a couple of hours.

All because of this Hecatomb, because of Atalon and Ragnor.

And because of me.

The fourth battle was between two vampires of the Atalon League I didn’t recognize called Petra and Caleb, and the Rayne Troop Commander Haneul Kang and Yelene, the Common Troop member.

The battle started like any other. Petra and Caleb were on the offense, moving together to separate Haneul and Yelene from one another. But Haneul, whose Gift was his deep connection with his hawk, made the bird attack the Atalon League pair while he put some distance between them and him.

While Petra and Caleb were distracted by Haneul’s hawk, Yelene launched an attack on Caleb, targeting him specifically, which told me he must’ve been the Common in the pair. Haneul made his hawk focus only on Petra while Yelene battled with Caleb, fighting for who got more punches and kicks in.

Then the tides changed.

Petra, who’d been trying to get the hawk off her up until then, suddenly jumped.

And didn’t land.

She kept on climbing upward, as if she’d just jumped on an extremely springy trampoline instead of hard, cold marble.

Haneul pointed at her almost floating figure, and his hawk flew toward Petra, but to my shock, it was too slow; Petra was already falling back down, and not back to her previous place, but rather forward, toward Yelene.

Seemingly realizing what she was trying to do, Haneul began running to cross the arena, but he was too late. Petra landed on top of Yelene, her hands in Yelene’s hair, preparing to sever her head.

That’s when Haneul suddenly screamed, “We surrender!”

And just like that, we lost that round.

But we didn’t lose more people.

There was another fifteen-minute break before the final battle of the day.

At that time, with Ragnor still by my side, Haneul approached Ragnor.

“I apologize, my Lord,” he said with a blank face that seemed to feel anything but apologetic, “but after the last few rounds, I deduced this would be the best outcome.”

I looked at Ragnor. He looked even more exhausted than before all of a sudden. “You made the right call,” he said in a rough, grave voice. “Good work, Haneul.”

Haneul bowed. It was a straight-backed, arms-to-the-side kind of bow that meant the utmost respect.

“Ragnor,” I whispered once Haneul returned to his seat, “we have to win the next round.”

He hugged me to his side. “I know.”

He didn’t say we would win. That I had nothing to worry about. In fact, he seemed even more somber than before. He didn’t even seem surprised that we were in this position.

It was as if he’d predicted this part of the Hecatomb would go wrong.

And that made me feel sick again. Because if Ragnor lacked faith, then how could I have any?

This dreadful feeling in my gut grew to impossible proportions when the break was over and it was time for the last battle between Neisha and CJ and the Atalon League’s pair, which I was unfamiliar with, named Azaz and Thorne.

When the battle started, I found myself looking at Jada. She was sitting a few rows behind me, her large gray eyes glued to the arena in something akin to a trance, as if she was compelled to look by some external force.

I returned my gaze to the arena, where Neisha and CJ worked together to take down Azaz, who seemed to be the Gifted one in the pair. He was agile, though, and he managed to avoid every attack by Neisha and CJ. He instead managed to get some kicks in on CJ.

Neisha must’ve realized this was going nowhere when she suddenly lifted CJ as if he weighed nothing and, quite literally, threw him like a pitcher would at the pair.

CJ stretched out his hands and landed on Thorne, his hands wrapping around Thorne’s neck. With what seemed to be minimal effort, he tore Thorne’s head off.

The crowd cheered, and I even relaxed a little, seeing the good shape Neisha and CJ were in.

But I relaxed too early.

Because when Neisha was attempting to take down Azaz, Azaz instead rushed at CJ, who was still holding Thorne’s severed head, and with his bare hands, Azaz managed to tear into CJ’s chest from his back, his hand creating a hole in CJ’s torso.

When he pulled his hand back, he opened it and pieces of red, bleeding meat fell to the floor.

CJ’s heart.

Crushed to literal bits.

Two screams filled the arena just then.

Neisha’s was wild and furious, and she was immediately on Azaz, tearing his head off as easily as if she was squashing a fly.

And behind me, Jada’s was that of a woman who had just lost the most important, precious thing in her life.

Her soulmate.

Her Alara Morreh.

I moved before I could even comprehend what I was doing. Ragnor and Isora called after me, but I climbed the stairs to the row where Jada lay on the floor, her endless screams both heart wrenching and terrifying.

Crouching before her, I tasted my own tears as I pulled her shaking body into my arms. She thrashed against me, screaming and crying, seemingly unable to stop.

“Jada,” I said, my voice breaking, and she stilled. “I’m ... I’m here.”

She looked up, her eyes so pale, shattered, and broken, they made my own tears multiply, clogging my throat. “Do it,” she begged, clinging onto my shirt. “ Do it. ”

I knew what she wanted me to do. What I’d promised her I would do if the worst came to pass, which it just did.

When I saw light in her eyes dim, she released my shirt, as if she couldn’t hold on anymore, her screaming coming to a stop. I saw what Jada had talked about before. And why she asked me to kill her.

Jada’s face grew devoid of emotions, her body becoming limp like a rag doll, the vitality of what made Jada Jada disappearing right before my eyes.

Moments later, Jada was gone and in her place was a breathing body with no soul.

As if when CJ was killed, so was her very own self.

He was her literal soulmate. Without him, Jada practically ceased to exist.

A hand, belonging to Ragnor, landed on my shoulder. “It’s over,” he said, looking at Jada with both devastation and unbearable pity. “Let us return to the dorms.”

I picked Jada up. She didn’t even resist. It was as if in the span of seconds, she’d become devoid of any agency.

My chest squeezed, aching, as the events of the last few hours passed through my head, while walking back to the dorms along with the remaining Rayne League members.

The realization of everything that had happened threatened to seize control over my mind. Threatened to make me crumble and fall right there and then.

But I couldn’t fall apart yet. I had a deadly request to fulfill.

A sob escaped my lips when we entered the lounge and I laid Jada on the sofa. “Bring me a knife, please,” I said to Ragnor, voice hoarse.

He didn’t ask me why. He simply went to the kitchenette, grabbed a knife, and brought it over to me.

Shaking, I sat next to Jada, who stared, unblinkingly, at practically nothing. She didn’t even move. She was comatose with her eyes open.

Ragnor, Isora, and others surrounded Jada and me, as if they were all aware of what was coming. They might not have known the details, but they’d all seen what had just happened to Jada when CJ died.

It was as if everyone just instinctively knew .

So it was silent from the moment I forced myself to dig the knife into Jada’s chest until the second I carved out her heart.

Jada, in her vegetative state, didn’t seem in pain as she passed.

The knife fell from my hand, along with the heart, to the floor. “I’m sorry,” I whispered in the awful silence, endless tears escaping me. “I’m sorry ...”

Isora sat next to me and pulled me into her. “Don’t be,” she said, her own voice breaking as she began to cry too. “It’s not your fault. None of it is.”

Gently, Neisha, whose own face was smeared with tears, picked Jada’s body up. “I’m going to store her in another room until we depart,” she said quietly. “She deserves to be buried back home.”

Home. The Rayne League.

Ragnor’s League.

My League.

The very League that had just lost some of its finest members.

Ragnor took the seat to my right and pulled me to him softly. “Rest, Isora,” he said quietly. “I got her.”

Isora obliged and left for the dorms along with everyone else, giving us space.

And when it was just Ragnor and me, just the two of us, it all finally hit me, and I let myself fall apart in his arms.