The Firedragon (7 page)

Aurelia stepped into the
arena
and looked up at the thousands of
spectators around her. Several gold-cloaked Sentinels hovered in
the air over the arena, holding white Eye Stones in their
hands.

Everyone was watching her. Everyone was
waiting.

All that attention would have made anyone
else nervous, but to Aurelia, it was like a swig of cold water
after a long, hot bout with a punching bag. The very air energized
her, and she reminded herself that she was there not just for
herself, but for all the Norms in the world. The icy shards of fear
were still embedded in her heart, but she couldn’t let anyone see
them. No matter what stepped out of the darkness beyond the gates,
she had to kill it.

It was do or die.

Though her breath came out
shakily, she held her head high to show the world that
nothing
scared
her.

“
Aurelia Sun, Contestant
Twenty-Four, from the Triumvirate of North America, will face a
spearfiend.” The announcer’s voice brought her out of her head and
back to reality.

A what?
She wrinkled her nose in confusion; she’d never
heard of a spearfiend before. The officials must have brought it in
from another nation. This was her worst fear: that she’d be up
against something she didn’t know, and unprepared. She hadn’t
thought it was possible, but now all her doubt came rushing back.
What if it didn’t have a head for her to chop off? What if it
turned out to be the only monster in the world not vulnerable to
silver?

She drew a deep
breath.
C’mon, Firedragon!
This is no time to freak out!

She bent her knees and widened her stance,
giving herself a solid base for any move she’d need to make once
the creature entered. The gate across from her opened, and she
raised her swords, ready to gank the spearfiend. Whatever that
was.

Nothing. There was nothing behind the gate
but darkness.

Where on earth was the spearfiend?

Then a wind blew through the arena, sweeping
her thick, wavy ponytail across her face. Weird – the arena was
indoors. Where would wind come from? Grains of sand stung her
cheek, and she dodged. That was even weirder – there was no sand
around here. And the weirdness could only mean one thing.

It’s here.

She spun to the side and flung her double
swords up in an X, just as a bony, spear-like leg shot down toward
her. Her blades caught the leg between them, stopping the spike
inches from her face, and she yanked her arms apart and sliced
through it from both sides.

Green blood splashed onto her, and the
creature let out an earsplitting shriek as the severed leg fell to
the ground.

Her gaze flew to the leg,
and then shot up to the rest of the monster. What
was
it? A tall creature
was standing in front of her, behind what remained of the limb
she’d cut off. She’d injured it, but it was far from dead. Its
menacing eyes glared hungrily down at her, and she could sense it
calculating its next move, deciding the best way to kill her. It
looked like it was made of sand, with a long beak, curved tusks,
sharp horns, and a bladed tail. Between those and its pointed
limbs, it had ten ways to impale her.

Nine, now that she’d
chopped off one of its front legs. She noticed the creature’s long,
narrow neck, and relief poured through her. She
could
kill it after all.

Then the creature started to move, and a
collective gasp rippled through the arena from the stands. To
reassure the audience – and herself – that she knew what she was
doing, she threw them a smirk.

Big mistake.

The spearfiend took advantage of her
momentary distraction and snapped its tail toward her. She caught a
glimpse and dove forward, but wasn’t quite fast enough. The sharp
point sliced right through the coat she was wearing, into her
shoulder, and stinging pain flared down her back. If she’d moved a
split-second later, it would’ve stabbed her through the spine.

She ignored the injury and looked around
wildly, searching. What would it attack her with next?

Almost before she’d completed the thought,
the fiend’s sharp tusks were flying toward her, its ravenous black
eyes glaring from behind them. She flattened herself on the ground
just in time to feel one of the tusks nick the back of her head.
Seeing a pointed shadow on the ground, she rolled quickly to the
left. The creature’s beak scraped the floor in the spot where she’d
just been lying.

She couldn’t just keep dodging, she thought
anxiously; if she did, she’d wear herself out before she could get
another strike in. She started to get up, then saw the creature’s
tail flying toward her again and dropped back down. Again, she
wasn’t quite fast enough, and though she avoided the deadly point,
the powerful tail knocked her flat. The impact nearly caused her to
lose her swords, but she tightened her grip, gritted her teeth, and
sprang up. Seeing a bony leg before her, she whipped one sword
across her body, aiming for it.

The creature disappeared, though, and the
blade cut through nothing more than a spattering of sand.

You’re a tricky
one.
She raised her swords, the rush of
combat coursing through her blood, and glared around the arena.
This was what she’d been born to do, what every ounce of her being
was meant for: Killing monsters. She couldn’t afford to be scared
anymore, and she had to make the audience believe she was
completely assured.

The enemy was here, and
she had to
fight
.

A sand-filled wind blasted
her back, the grains whipping past her. It would return soon – she
could almost see it appearing in front of her.
Any second now …

She bent backward to dodge as the spearfiend
materialized, its face shooting toward her. Her right fist hit the
ground and she arched her body up into a backbend, trying to avoid
the sharp beak, which then brushed against her stomach. Its tusks
were on either side of her waist – one would have ended up in her
gut if she’d moved a moment too late – the spearfiend’s pitiless
eyes only inches from her own, staring down at her.

Missed me, monster.
She stuck out her tongue and jabbed her left
blade up toward its neck.

The spearfiend disappeared again.

She pushed off her fist and stood, her heart
pounding, and her ponytail clinging to her sweaty neck. Where was
it now? How was she supposed to fight something that vanished each
time she tried to strike?

No fear
, she told herself firmly.
If it
gets me, I’m not going down screaming.
She
flicked her wrists, swinging her double blades by her sides. “La,
la, la,” she called in a mocking, singsong voice. “Where aaaare
yoooou?”

She heard a soft rustling as sand scraped
against the arena floor, but felt no wind this time.

It would materialize
several feet behind her. She didn’t know how she was able to tell,
but she could feel it in her bones, see it in her mind. Maybe she’d
picked up on something from the crowd, their gasps of anticipation.
Or maybe monsters were just that predictable. It didn’t matter;
she
knew
.

Taking it by surprise, like she had when she
got its leg, was the only way to kill it. And she needed it to come
close enough for her to reach its neck.

“
Oh speeeearfieeeend …”
she called in a high, purposely obnoxious voice.

Faint tapping sounds rattled against the
arena’s floor behind her – the monster was approaching. But if it
knew she was aware of its presence, it would vanish again before
she could attack.

So she waited, breathing as silently as
possible and wishing her heartbeat didn’t thump so loudly in her
ears. She needed to hear every little movement behind her. The
tapping grew faster and louder – it was coming closer …

And then it stopped.

From the corner of her eye, she glimpsed the
shadow of something long and pointed. Knowing it was the spearfiend
raising its remaining front limb, she watched. And waited. Her
whole body yearned to turn around and fight, but she had to make
the creature think she didn’t know it was there. It had to think it
was winning.

The shadow rose higher and higher, until she
couldn’t see it anymore.

She held her breath.

Then the shadow reappeared, and the leg came
plunging down toward her. She spun and whipped her right sword
through it, chopping it off, and sending the creature crashing
forward onto the two stumps that had been its front legs. Its long
neck stretched before her, and its beak opened in a great,
earth-shaking cry.

Now!
There was no time to waste – half a second too late, and it
would escape again.

She sliced through its neck with her left
blade, and the spearfiend’s head tumbled onto the ground, its green
blood pooling around her feet.

Her gaze fixed on its
lifeless, unblinking eyes.
Did that really
work? Is it
really
over?
For several seconds she just
stared, almost expecting the head to jump up and bite her. But it
didn’t, and she realized that she’d beaten it – actually
beaten
it.
I survived …

Though weariness weighed
down on her, she’d never felt more alive, and an involuntary giggle
escaped her lips as she stared down at her vanquished enemy.
I win, sucker.

She turned to the audience, who had been
sitting in stunned silence, and raised her blades in triumph. “And
that’s why they call me the Firedragon!”

The crowd roared, jumping up in their seats
and shouting with approval. The noise was so loud, it seemed to
make the ground she stood on shake, and she wondered if the whole
world could hear it. Then a red number flared across the air above
her: A perfect ten. Her jaw dropped. A moment later a second number
joined it: A second perfect ten. She blinked rapidly, wondering if
her eyes were bleary from the tiredness. Then a third number
exploded beside the first two: A third perfect ten.

“
What?
” she screamed. She almost didn’t believe it. She’d known in
her mind that she was the best, but she hadn’t realized
she’d
actually
be
… the
best
.

And the whole world was cheering. They had
all seen a Norm girl defeat a spearfiend – a creature so rare and
dangerous that she hadn’t even heard of it before today.

She jumped up and down,
laughing with delight. She
would
win this Challenge, and she
would
change the world. The proof
was in the air, shimmering in bright red numbers above
her.

No one could stop her now.

“
Contestant Twenty-Four!”
a stern voice thundered toward her.

Her eyes flew across the arena, and she saw
a stern-faced Challenge official standing by the arena’s exit,
motioning for her to leave. She wished she could stay and bask in
the thrill of her victory, but she didn’t want to taint her big
moment by being escorted off, so she flashed the audience one last
grin before running out of the arena.

She scampered backstage,
skipping with glee, and rushed toward the waiting room. “Did you
see me? I was
amazing
!” she shouted, bursting through the door.

But her face fell as she looked at the
sullen people around her. Professor Williams was still holding a
wand to Vilk’s arm, healing one of his nasty-looking burns. The
other Enchanter, a woman who went by Lauren or Laura or something
like that, was staring at a picture of the fallen contestant – the
man who’d been killed by the manticore. Her face glistened with
tears, and Aurelia recalled all the times she’d seen her and that
man together. He must have been her friend, she realized.

Vilk glanced at Aurelia, his permanently
scowling eyes meeting hers. “Congratulations,” he grunted. “You’ve
signed your own death warrant.”

“
Huh?” She cocked her
head, puzzled.

Then it hit her. This was
the
qualifying
round, meant to determine which ten contestants would stand
up to the
actual
Challenge. Whatever that turned out to be would be
much,
much
worse
than what she’d just faced.

And Vilk had already said that he suspected
the Triumvirate of setting them all up. That he suspected they
would all be dead at the end of this.

Those thoughts made the victory she’d just
felt dissolve like smoke in the wind, and her laughing and jumping
suddenly seemed very foolish. Her heart sank. The Challenge wasn’t
over yet. No, the worst was yet to come.

Then another thought
entered her head, and she dropped her swords and rushed out of the
room.
Connor …

There was no way he could deal with
something like a spearfiend. Even if he got a wimpy creature, that
would only make the humiliation of not qualifying worse. And if he
did qualify? Well, if manticores and hellhorns were the freaking
qualifying round, the actual Challenge was going to be bigger. Far
too much for Connor to handle. And no one would save him. Even
though he was the Gold Triumvir’s son, the world would stand by and
watch … and do nothing.