Page 11 of The Crow Games
“Running attracts them,” Nola warned, and I froze, throat tightening. “Best to hold still, save your energy, and fight only if you have to.”
Garm built like huge animals dragged screeching prisoners down alleyways and into buildings while I shut my eyes and resisted vomiting. In the Upper Realm, garm were Frid—half human. They had families. They joined covens.
These creatures were the nightmare-born beasts of Hel.
The last of the garm retreated or were killed. Silence followed—an unsettling, hopeless silence—and the crowd began to move forward once more, sprinting around the fallen bodies, their pace panicked. My heart raced, the thump of it so strong my pulse surged at my throat and wrists. Prisoners knocked into me in the rush.
Nola steadied me.
Lisbeth’s voice was in my head again. I was so accustomed to having her with me, I knew immediately what she’d say.What are you doing being afraid? A powerful witch like you—they should be the ones scared.
“There’s usually a few hungry garm waiting near the entrance of this trial,” Ruchel said gently. “But now we can go.”
“I need a minute,” I said, shaky on my feet. I wanted to do Lisbeth proud, and vomiting on my shoes seemed like a terrible place to start.
Nola prodded me forward. “When Ruchel says go, you go. Don’t think. Never second-guess her instincts. Just do it and thank the sacred Crone later that she kept you alive.”
I dipped my chin in solemn agreement. Hand pressed to my churning stomach, I took up a jog to fit the pace of the crowd. We passed shops with glass fronts and fully stocked shelves, though there were no workers inside, no signs of civilian life at all.
Prisoners looted the buildings for supplies, which seemed like a wise idea to me, but Nola and Ruchel urged me onward. I didn’t dare question them. We pulled quickly ahead of the group. I’d been awake all night. Already my feet were tired, but neither of my companions looked as worn and drawn as I suddenly felt. Their hardened gazes were fixed ahead on the tower, their goal, even as more chaos erupted behind us. Prisoners fought over their finds, and more dead littered the roads.
I dug inside the lip of my satchel, preparing for battle. More and more of the crowd thinned as groups broke off. The knife I readied belonged on a kitchen table, not in war, but it would have to do.
“Now you’re just embarrassing me.” Nola snatched the dull blade and threw it over her shoulder. She removed a dagger from the inner pocket of her lapel and shoved the hilt at my chest. I fumbled it a moment as we picked up speed, headed for a four-way intersection. We’d finally broken free of the larger group.
“Oh, but this is pretty,” I cooed, examining the curved blade. It glinted in the ambient light. One side was serrated, the edges as sharp as shark’s teeth. Lisbeth had loved pretty things that glittered and could be worn in her ears. I liked those too, but this was my personal favorite kind of shiny.
Nola flashed her teeth at me. Ruchel gestured for us to slow, and we fell in behind her. At the center of the intersection, a massive olive tree blossomed, its winding trunk as thick as the overturned horse carts nearby.
A skirmish broke out down the street between a group of warlocks and a gang of witches. Arcane fire and storm magic flew in wide arches, adding heat to the dry air. The warlocks marked themselves as one coven, wearing red hoods pulled over their heads like executioners.
I needed no context as they battled over the body of a fallen witch and the dead garm she’d taken down with her. Though many warlocks were male—as they all were in this coven—it wasn’t their sex that made them warlocks. It was their ability to use relics. Witches created power sources by overexposing absorbent items to their magic. Items like copper and bone.
Unfortunately, this meant that witches often became such relics. Our skin and bones were sought after for just that.
At a safe distance, we watched the fight play out. The witches were cornered, outnumbered. But if the three of us joined them . . .
Nola caught me by my pack again. I hadn’t even realized I’d charged forward a step.
“Not our fight, ducky,” she scolded.
But witches were strongest together, I wanted to protest. And wasn’t the goal of these trials to make allies to survive the games with? If we didn’t help now, it could be us, our bones those warlocks defiled someday soon, our skin they harvested while we still lived to increase the vigor of their castings. Ambitious warlocks like these had forced my sister and I into hiding just as readily as vicious gods had.
Heat burned in my chest, reigniting the faint memory of the god-fire that had once been there. They all deserved to pay.
I opened my mouth to argue with Nola, but a shadow fell over the battle. A hush descended across the street. The fighting broke apart, and witches fled. Even the most eager of the warlocks rushed for cover. As they retreated into buildings, they pulled the hoods from their heads, an effective means of concealment for when they were once more amongst the crowd. Just like Nola and Ruchel were concealing their allegiances.
Perched on a gabled roof, a mass of curling and unfurling darkness cast a growing shade over the cobblestone streets.
A gasp caught in my throat as the shadows parted, revealing Death’s favored.
“Reaper,” Ruchel breathed.
Nola grabbed our arms and yanked us into the intersection. We crouched behind the trunk of the great tree.
“What’s a crow doing here?” Nola whispered.
I peeked through the tangle of thin limbs and found the reaper, an ageless force of nature, staring right back at me. Hiding was doing us no good. He knew exactly where we were.
