Chapter 100

Rowena

Everything seemed to move in agonizingly slow motion as Adrian’s arrow sailed straight for my head. Time itself seemed to go still, the crowd’s roar fading into an eerie silence.

In that endless moment, a thousand different thoughts raced through my mind. Eric’s handsome face, his last wink burned into my memory. The way his fingers had threaded through my hair just this morning as we had secretly made love under my sheets. My parents’ smiling faces from their seats up in the crowd, now twisted into masks of horror.

So this was how it ended, then? Struck down by a coward’s arrow in front of thousands of spectators? My identity revealed to everyone, only for it to be snuffed out before I even had the chance to meet my biological family?

There was no time to move, no time to even scream. All I could do was brace myself, my eyes squeezed shut as I awaited the impact. The embrace of death. I hoped it would be quick, if nothing else.

But it never came. Instead, a sudden whistle of air had my eyes flying open just in time to see another arrow whizzing past, slamming into Adrian’s arrow from the side. The two arrows spiraled together, embedding deep into the opposite wall with a splinter and a thunk.

The heaviest silence I had ever heard fell over the arena in those moments.

My gaze snapped across the sand to where Eric sat on top of his pure white horse, his chest heaving, his bow still raised from having fired his arrow—the arrow that had my lock of hair still attached to it.

He met my eyes, and in that moment I felt like I might collapse.

But before I could do even that much, Adrian was wheeling his horse around with a curse escaping his lips. He snatched another arrow from his quiver, nocking it with jerky, impatient movements as he aimed straight for me once more.

“Die, you bitch!” he ground out.

I was still frozen, a deer in the headlights, unable to move or even cry out or do anything other than shove Emma out of the way, to safety. Adrian was really going to kill me in front of everyone. He would stop at nothing.

But Eric was already spurring his horse into motion, putting himself between me and Adrian’s path. They charged toward each other, their horses kicking up sprays of sand with their hooves. Eric leaned low over his saddle, his arm reaching for me.

At the last possible moment, just as Adrian’s fingers drew back on the bowstring, Eric’s arm whipped out. He snagged me around the waist, hauling me up and over the front of his saddle in one fluid motion. I clung to him, my face buried in his heaving chest, as the world turned into a blur of color. I heard a grunt from Eric, and felt my heart stop.

Adrian’s second arrow whizzed past, grazing Eric’s shoulder—right where those arrows had grazed him all those years ago when he had found me, right in the spot where that tiny white scar now resided. A fresh trickle of blood made its way down Eric’s arm.

Eric gritted his teeth but didn’t falter, seizing the reins with his good arm and wheeling the horse around. Adrian had been thrown from his own horse at some point, and was now crumpling in an unceremonious heap on the sand.

In an instant, the arena exploded back into chaos. Students and spectators were on their feet, shouting and screaming. I clutched Eric desperately as his horse reared, but the anger wasn’t aimed at us.

No—the other warriors had seen enough.

“Get that bastard!” Darius roared. “Traitor!”

As one, the mob of warriors who had just been in my office the other day surged forward, their fists raised as they swarmed Adrian. He vanished beneath the heaving pile of bodies, his pained cries drowned out in an instant.

I stared in shock and horror as Adrian was swarmed, disappearing in the mob. Eric held me tighter, shielding my eyes.

“Don’t look, love. Not at this…”

His words broke through my stupor. I shook my head, blinking against the sting of tears as my thoughts whirled. Wait…

Heather. Where was Heather during all this?

Frantic, I scanned the crowd until I caught a glimpse of that telltale blonde ponytail of hers disappearing through one of the exit tunnels. She was running… she was actually running!

“Eric!” I hissed, grabbing his arm and pointing. “Heather’s getting away! Someone needs to stop her!”

The blood on Eric’s shoulder was still trickling painfully, but he gave a sharp nod. With a few powerful shouts, he had already directed part of the mob to break off and give chase to Heather, stopping her before she could run off.

Finally, through a haze of dust and chaos, I saw them dragging a wild-eyed Heather and the now bloody, battered form of Adrian back into the center of the arena. They tossed them both to their knees at my feet in a heap.

A hush fell over the crowd once more. All eyes turned expectantly to me. To the princess.

Trembling, I slid from Eric’s horse and began walking toward them in a daze. Up close, the pure hatred etched on both their faces was plain as day. My throat worked uselessly for a long moment before the words finally came out.

“Why?” I managed to choke out. “Why would you try to kill me? Your own classmate?”

Adrian just bared his teeth in a bloody sneer, multiple teeth missing from his mouth. Heather, however, tossed her head with a disdainful scoff.

“Because you were always meant to die, you fucking idiot,” she spat viciously. “You were never meant to be anything more than a sacrifice from the very beginning!”

She locked eyes with me then, and I saw the truth hovering there in their icy gray depths. Instantly, I felt my knees turn to jelly.

Adrian and Heather had known. They had known who I really was from the very beginning. A sacrifice… Was that what I was all those years ago, back when I was a scared toddler in a blizzard? A sacrifice gone wrong? How long had Heather and Adrian been tasked with making sure the job was finished?

I stared at them incredulously, revulsion thrumming through me. My wolf bristled inside of me, yearning for vengeance. “Kill them,” I heard her say. “You are the princess. You have the right to kill the traitors.”

Someone thrust a bow and arrow into my hands, although I was too numb to see who it was. I gripped them tightly, raising the nocked arrow to point squarely at Heather and Adrian’s sneering faces.

My wolf was right; As the princess, I had the right to dole out any punishment I saw fit.

I could end them right here and now.

The two of them began to tremble, their eyes widening as they awaited their fate. Somewhere, someplace far away, I heard Heather begin to simper and blubber. Adrian just bowed his head, waiting.

But as I stared down at them, drawing the bowstring back in the silence of the stunned arena, my hand slowed. No, I thought to myself.

I wasn’t a killer. I wasn’t like them.

A cold calm washed over me. Slowly, deliberately, I lowered the bow and took a step back, snapping my fingers at a nearby guard.

“Arrest them.”