Kill the Queen by Jennifer Estep

Author:Jennifer Estep
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2018-10-01T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

A minute later, a knock sounded on the door, and Paloma stepped inside the dressing room. She didn’t say anything, but the look on her face—and the one of the ogre on her neck—told me that she had heard everything.

I sighed, picked up the white feather, and handed it to her. “Here. Put this in the bag too. And be careful. It’s poisoned.”

Paloma twirled the feather back and forth in her fingers. “He’s just trying to help.”

I snorted. “By telling me to cheat? Some help. Besides, even if I managed to kill Emilie with the poison, isn’t the penalty for cheating in a black-ring match automatic death?”

“Yes, but Serilda would probably overlook it. She knows that Emilie is guilty. She just can’t take your side. Not without definitive proof.” Paloma held the feather out to me, like Sullivan had. “Are you sure that you don’t want this?”

I shook my head. “No. I might kill Emilie with it, and Serilda might even let me get away with it, but I would know that I cheated. I won’t fight like that. Not in the ring.”

Paloma nodded, accepting my decision, and dropped the feather into the bag.

A trumpet blared, so loud that it seemed to shake the walls, signaling the end of the regular show. I grabbed my sword, and Paloma held up the matching shield so that I could slip my forearm through the straps. They were the only things that I was allowed to take into the ring. They were the lightest weapons Paloma had, but both objects still weighed me down in more ways than one.

The trumpet blared again, signaling that I had five minutes to get to the arena or forfeit the match. If I forfeited, the other gladiators would hunt me down and drag me out to the ring, where Emilie would have free rein to execute me on the spot. At least if I went of my own volition, I had a fighting chance.

Before I could think too much about the fact that I was most likely heading toward my own death, I marched over, opened the door, and left the dressing room. Paloma walked with me through the tunnels until we reached one of the entrances to the arena floor.

I had been to the gladiator shows before, but I had never seen them from this angle. The stone bleachers rose up all around the floor, seeming much larger and higher than I remembered, and they were absolutely packed with people. Still more people were standing on the bleacher steps or along the wall. I suddenly felt very, very small, like an ant surrounded by gargoyles, just waiting for one of the creatures to step on and crush me to death.

Normally, three low rings would have been sitting on the arena floor, but the outer two rings had been removed, leaving only the center one behind, and the wood had been painted a slick, glossy black, indicating the blood, pain, and death to come.

Cho stood outside the black ring, wearing his red ringmaster’s jacket.

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