Crack.
My jaw.
The snap echoes between the walls of my skull as white-hot pain shoots down my throat and into my ears, pushing water from my eyes.
One shaky whimper flees my lips. Just one.
His boot—now a vise with the ground—clamps my cheeks between the hard grate of its sole and the sharp, icy gravel beneath me.
Snow drifts down, sweeping me with cruel, frosted kisses.
The Coliseum is taller, more menacing, than ever. This time, I’m the cause of all the commotion.
Down here, the large stone arena orbits me, the traitor, mocking the Sun instead of honoring it. Each towering arch surrounding me is an ashen rainbow, cracks and all. And below each arch, the stands are crammed, stippled with faces like small dewdrops piled on grass. The Coliseum is strong as always, but today, it’s suffocating, the unbreachable walls yards away yet closing in on us.
We’re positioned front and center, the main attraction: a girl and her executioner. Our stage: snow and dirt. Our audience: the blood-hungry citizens of Bellona.
I’m numb and frozen and burning all at once. Long strands of red-tinted hair stick to my forehead and hang over my eyes. Blood trickles thick from my nose down the back of my throat. It tastes of tin. I spit it out and blood sprays the snowy ground.
The crowd cheers.
“More!” several shout as one.
“Traitor!” a woman calls out.
A child lets out a high-pitched “Off with her head!”
Mass laughter ensues.
They lust for this, are entertained by it, feed on and frenzy over it.
But all of that is background noise. At this moment it’s only me and one other—the Imperi officer who holds me with the intensity of his eyes. Each fleck, each shadow. I know so much and so little of those eyes.
Tears collect in my own, blurring his image. Bloodying every memory. It’s better. I can’t stand seeing him.
As if on cue, the gray clouds break. The Sun shines down, casting a fiery ring around us; a spotlight illuminating the place where I lie and my executioner crouches over me, his boot at my jaw like a hunter with fresh-killed game.
The Coliseum quiets.
All of Bellona hushes.
A newly hung banner flaps in the wind, the red words IN SUN’S NAME, THE IMPERI WILL PROTECT YOU FROM THE NIGHT distorting with each whipping gust.
“Veda…” My name cuts through the silence as a whisper in my ear.
I strain my eyes to see past his exterior. To find the boy I thought I knew so well within the enemy. But I can’t begin to pluck a single piece of him from the fray. Instead, my sight settles on the altar, the slate pedestal to our right, the large sacred hourglass suspended above. Red sand fills the bottom bulb.
A single bell rings.
It’s time for the finale.