Rogue, Prisoner, Princess. Morgan Rice

was terrible, far too much to match. Ceres felt as though her ribs might burst with the pressure of it, the breastplate she wore creaking under the creature’s strength. She felt its claws raking at her back and legs, agony searing across her.

      Its hide was too thick. Ceres struck again and again, but she could feel the tip of the spear barely penetrating its flesh while it tore at her, its claws ripping across any exposed skin.

      Ceres closed her eyes. With all she had, she reached for the power within her, not even knowing if it would work.

      She felt herself surge with a ball of power. She then threw all her force into her spear, thrusting it up into the space where she hoped the creature’s heart would be.

      The beast shrieked as it reared back away from her.

      The crowd roared.

      Ceres, smarting from the pain of its scratches, scrambled out from under it and stood weakly. She looked down as the beast, the spear lodged in its heart, rolled and whined, making a sound that seemed far too small for something so large.

      Then it stiffened, and died.

      “Ceres! Ceres! Ceres!”

      The Stade filled with cheers again. Everywhere Ceres looked, there were people calling out her name. Nobles and ordinary folk alike seemed to be joining in the chanting, losing themselves in that one moment of her victory.

      “Ceres! Ceres! Ceres!”

      She found herself drinking it in. It was impossible not to be caught up in the feeling of adulation. Her whole body seemed to pulse in time with the chanting that surrounded her and she spread her hands as if to welcome it all in. She turned in a slow circle, watching the faces of those who hadn’t even heard of her a day ago, but who were now treating her as though she was the only person in the world who mattered.

      Ceres was so caught up in that moment that she barely even felt the pain of the wounds she’d suffered anymore. Her shoulder hurt now, so she touched a hand to it. It came away wet, although her blood was still bright red in the sunlight.

      Ceres stared at that stain for several seconds. The crowd was still chanting her name, but the pounding of her heart in her ears suddenly seemed far louder. She looked up at the crowd, and it took her a moment to realize that she was doing it from her knees. She couldn’t remember falling to them.

      From the corner of her eye, Ceres could see Paulo hurrying forward, but that seemed far too distant, as if it had nothing to do with her. Blood dripped from her fingers to the sand, darkening it where it touched. She had never felt so dizzy, so light-headed.

      And the last thing she knew she was already falling, face-first, toward the floor of the arena, unable, she felt, to ever move again.

      CHAPTER TWO

      Thanos slowly opened his eyes, confused as he felt waves lapping at his ankles, his wrists. Beneath him, he could feel the gritty white sand of Haylon’s beaches. Salt spray occasionally filled his mouth, making it hard to breathe.

      Thanos looked out sideways along the beach, unable to do more than that. Even that was a struggle, as he drifted in and out of consciousness. In the distance, he thought he could make out flames and the sounds of violence. Screams came to him, along with the sound of steel clashing on steel.

      The island, he remembered. Haylon. Their attack had begun.

      So why was he lying on the sand?

      It took a moment for the pain in his shoulder to answer that question. He remembered, and winced at the memory. He remembered the moment the sword had plunged into him, lancing into his upper back from behind. He remembered the shock of it as the Typhoon had betrayed him.

      The pain burned through Thanos, expanding like a flower from the wound in his back. Every breath hurt. He tried to lift his head – but he only blacked out.

      The next time Thanos woke, he was face-down on the sand again, and he was only able to tell that time had passed because the tide had risen a little, the water lapping at his waist now rather than his ankles. He was finally able to lift his head enough to see that there were other bodies on the beach. The dead seemed to cover the world, stretched out on the white beaches as far as he could see. He saw men in the armor of the Empire, sprawled where they had fallen, mixed in with the defenders who had died protecting their home.

      The stench of death filled Thanos’s nostrils, and it was all he could do not to throw up. No one had sorted the dead into friend and foe yet. Such niceties could wait until after the battle was done. Perhaps the Empire would leave it for the tide to do; a glance behind showed blood in the water, and Thanos could see the fins breaking through the waves. Not large sharks yet, scavengers rather than hunters – but how large would they need to be in order to devour him when the tide rose?

      Thanos felt a wave of panic. He tried to haul himself up the beach, pulling with his arms as though trying to climb across the sand. He cried out in pain as he pulled himself forward, perhaps half the length of his body.

      Blackness swam in his vision again.

      When he came to, Thanos was on his side, looking up at figures who squatted over him, close enough that he could have reached out for them if he’d had the strength left to do it. They didn’t look like soldiers of the Empire, didn’t really look like soldiers at all, and Thanos had spent long enough around warriors to know the difference. These, a younger man and an older, looked more like farmers, ordinary men who had probably fled their homes to avoid the violence. That didn’t mean they were less dangerous, though. Both held knives, and Thanos found himself wondering if they might be as much scavengers as the sharks. He knew there were always those looking to rob the dead after battles.

      “This one’s still breathing,” the first of them said.

      “I can see that. Just cut his throat and be done with it.”

      Thanos tensed, his body getting ready to fight even though there was nothing he could have done then.

      “Look at him,” the younger man insisted. “Someone stabbed him in the back.”

      Thanos saw the older man frown slightly at that. He moved around behind Thanos, out of his line of sight. Thanos managed to keep from crying out again as the man touched the spot where blood still flowed from the wound. He was a prince of the Empire. He wasn’t going to show weakness.

      “Looks like you’re right. Help me get him up where the sharks won’t get him. The others will want to see this.”

      Thanos saw the younger man nod, and together, they managed to lift him, armor and all. This time, Thanos did cry out, unable to stop the pain as they pulled him up over the beach.

      They left him like driftwood, past the point where the tide had left seaweed behind, abandoning him on the dry sand. They hurried away, but Thanos was too caught up in the pain to watch them go.

      There was no way for him to gauge the time that passed then. He could still hear the battle in the background, with its cries of violence and anger, its rallying cries and its signal horns. A battle could last minutes or hours, though. It could be over in the first rush, or keep going until neither side had the strength to do more than stumble away. Thanos had no way of knowing which this was.

      Eventually, a group of men approached. These did look like soldiers, with that harder edge that only came to a man once he’d fought for his life. It was easy to see which of them was the leader. The tall, dark-haired man at the front didn’t wear the elaborately worked armor that a general of the Empire might have, but everyone there looked to him as the group approached, obviously awaiting orders.

      The newcomer was probably in his thirties, with a short beard as dark as the rest of his hair, and a spare frame that nevertheless held a sense of strength. He wore a short, stabbing sword on each hip, and Thanos guessed that it wasn’t just for show, judging by the way his hands hovered next to the hilts automatically. His expression seemed to Thanos to be silently calculating every angle present on the beach, watching out for the possibility of an ambush, always thinking ahead. His eyes locked on to Thanos’s, and the smile that followed had a strange kind of humor behind it, as though its owner had seen something