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Sunlight poured down from the cloudless sky; the sort of photo-perfect, white-bright day that celluloid could only dream of. Each edge of the fine-cut stone buildings was flawless, each tree leaf a shaped slice of stained glass, and the blood glowed like scattered rubies. Lomadia watched a crimson trail run slowly down her sword, tracing along the line of her own reflected features, as her knuckles tightened against the hilt.
You will run. You will fight. You will die.
She should have been afraid. She was, physically - she could feel the slam of her own heart in her chest, hear the short, ragged gasp of her breathing and see the faint shaking ripple down strung-out, exhausted muscles - but her mind was oddly clear. She angled the sword again, watching the reflection track around behind her; over half-curled hands, grasping at nothing, broken shapes strewn where they had fallen like so much debris.
How long did she have? How many were left?
Footsteps thundered above her, somewhere in the hanging maze of walkways - there was another scream, a clash of metal, and running again, fading into the distance. She needed to move. He didn’t like it when they hid - she remembered that.
She remembered everything, now. Every other time this had happened, when the world dissolved and reformed into somewhere new - and every other time she had remembered again .
Every time she had died. Every time she had killed. Every time -
“You have to play the game, Lomadia.” The voice was behind her; his voice, lightly accented but strange, as if the words were forming directly in her mind without the true use of sound. She swivelled, snap-fast on overstretched nerves, and lunged automatically.
The feel of a sword-bite, however familiar, was something she hoped she would never get used to. There was a moment of resistance of cloth and skin, then that peculiar ease with which the blade sank deeper. She looked up, into a dark stare that gleamed like the death of stars, and her breath froze in her lungs.
Oh fuck.
Ridge glanced down, at where the scarlet stain was already spreading across the ruffled expanse of his chest, and grinned.
“Good try, though,” he murmured, and something about him seemed to shift - ever-so slightly - as the stain suddenly began to reverse, drawing back into the wound like a rewinding film. Lomadia swallowed hard, but she couldn’t have broken the fixed stare, even if she wanted to.
“Why do you do this?” she managed, half-spitting the words past fear-dried lips, and willed her fingers to remain tight against the sword, locking them together in the temporarily-frozen tableau. As soon as he moved, as soon as he stepped back and she caught the glimpse of sealing flesh beneath those dandified clothes, she would have to run again. Die, again.
Why?
The moment held - stretched - suspended in a heartbeat - and Ridge reached down, closing his flattened palms either side of the blade. There was no reflection.
“You won’t remember,” he said, quietly, his gaze unmoving. Lomadia shook her head, running high on the wings of terror.
“I don’t care.”
The grin rose again, pouring across his face like spilled blood, and he leaned forward.
“I need your lives. Each little... sacrifice. It all adds up.”
“But we don’t - “ she hesitated, trying to find a way that this might not sound blitheringly insane. As if that mattered. “You - you put us back. Make us forget. No one really... dies.”
Ridge laughed. It was a surprisingly cheerful sound, at odds with the carnage just visible behind the brocade edges of his coat.
“Whoever said death was a one-time deal? Oh, there’re more permanent kinds, sure. You think I should take more of those ?”
“No! But that still isn’t much of a why ,” she added, quickly. He was so close now that she should have been able to feel him breathing, and Lomadia gritted her teeth, overriding any and all impulses to shrink back. If this was her only chance to ask questions, she was damn well going to ask the lot.
“What’s the point ? Do you just enjoy it? Is this just some sodding game?” the words spilled out, desperate, accusatory, as she felt her hands shaking against the sword. Ridge’s grin widened.
“Oh yes; I really do.”
Then, to her eternal surprise, he hesitated. Just for a moment, there was a flicker of some other expression behind that fathomless stare, gone as fast as it had appeared.
“But there’re so many more things out there worse than me.” He shook his head, spilling a few curls of hair loose across his face. “And you keep on drawing Their attention. Believe me - “
His fingers twitched and Lomadia found herself being inexorably pushed back, the sword sliding free and frictionless against the again-pristine fabric of his shirt. Ridge let go and stepped back, spreading his arms out either side as his coat swung out around him and he began to rise into the air, grinning like a demon.
“ - you really, really want me in the way. Now run .”
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Welcome to the Survival Games. The stakes are higher than you think.
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