Chapter Two

Raven

The princess rose to her feet and walked from the platform down to the dirt of the arena, her head remained high the entire time. I shot a brief glance at Cassius, merely to find fear filling his facial expressions. With a brief apologetic look, I turned back to the princess who now stood in front of me.

Her dark hair made her bright-green eyes look almost fluorescent and I scolded myself for thinking about such a senseless thing at a moment like this. She took a step forward, terminating the distance between us, and held her hand out to the side. With one abrupt motion, a dagger had conjured up from the naked palm of her hand and I couldn't believe what had just taken place.

Wasting no more time on my gawking, she hurled the blade towards me and I barely escaped it by moving to the left.

Stick to one element, Raven, stick to one element. All eyes were on me and I felt every set of eyes on the princess and I.

I called the element air to me, allowing it to replenish my entire body right before another dagger was sent in my direction. I tightened the air around the spinning blade until it was stalled in the air, and I caught the smirk on the princess's face fall. Sending it spiraling back towards her, her body moved with rigor, helping her evade it with fluency.

Focusing on her aura and the air enveloping her, I tried to reel it in towards met to do the same as I had with the previous opponent, but found nothing. As if she was running off something else other than air…

She didn't give me a moment to think about another tactic either, dagger after dagger flew towards me and I couldn't hinder each one of them. I panicked while impeding the most that I could, but every time I'd stop one, three more would come flying at me. How the hell could she conjure them up so quickly?

I concentrated on the surrounding air again, expecting to detect something, but again came up empty-handed. My eyes moved around the arena looking for anything that would give me answers but found nothing. Then it hit me, I flashed my eyes towards the platform only to discover the youngest son was focusing everything on the princess. His eyes were burning a bright silver, and that's when it hit me.

She was taking his energy and running off it; they thought of me as an air bender, of course the brilliant move to make was the one they were using. I stared at the young prince and focused on his surrounding air this time. The dark haired boy's eyes wavered as I pulled the strings of air towards me. I felt tension in the air coming from the princess but I didn't turn, I just kept my focus on the boy.

“Raven!” Cassius shouted and my head whipped around but a little too slow. One of the blades had stabbed into my shoulder, forming an incision for the blue substance in my body to drain out of.

“No… That's impossible.” The princess stuttered, her eyes shot up towards the king and so did mine. I desperately struggled to cover the blood that trickled from my shoulder but to no avail, they had seen it.

“A blue blood.” The king finally spoke and the entire crowd gasped. My face hardened as they all realized what I was and I turned towards the princess who was still appalled at the sight. No matter the outcome, I'm going to die either way now. Might as well take as many down with me as possible.

My hand lifted towards the princess and I felt water slip past my fingertips. The water forced its way towards her and violently shoved into her throat, through her mouth and nose leaving no alternative for her to breathe. She instantly dropped to her knees with wide eyes and an open mouth to try to pull any oxygen into her lungs that she could.

Her eyes rolled to the back of her head when I heard a scream from the platform. My eyes turned towards it to find the king had jumped down and grabbed Cassius in a headlock. 

“You kill her and he dies too.” He spat. I instantly reeled the element back from her, ignoring Cassius as he mouthed 'don't do it.' A smirk tugged against the king's lips while the princess gasped for air behind me. My entire body wanted nothing more than to knock that smirk off of his gruff face.

“You two are coming with me.” The king pulled Cassius upright and before I could object, hands grabbed my wrists together. I winced as my wrist bones smashed together and the open wound on my shoulder stretched at the motion. Metal cuffs were slipped onto my wrists while a hand gripped onto my upper arm, yanking the dagger out of my skin. I bared my teeth to keep the pained yelp inside. They don't get to see me hurting, they don't get that power over me. 

My head angled to see who it was that was manhandling me and found light purple eyes staring back at me, the eldest prince. His face was stoic and his eyes were vacant as he pulled me from the arena, never slackening his grasp one bit.

“This is the part where you kill me, isn't it? Ah, but you won't even do it yourself, am I right?” His eyebrows straighten into a hard line while his jaw tensed and I scoff at the sight. “You'll get someone else to do it for you, too scared to get your hands dirty.” A humorless laugh escaped me and I felt his hand grip onto my arm tighter.

“Raven it's okay, we will make it through this I promise!” I heard Cassius shout behind me. I tried to turn and look towards him but the prince's grip allowed nothing of the sort. My gaze dropped to the ground at the sound of his voice full of hope.

He was going to die too. All because of me because I couldn't do the one thing he preached about since I could recall. 'Keep your head low and eyes lower.' He was going to die because of my selfishness, and yet he was still trying to be the reassuring brother.

My eyes traveled up to the prince, finding his eyes peering ahead of us as he hauled me along. His jaw clenched together once more when he noticed I was looking up at him.

“Look,” I started off by saying, “Kill me but let him go. He's not a blue blood, and he doesn't pose a threat to the royals.” This caught his attention.

His head turned towards me, offering me a close view at all of his features. His pink lips were curved up into a sneer and his black hair contrasted with his striking eyes. Those deadening eyes roamed over my face, then my body, then back up before a small smirk appeared against his lips.

“And you think you do?”