Draco watched her carefully from his position, his hand shaking on the handle of his sword. Adreana had her mouth open in surprise and her head was tilted up slightly to him. She seemed like a completely different person than what he imagined: a proud warrior who fought skillfully and kept her emotions in check while in battle. He expected to be seeing the spirit of a demon tearing the feathers of his wings off one by one. He expected to be screaming from all of the pain and agony she caused him. Instead, he was facing a vulnerable girl kneeling in front of him admitting defeat within the first minute of the battle. Where was this demon the warriors spoke of? Where was the bloodthirst?

The audience was in complete tumult, shouting incoherent things at them. He guessed that they wanted to see this match and hadn't had a forfeit in a long time. They waited together, kneeling in front of each other as they waited for the King, who was sitting in a higher and covered area, to allow the end of the fight. "The match will not continue," he heard the King roar over the amount of people angrily protesting. "However, there will be punishment. As said in the rules of Arenam: 'the individual who declares their forfeit first will receive whatever punishment the King decides to choose'. Therefore, I will be choosing the punishment for Adreana Lykaois shortly."

Why is she at fault for saving both of our lives? He thought numbly as he heard Legionnaires marching behind him. Shouldn't both of us be punished instead of just her? He wanted to shout these questions to the King in his higher box but held back because he was afraid his actions would cause more pain to her. The Legionnaires roughly pulled him to his feet from his kneeled position and his sword fell in front of her. One of them stayed back next to Adreana, who was still kneeling. As they led him away to the Eurus Gate, he could hear her steady breathing, her acceptance for her fate.

The blazing sunlight disappeared once he entered the gate's room. The cold air inside chilled him, but he knew he wasn't shivering just because of the slight draft. What would Adreana's punishment be? Would she be killed just for saving him and humiliating the King as his prized warrior? Why would she save him, her certain enemy and threat, out of all the warriors she fought and killed? The Legionnaires packed around the gate, all watching as he tried to see past them. She was still kneeling in front of his sword that lay on the sandy ground. It was as if time had frozen her in that position.

"Her punishment--" the King began, drawing the attention of the audience who had waited impatiently. "Six lashes with the razor whip--each marking her sins for going against the honor of Arenam. Then, her execution." At his words, a thin spike rose from the ground, sand falling off of it as it rose higher.

His insides became cold and he was filled with dread. He wavered from his standing position, a hand over his mouth as he tried not to get sick. She would die for calling off a match? His mind numbly processed the words and stopped once he saw a black-clothed Legionnaire dragging a whip behind him. Must be the razor whip, he thought dimly. Why would she risk her life for his? Why couldn't they battle it out? Why was she trying to protect someone she had never met? And why were these selfless feelings so familiar?

The Legionnaire that stayed behind with Adreana was now chaining her wrists to the spike so her head was close to the spike and her back was exposed. His mind entered a state of dread and guilt; he was dreading her expressions of pain that were caused because of him. He wanted to run out there, unchain her, and fly away from Arenam but he knew he was imagining the utterly impossible.

He saw her leaning forward on her knees waiting for the whip to strike. She was as still as stone even when she saw how dangerous the whip was. The Legionnaire raised his whip high--the crowd held their breath in anticipation--and he brought it down with a horrible sound.

Her scream of pain made his hair stand on end. It shocked him that it sounded so panicked and anguished. He felt something so similar about her scream that it set him off. That scream was not just because of her skin ripping from the brutal whip, that scream sounded like she was screaming for thousands of reasons. It hurt him that she was trying not to show any emotion to keep her image as a calm warrior or to make him feel less worse. Dark red blood webbed across her back from the wounds. It was so dark that it almost looked pitch black as it trickled down.

The crowd jeered and yelled at her, the stadium filling with disapproving insults. Some began to throw whatever they had at her: rocks by their feet, handfuls of sand...the list went on. One of the rocks hit her arm, making her wince as she continued to close her eyes as if she could block out all the heartless horrors around her. He watched in disgust that humans could be so cruel and was worried for the next six lashes. The first one was bad enough; it was sharp enough to draw blood instantly.

The Legionnaire raised his whip again, whipping it with even more intensity than before. She screamed through gritted teeth, her hands clenched into fists in their bonds. More rubble was thrown into the center arena. The lashes came faster and harder and she suffered at her place in front of the iron spike. The crowd shouted the number of strikes as each one came.

Three! Blood streaked like tears, splattering across the sand. Her wounds seemed to begin healing themselves quickly but her otherworld abilities were no match for the continuous torture. He focused on her, trying to find out why he felt he was seeing someone else. Who did she sound like? Who did she look like? Suddenly, her braided black hair turned blonde and her face appeared younger. His eyes widened and he looked at the audience but they showed no change or took notice to her hair. Was he imagining things?

Four! She had given up on keeping quiet to protect her pride as a feared individual. She screamed once the same bloodstained whip clawed through her back, making pitiful whimpers once more blood covered the ground. Five! The fifth whip came a split second after the fourth one, making her cry out. Her cries sounded like a plea for the pain to stop, for it to end. He couldn't watch and yet he couldn't look away from the barbaric scene. Meanwhile, she was changing--she was growing paler and her screaming became more like a child's scream, a little girl's scream.

SIX! The sixth lash. The number known to be part of the devil's number--six hundred and sixty-six. It came down quick and hard, her scream rang out through Arenam and was louder than the audience's roar. Her back was stained from the spilled blood and it speckled the area around her, a dark reminder. He gasped, finally realizing who he saw in front of him. "No, it can't be," he murmured as he stared at the image of his sister bleeding and sobbing, crying for his help. The iron spike began to disappear back into the ground after she was unchained from it and was led by the Legionnaires to the Boreas gate. His sister weakly stumbled on her way, blood dripping in front of him like rain.

"Her execution will be done privately," the King announced. He was numb from seeing his sister be in such pain and misery. No. The world blurred around him, colors mixed together and noises combined. He lunged at full speed past the Legionnaires who yelled in surprise as they tried to keep him from leaving. The gate was locked, so he kicked the bars and shouted desperately, "I won't let you kill her!" He lashed out at the gate, pounding it as if it would break. "Give her back! Kill me instead!" Someone, or something, pulled him back from the light of the gate and everything dissolved around him, turning everything he saw into black, like her blood.

I'm sorry, Lily.