Nilsa rushed out of the ballroom before anyone saw her. She had no clue what to do, and she was more scared than she liked to admit. People were going to kill for her?

She rested her head in her hands and rubbed her forehead. This was the last thing she'd thought would happen tonight. Another problem to her plate.

"Leaving so soon?"

Nilsa jumped and spun around, rose eyes following her every move. She sighed when she processed who it was. "I've already talked to Ronan, Gideon. I know about whatever bet was placed between you two."

"I wouldn't call it a bet. More like which one of us you'd fancy more."

"And both of them are equally as horrible. What I'm saying is that I'd like to be left out of your future plans."

Gideon raised an eyebrow. "Really? They're quite wonderful."

Nilsa scoffed and chuckled. "I bet."

He moved closer until they were only a small distance between them. "I want you to realize that Ronan ruins everything he touches. I want you to realize that he has little to no capability of holding onto a relationship. I knew he was interested in you, and I wanted to get rid of that problem as soon as I could."

"Odd way of doing so. Let him get close to me? What if I started to prefer him?" It wasn't much of a what, or at least wasn't a day ago.

"You needed to see his true colors."

"I saw both of your true colors, and I can't say I'm too interested in either."

He grinned. "You haven't seen anything yet." He cleaned closer. She could see the red specks in his pink iris'. "I'm not going to deny that I'm attracted to you. I admit that I'm guilty of competition, but then I'll also tell you that it's really a competition between the entire palace as to who can get your attention, and it's getting quite competitive."

"You and Ronan don't account for the entire palace."

He tilted his head. "So naive."

Her jaw locked. "I'm not a prize."

"No," he agreed. "You're much more than that." He didn't elaborate, which wasn't much of a surprise. The siblings were almost as bad as Citali when it came to revealing information.

"I don't want to be part of anything like that," she told him honestly. "I'm still trying to figure out where I fit in here."

"You fit up top with us."

She could disagree for many reasons. "I won't assume that until I see that for myself. I prefer to be with the little people, and I won't give up on them to be on top."

"You don't have to." She was starting to get confused as to what his motive was, what he wanted her to do.

A group of giggling females burst through the doorway from the ballroom, stopping in their tracks when they noticed the two. Some of them gave Gideon flirty waves and smiles, and it reminded Nilsa of what she'd rather be seen as. Independent. Strong. Could she be seen like that if she let another man's reputation own her. What did she want? She'd given up on settling down, or at least it didn't seem important the last few years. She certainly wasn't ready to flip that switch now.

So it's been decided. "I need to go," she blurted.

Gideon's eyebrows pursed. "We haven't finished."

"I think we're done," was all she was able to push out before she rushed down the hall.

***

Thousands had already crammed themselves into the large arena before even a sign of dusk appeared. There were seats reserved for the palace workers, who were a very small percentage compared to the rest of the population that arrived. This time, the seats were higher up, giving Nilsa an amazing view of the field that she'd fought on not too long ago.

All eight of the gods appeared in the middle of the field not too long after Nilsa had sat down, and Chryseis stood proudly upfront. Nilsa could see her silver eyes glimmer even from her seat. Chyrseis was interesting to say the least, and it wasn't a huge shock that she was the goddess of death. Her skin was the color of a ghost, and her black hair was wildly unkempt, falling down her face.

"Welcome to the second game." Her voice was silky and smooth, and could be heard from all corners of the stadium. "Today, we honor death, in which I have the honor of representing. For our activity, I shall release a dark spirit whose memory continues to haunt the deepest pages of banned stories. First one to capture it and kill it, wins."

Nilsa now noticed the concealed armor they all wore. It was subtle, the metal pieces situated into outfits that didn't seem out of the ordinary. None of the sisters wore skirts or dresses that they were usually seen in, and most wore dark, tight pants instead.

"To make it harder," Chryseis continued, "there shall be obstacles." On cue, large concrete shapes arose from the ground. It wasn't the maze that Nilsa had been in, as this one held many different forms from mile-long walls to circular spheres to short tunnels. "And not only will we have to fight each other," she paused to grin, "our dark spirit asked to bring some friends." The crowd cheered loudly at the comment. Even Nilsa was more interested than she'd been before. "To start, we will situate ourselves into pairs."

Immediately, the gods moved. A sister to a brother was the unspoken rule with the pairing. There was no hesitation and Czarin and Caspian gravitated towards each other. Nilsa had seen how well they worked as not only a team, but they got along better than any of the others did. Thorin moved to Chryseis, and Ronan and Rieka had already been standing next to each other, as if they'd known what the game was from the start. Neither Gideon nor Alaeca complained when they were left to pair. War and Love were a deadly combination.

"May the game begin," Chryseis ended with a smile.

Rumbling began once the pairs separated into different sides of the field. The concrete objects rumbled and shook. A particular sphere in the middle of the field caught Nilsa's eye as it shook the loudest. Soon enough, the sound of it overpowered everything in the arena, and as soon as it silenced, it shattered into millions and millions of pieces.

Alaeca and Gideon, who had been closest to the sphere, had to cover their faces from the debris. Nilsa caught Caspian giggling far out into the field behind a pillar, and she couldn't help but look toward Ronan, who even had a small smile forming on his lips.

It seemed like the entire world was silent in anticipation, waiting for anything to happen. Nilsa, like the rest of the arena, leant forward in her seat.

Suddenly, loud shrieks came from the center of the field where the sphere had once resided. The spirits were anything but human, and although they all had physical bodies, animal-like to be fair, Nilsa had never seen anything like them before. They quickly crawled from the earth, and once were free of their prison, ran fast enough that they left marks on the trimmed field.

Caspian and Czarin were met with one first, this particular one appearing like something that had been incinerated and pieced back together. Below chunks of burnt flesh, it had an inside like magma.

Caspian shook his hand and a large hammer appeared from thin air that was made of solid iron with fine detailing. He wasted no time in lifting it up and swinging it into the side of the spirit. A large chunk of it, a rock the size of a small boulder, separated itself from the body. Caspian continued this solo, working his way into the core of the spirit as he was able to break it down. Czarin, who'd left herself unnoticed by the crowd, now crawled low to the ground. A bag of long, sharp arrows, which were more like small spears with feather-like addings to the end, was attached to her back. A long bow was held in her hand, and she didn't even have to blink an eye as she pulled an arrow from the bag, loaded and realized the flying weapon within a single movement. It landed, or rather flew through the throat of the spirit. Once incapacitated, Caspian ended the spirt with a hard blow that knocked the spirt's head clean off.

Nilsa cringed, and realized she was guilty of being entertained. She was starting to blame the viewers less and less for enjoying her pain in the last game. It was much more enjoyable to watch than to participate in.

Each pair had received their own spirit while Caspian and Czarin had took care of theirs. Rieka and Ronan fought one of similar features, only this one containing cold water under icy skin. Ronan was already soaking wet from fighting it, with what Nilsa noticed was a dagger like the one she'd used, while Rieka was hunched behind a concrete sphere, quickly fiddling with multiple things in her hands.

"It's a dagger," Giselle whispered to her.

Nilsa raised an eyebrow and squinted at the view. Why was she having so much trouble with a dagger? "Has she ever seen one before?"

Giselle laughed but pointed. "Look."

Rieka crawled to her stomach and situated herself just enough that she could see out of her hiding place. She pulled out the dagger and a long piece of cloth. Holding the dagger at an angle to the sun, she waited until a small fire erupted. It grew quickly, and Rieka threw it to Ronan, who caught the flaming fabric and pressed it against the mouth of the spirit. He didn't seem to feel the pain that came from his flesh in the flames, but the spirit sure did, screeching as steam came from where the fabric was being held. Soon enough, it collapsed and dissolved back into the earth.

It wasn't too long before they'd all finished, and as soon as Alaeca delivered the killing blow with her blades, a loud bubbling came from the center of the field.