The water begins lapping at the side of the platform. The maggoty worms are so close to me now I can see their bulbous eyes. They have rows of perforated teeth, like needles. The crowd squeals with delight as another quake begins to shake the podiums. I hear the shrill scream of a girl and know another one of the competitors has fallen into the deathly waters.
I cling on for dear life, praying that I make it out of here alive. But I know it’s futile. The end has come.
All at once, the platform tips. My grip on it tightens but I can’t hold on forever. My muscles fail me and I let go. I hit the boiling water and scream in time to the gasping crowd of thrill seekers. It feels more like fire than water. I thrash around, screaming at the top of my lungs. But something is changing in the crowd. No one wants to see me die this way; not because it’s vicious and brutal, but because it’s too cheap. Whoever is controlling the game gets the hint, because suddenly the water that had been filling the stadium suddenly begins to drain away, and before the worm creatures even have a chance to bite me, I’m plummeting down, swirling as the water is sucked away.
I hit the metal grid of the arena ground once more. The worm creatures lie all around me, flapping and gasping in the air, drowning in oxygen, no longer a threat.
The crowd bursts into applause.
I look over and see there’s just one other competitor left alive. A boy of roughly eighteen. He’s lying on the floor too, his skin red and scalded like mine.
I realize then that there will be no more creatures to fight. It’s down to the final two. They want us to kill each other.
With a clunking noise, two swords are dropped into the arena. But I can’t even move. I’m exhausted, completely spent. My body feels like it’s on fire, the scalding water making every part of me hurt. It feels like I’m back in the desert again, when my body gave up and I just couldn’t carry on. My limbs are heavy, and my mind whirring.
I can see the boy rising to his feet, picking up his sword, and, for the first time, I admit to myself that no one is coming to save me. My GPS device failed. The bombs weren’t triggered and I will die before anyone realizes too much time has passed. No one was expecting me to be hauled into the arena so soon. As far as they know, I’m still a prisoner within the compound, plotting out my plan of escape. But in reality, I’ve failed in the one thing I had to do. I will die in this place and the world will keep on turning, just as brutal as before. Children will keep being stolen and survivors will keep fighting to the death in arenas until there’s nothing left of the old human race, nothing to show for all our accomplishments. I will die and there will be hell on earth.
The boy’s face appears above me, the sword glinting. He looks mournful, like he doesn’t want to kill me but knows he has to. I lie there, unable to move. But something catches his eye. There’s something coming toward us, floating as lightly as a feather on the wind. It’s coming from the audience. Someone has thrown a piece of white cloth, or a feather, in our direction. We watch it float down. Is it some kind of peace offering? I look up and scan the crowd, trying to see the person who threw it. When I do, my heart stops beating.
There, in the crowd amongst the other spectators, are Ben and Ryan.
I don’t think I’ve ever been more happy to see them in my life. They leap over the barriers and start running for me.
“Intruders!” the commentator cries.
I try to rise to my feet, finding my legs weak beneath me. Then suddenly their arms loop beneath mine and I’m wrenched to my feet.
“What are you doing here?” I cry to Ben and Ryan.
“We’re your plan B,” Ryan says.
“We’re getting you out of here,” Ben says, holding me close.
I wince, my scalded flesh sending bolts of pain through my body where he touches me. I notice Ryan is holding a GPS device and he hits it, turning the blinking red light into a solid one. The army has been mobilized. We have five minutes to get out of here before the whole place blows.
The crowd erupts into pandemonium. Half of them seem to be loving the abrupt change in course; the other half are angry to have been cheated out of seeing me and the boy fight to death.
But the boy doesn’t seem to understand what’s happening. He must think Ben and Ryan have been sent to help me kill him. He charges us, his sword raised.
Ryan snatches up the sword that was dropped for me and turns. Their swords clang together.
Ben gets to the metal disc that delivered me into the stadium and uses some kind of device in his hand, a tool of some sort, to ram the edge of the disc. It opens.
“RYAN!” I scream behind me. “COME ON!”
“GO!” he shouts. “While you still can!”
Ben tugs my arm and all at once we plummet downward, through the hole.
We hit the ground hard, winded. I feel one of my ribs crack on impact and take a sharp breath. The hole above closes over, plunging us into darkness. We’re back underground, and Ryan is trapped up in the arena.
“NO!” I scream, my voice tearing from my lungs.
But Ben keeps on tugging me, pulling me, forcing me to move on. We only have a matter of minutes to get out of the arena before the whole thing blows.
I’m hardly in a fit enough state to run. Ben has to hold me close to him to keep me on my feet. Numb with grief, I’m somehow able to trace my steps back through the twisting, labyrinthine underground. From above, the audience is roaring, the commentator desperately trying to quell the chaos. It sounds like we’ve started a riot.
I’m hardly able to stand. I wince with every step. But we reach the very last corridor and race up the very last staircase. Then all at once, we burst out into the desert heat, into the abyss of nothing. We’re free from the arena.
We start running full speed, knowing we only have a few minutes before the arena blows up. Even from outside we can hear the angry crowd. Shots start ringing out and it occurs to me that the slaverunners have opened fire on their own people.
As we race across the expanse, away from the arena, I hear the whining sound of bombs flying through the air.
The bombs hit and explode, the force so strong Ben and I are both flung forward. Heat blasts my face, singeing my hair. I land with a hard thud on my back and my head slams against the asphalt, making me bite down hard on my tongue.
I taste blood in my mouth. There’s a ringing in my ears that’s beyond painful. I’m completely dazed, unable to move or think or get my thoughts in any kind of order. Acrid smoke billows above me. I manage to roll over onto my chest. A little way behind me, I can see Ben lying face down on the ground. He’s completely still and I pray that he’s just been knocked unconscious. Behind him, I can see a scene of utter carnage. Enormous flames are leaping into the air, and bits of metal and body parts rain down. I duck as pieces of the arena grating thud just an inch to the side of my head.
I look back and see that where the arena stood is now nothing more than a smoldering crater. The bomb obliterated everything. It wiped out thousands of people in one blast.
There is no arena. There is no Ryan.
Then the world turns black.
EPILOGUE
They tell me this is what victory feels like. But I can’t bring myself to celebrate. Not when I wake from my coma two days later in Dad’s compound in Houston as a hero, nor when I’m reunited with Bree. I don’t celebrate when my dad tells me how proud he is of me for what I’ve done.
We won. The plan to destroy the arenas simultaneously went off without a hitch. Or at least it did as far as everyone else is concerned. No one knows about the grueling hours I spent in Arena 3, fighting for my life against the vicious mutants the nuclear war created. Nor does anyone know what Ben and Ryan did for me, about how they both had a gut feeling that something was wrong, and how they put their differences aside to unite and help me with their secret plan B. No one realizes that if it weren’t for them, I would have died in the arena, our whole plan would have fallen apart, and we’d all be under slaverun
ner control right now.
I know I’ll never be able to tell them, that I will never be able to admit that I screwed up the most important thing I was ever going to do. I have to accept their praise even though I don’t deserve it. I have to let them comfort me over Ryan mysteriously running away from the compound, knowing I will never be able to tell anyone that he is in fact dead because of me.
No one knows any of that. They all believe, when they found me unconscious in the desert, that my skin had been burned by the bomb’s blast. They all needed me to be their hero and so I had no choice but to accept.
Only Ben seems to understand why I am so subdued. He knows why I don’t dance and drink and celebrate like the rest of them. Like always, it’s Ben who understands that what I have experienced has marked me, damaged me, possibly forever. The only good thing to come out of all of this is that I know we’ll be by each other’s side, silent, supporting, not needing to speak to understand where the other is coming from.
In the first week after the arenas are obliterated, we receive a message from a squad in the Midwest. Arena 4 has fallen, its prisoners liberated. They’re all on buses heading south since we have the infrastructure in place and plenty of food to support them. But still I don’t celebrate.
In the second week, we get an even bigger surprise when the Commander from Fort Noix arrives with his troops. He admits he was wrong to ignore my dad’s appeal for help. He vows to do everything he can to help, and they strike up a bargain to take in a thousand orphans from the fallen cities and rescued from the sex trade. They’ll be placed with families in the cabins in the woods.
But even this is not enough for me to celebrate. Nor is the moment when Charlie and Bree’s friendship blossoms into first love, nor when Zeke and Stephan are rescued from Memphis, nor the moment when I am finally able to look Ben in the eye and tell him that I love him, that I finally can be with him in the way he wants me to be.
The point when I am finally able to smile for the first time comes a whole year later.
*
It is a week before the newly formed American army begins mobilizing into the deserts, and a month after the first full, reestablished communication device between the different compounds becomes fully operable. I’m sitting in my bedroom in my dad’s house. Ben’s asleep in my bed, his hair mussed up. Sunlight streams through the curtains, illuminating his pale torso, making him look more beautiful than ever. There’s a faint knock at my door.
“Come in,” I say.
Bree tips her head around the door. When she sees Ben asleep in my bed, she turns bright red.
“Yes?” I ask her, amused by her embarrassment.
“Dad wants to see you,” she says.
Ben stirs and, realizing he is revealing a little more than he’d like, quickly pulls the cover up to his armpits.
“Hey,” he says to Bree.
She just turns around and darts out the door.
I go over to Ben and bring my arms around his neck. Then I lean down and plant a slow, lingering kiss on his lips.
“Good morning, sleepyhead,” I say. “Did you sleep well?”
“Perfectly,” he replies. “What did Bree want?”
“She said Dad wanted to see me,” I say, getting up from the bed. “Coming? I’ll make you breakfast.”
Ben grins and slips on his clothes.
We go through the corridor of the bungalow and find Dad in the kitchen. Bree is sitting at the table with him. He smiles when he sees the both of us.
“What is it?” I say. “Bree said you wanted to see me.”
“I do,” he replies. “I’ve got some news for you. Sit.”
I exchange a glance with Ben, then we both take a seat.
“I received a call from a compound in California today,” Dad begins. “They told us that the arena there has fallen. The city has been reclaimed.”
I gasp.
“That was the last one?” I say, feeling my heart begin to thud.
Dad nods. “It was the last one.”
I can hardly believe it. It’s real. America has finally been rid of its arenas. No more fighting will ever take place in them again.
Dad steps forward and gives me a long hug. In that hug, I can feel all the years of grief, of agony, begin to melt. I can feel a new beginning forming.
I look from my sister, to my dad, to the boy I have finally let myself fall in love with. And then I smile.
Today, I realize, life can begin again.
Author Note
Thank you so much for reading all three Arena novels. I am so honored that you’ve read them all! I hope you’ll continue on this journey with me. Although this is the final installment of my dystopian novels, you might enjoy one of my other series. You might especially enjoy RISE OF THE DRAGONS, which features another tough female protagonist who I am sure you will fall in love with! If you like Brooke, you will love Kyra! Read it for free and let me know what you think! I can’t wait to hear!
Best wishes,
Morgan
RISE OF THE DRAGONS
(Kings and Sorcerers—Book 1)
“If you thought that there was no reason left for living after the end of the Sorcerer’s Ring series, you were wrong. In RISE OF THE DRAGONS Morgan Rice has come up with what promises to be another brilliant series, immersing us in a fantasy of trolls and dragons, of valor, honor, courage, magic and faith in your destiny. Morgan has managed again to produce a strong set of characters that make us cheer for them on every page.…Recommended for the permanent library of all readers that love a well-written fantasy.”
--Books and Movie Reviews, Roberto Mattos
The #1 Bestseller!
From #1 Bestselling author Morgan Rice comes a sweeping new epic fantasy series: RISE OF THE DRAGONS (KINGS AND SORCERERS—Book 1).
Kyra, 15, dreams of becoming a famed warrior, like her father, even though she is the only girl in a fort of boys. As she struggles to understand her special skills, her mysterious inner power, she realizes she is different than the others. But a secret is being kept from her about her birth and the prophecy surrounding her, leaving her to wonder who she really is.
When Kyra comes of age and the local lord comes to take her away, her father wants to wed her off to save her. Kyra, though, refuses, and she journeys out on her own, into a dangerous wood, where she encounters a wounded dragon—and ignites a series of events that will change the kingdom forever.
15 year old Alec, meanwhile, sacrifices for his brother, taking his place in the draft, and is carted off to The Flames, a wall of flames a hundred feet high that wards off the army of Trolls to the east. On the far side of the kingdom, Merk, a mercenary striving to leave behind his dark past, quests through the wood to become a Watcher of the Towers and help guard the Sword of Fire, the magical source of the kingdom’s power. But the Trolls want the Sword, too—and they prepare for a massive invasion that could destroy the kingdoms forever.
With its strong atmosphere and complex characters, RISE OF THE DRAGONS is a sweeping saga of knights and warriors, of kings and lords, of honor and valor, of magic, destiny, monsters and dragons. It is a story of love and broken hearts, of deception, of ambition and betrayal. It is fantasy at its finest, inviting us into a world that will live with us forever, one that will appeal to all ages and genders.
Book #2 in KINGS AND SORCERERS is also now available!
“RISE OF THE DRAGONS succeeds—right from the start…. A superior fantasy…It begins, as it should, with one protagonist's struggles and moves neatly into a wider circle of knights, dragons, magic and monsters, and destiny.…All the trappings of high fantasy are here, from soldiers and battles to confrontations with self….A recommended winner for any who enjoy epic fantasy writing fueled by powerful, believable young adult protagonists.”
--Midwest Book Review, D. Donovan, eBook Reviewer
RISE OF THE DRAGONS
(Kings and Sorcerers—Book 1)
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Books by Morgan Rice
THE WAY OF STEEL
ONLY THE WORTHY (Book #1)
OF CROWNS AND GLORY
SLAVE, WARRIOR, QUEEN (Book #1)
KINGS AND SORCERERS
RISE OF THE DRAGONS (Book #1)
RISE OF THE VALIANT (Book #2)
THE WEIGHT OF HONOR (Book #3)
A FORGE OF VALOR (Book #4)
A REALM OF SHADOWS (Book #5)
NIGHT OF THE BOLD (Book #6)
THE SORCERER’S RING
A QUEST OF HEROES (Book #1)
A MARCH OF KINGS (Book #2)
A FATE OF DRAGONS (Book #3)
A CRY OF HONOR (Book #4)
A VOW OF GLORY (Book #5)
A CHARGE OF VALOR (Book #6)
A RITE OF SWORDS (Book #7)
A GRANT OF ARMS (Book #8)
A SKY OF SPELLS (Book #9)
A SEA OF SHIELDS (Book #10)
A REIGN OF STEEL (Book #11)
A LAND OF FIRE (Book #12)
A RULE OF QUEENS (Book #13)
AN OATH OF BROTHERS (Book #14)
A DREAM OF MORTALS (Book #15)
A JOUST OF KNIGHTS (Book #16)
THE GIFT OF BATTLE (Book #17)
THE SURVIVAL TRILOGY
ARENA ONE: SLAVERSUNNERS (Book #1)
ARENA TWO (Book #2)