Total pages in book: 209
Estimated words: 196141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 981(@200wpm)___ 785(@250wpm)___ 654(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 196141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 981(@200wpm)___ 785(@250wpm)___ 654(@300wpm)
He thought the stage was a semicircle wrapped in bars with a red velvet backdrop, but instead has turned out to be a complete circle, the other half enclosing a beast Kaleb could not have hoped to predict was there the whole time.
And now the barrier separating them is open.
Perhaps he shouldn’t have thought of it as a stage at all.
It’s an arena.
“W-Wait,” says Kaleb, trying feebly to communicate to the animal. “S-S-Stop. Easy. Easy.”
He slides along the bars, trying to create as much distance between himself and the beast as he can—without looking like he’s running from it. Isn’t that how things turn deadly in the wild? The moment one runs? Turning an innocent dance into a chase with grim consequences? Deadly animals love to chase. Maybe the same can be said of humans.
Or blood-drinking gods.
The lion watches Kaleb with unsettling indifference, makes a brief snarling sound, then slowly pads forward.
Kaleb continues to move around the perimeter of the cage, slowly, smoothly. “Easy, easy …” he repeats over and over, his voice as calm as he can manage despite the way it trembles.
The lion stops, yet his eyes remain on Kaleb.
The lion licks his lips.
Is that to indicate hunger? Salivating? Or is it something lions just do?
Why would Markadian orchestrate such a spectacle? Is this because Kaleb has done something wrong? Is this what Raya was warning him about? Are Markadian and his sister a sadistic pair of siblings who would lure an innocent musician like him into a deadly trap for their own amusement?
Could gods really be so cruel?
Kaleb finds himself struck suddenly by the calmness of the animal. What if he has this all wrong? Maybe the lion isn’t here to harm him. This could just be a surprise of Markadian’s to rouse the crowd, to make the violin performance more entertaining. Gods have strange appetites. They’re easily bored. Maybe this is just a part of the show, meant to impress Markadian’s friends. Kaleb wasn’t told so that he’d be genuinely surprised when the lion emerged. That must surely be the more sensible reason.
Even the audience seems to be waiting for something to happen. Maybe they are too afraid to shout anymore, worried they might spook the lion.
Is it blood or music they crave more?
Kaleb has stopped moving. He is facing the audience now, at the other end of the cage, with the lion’s shadow falling over his feet.
The shadow, of all things, makes Kaleb think of a spider.
A very large shadow of a seemingly large threat.
And he thinks of Markadian’s power.
Is this lion even real?
Kaleb makes a radical and entirely counterintuitive decision to, with glacial speed, move toward the lion. When the lion’s tail twitches, Kaleb stops. Calm again, he risks another step.
Even the audience seems to hold their breath.
Are they thinking it, too? Are they seeing through the ruse?
Kaleb slowly lifts the bow of his violin. Excruciatingly slow. No part of him is completely certain of anything. He reaches the violin bow toward the lion like an extension of his own arm, patiently, carefully, dipping a toe into the water of his own little hypothesis, a dangerous but necessary experiment.
Confidence swells inside Kaleb’s chest as he faces the beast. He can’t believe his eyes. “You’re not real,” he says, breaking a smile, in total disbelief.
In a flash, the lion lifts his huge paw and swats at the bow with ferocious strength, claws cutting through air. It snaps out of Kaleb’s fingers like a splinter, flung aside, stunning him.
The lion’s next strike is directly across Kaleb’s face.
∙∙∙
To the sound of Markadian’s ringing laughter, Kyle shouts as he barges between the tables, shoving anyone out of the way in pursuit of his brother.
Between fine dresses and suit jackets standing in the way, watching the scene with bloodlust in their hungry eyes, Kyle catches the horror onstage in nightmarish flashes.
The lion roaring, circling the cage, snapping its jaws.
Kaleb staggering backward blindly, hollering out in pain, blood pouring down his face from the attack.
Kyle reaches the stage at long last, grabs hold of the bars. “Kaleb!!” he yells, but is drowned out by the audience, shouting both in joy and in terror. Some of them cheer the violinist on, spitting words of encouragement, though it isn’t clear whether they’re mocking him. Others cheer for the lion, desperate for action, seeing it as part of the show, one of Markadian’s vulgar performances, not realizing a real life hangs in the balance—or perhaps knowing fully and relishing in it.
Kyle grabs something off the nearest table, a blunt candle, and pitches it between the bars at the lion. “Hey!” he shouts, grabs something else, throws it too. “Over here, fucking lion!” He snatches a chair and starts beating it madly against the bars, again and again. “Here! To me! Hey!”
The lion turns his huge head, tail flicking irritably.