Chapter 14
Matteo
Sleep will not come. I lie staring at the ceiling as if the plaster will hand me an answer. It doesn’t, it just stares back, mocking.
I kissed her again. Every nerve is on fire and the burn will be slow. I know that she will be my death.
I meant it, the hunger, the touch, the kiss that almost ended me. I still feel the heat of her breath. The way she looked at me when I warned her. The silence that followed. The way she didn’t run.
That’s the part that’s going to kill me.
“Just break his jaw and call it a day.” Marco shrugs.
“Tempting.” Milo grins. “But then I’d get blood on my jacket, and I actually like this one.” He moves his hands over his jacket and I shake my head at him. You can always buy a new jacket. Fuck, Grandfather would buy him one if he knew why.
Rosa flips through that underground gossip thread everyone pretends not to run. Marco calls it harmless fun. I never read it, but Rosa’s reading all the time.
“You’re in it again,” she says without looking up.
“Of course I am.”
Marco cackles. “Tell me it’s about that girl from the masquerade.”
“It’s always about a girl,” Rosa mutters. “Just not always the right one.”
I see her across the hall. Aoife. Beautiful in a way she probably doesn't know, next to her the world fades.
She’s walking beside Conor. Laughing at something he says, and just like that, every word my brothers say turns to dust.
Her smile is small. Tight. The kind of smile that’s more for survival than joy, when she looks up, just once, just a flicker, our eyes meet.
There’s a pause in me. A lurch in my chest. Like my body forgot how to breathe.
She looks away first.
I feel the echo of her lips against mine from last night. Taste the memory. Hear my own voice whispering I’ll be the one sending you to the slaughterhouse.
“Matteo?” Marco’s voice snaps me back.
I blink. “What?”
“You just stopped walking. Thought maybe you saw a ghost.”
I smirk. “Maybe I did.” And then we keep walking, but my pulse doesn’t slow. Not even close.
When we pass each other in the corridor, tight, narrow, unavoidable, I can’t help looking at her.
She looks at me from the corner of her eyes. Making sure Conor doesn’t notice.
Just before we pass I let my fingers skim the small of her back, a whisper of contact. She falters. Her shoulders tighten, her breath catches.
Marco’s smirking. “You touched her, didn’t you?”
I don’t answer.
Rosa laughs from behind us.
“Hell’s already hot, Matteo. Don’t light a match inside it,” Marco tells me, and I smile. Maybe he’s right or maybe I’m just tired of pretending I won’t burn for her.
“I’m sure I can play with hell for a bit.” I turn to them.
Marco is shaking his head, disagreeing but won’t say it. Milo tells me to have fun, just don’t get caught, and Rosa stays quiet.
Will I risk the dance with death, just so I can play with my little lamb?
It’s past midnight, and I’m still wired, but by the looks of it, none of us can sleep tonight.
The room is dark, except for the low blue light spilling from Marco’s tablet screen and the cigarette burning between my fingers.
Milo’s tossing a stress ball against the far wall, the thump of it rhythmic, grounding.
We should be sleeping, but in less than forty-eight hours I enter the first Inner Ring trial: Strength. So, we sit in silence. Until I speak.
“We need a plan,” I say, flicking ash. “Trial One. Run it like war.”
I take it all in. I need to. I’m not losing.
And underneath the structure I have in front of them, the fury simmers.
I think about Aoife, about what she’ll think when she sees me in that ring. Bloodied. Brutal. Built for war.
Will she flinch? Or will she finally understand what I really am?
I stand and flex my fists, cracked knuckles aching. “They want a show.”
“They’ll get it,” Marco smirks.
“They want to see who leads?” Milo grins. “Time to crown a king.”
Forty-eight hours of training and I am ready. At the tree line and I wait. The Trial of Strength begins in the woods, no ceremony, no countdown. The horn blows and I run.
We start with weight and wits. A weighted vest strapped to me. Fog creeping along the ground, branches clawing at my arms like fingers trying to drag me down. A red flag flaps somewhere deeper in the trees.
It’s a hunt. A hunt I will win.
Behind me, I hear the snap of twigs. The first challenger’s close.
He lunges, and my shoulder meets his stomach, and we both crash to the ground. He’s built like a freight train, Felix. I slam my elbow into his temple, feel the jolt vibrate up to my teeth.
I roll off him and drag myself forward, dirt grinding into the cuts along my ribs.
Every crawl scrapes my knees raw, a hot sting with each push.
The slope rises ahead, slick with moss, and my palms skid over it, trying to steal my grip.
I dig my fingers in until the skin burns, forcing myself higher.
Then I see it, red cloth whipping on a branch above the ravine, ten feet out of reach.
Perfect.
I see two of the others coming from different directions.
I stagger backward, lungs rasping for air, then break into a sprint. My boots slam the ground, mud spraying behind me, and I throw myself into the leap. My fingers catch bark rough enough to slice skin. My shoulders wrench as my full weight jerks against them, pain tearing hot down my arms.
The cloth slaps my knuckles, and I rip it free at the same moment my boot loses its hold. My stomach lurches, weight dropping out from under me. I crash down the slope, mud slick against my back, rolling until my shoulder slams into the ground and cold muck splashes up my cheek.
Stage one. Complete, and I win, not seeing anyone else with the flag.
Already, I feel my body burning, and there is still more to come.
Next, Static holds. Steel and Silence.
We’re underground now. No sound but my breath, shallow, fast. Leo nods at the iron knives laid on a table. I look around at everyone else and wipe the sweat away before it drips into my eyes.
“Wall sits,” he says. “Two knives. Blades out. Arms straight. Don’t drop. Don’t shift.”
I grab two knives and press my back to the wall. Blades extend from my fists. The steel trembles. Minutes blur. My thighs quake. My arms scream. Sweat runs down my spine. At seven minutes my muscles twitch.
Focus. Focus.
I picture Aoife. Why? all I see is her face, her eyes, her mouth under mine. I channel the rage of not being able to touch her again. The fear of what it means if I do.
Fifteen minutes. My knuckles are white. I feel skin tear in my palm. My left wrist starts to drop.
Leo’s eyes narrow. “Lift it.”
I do.
Nineteen minutes. My breathing’s shallow. My vision fades.
The bell chimes.
I drop the knives.
Collapse forward.
A hand catches me.
“Stage two complete,” Leo says.
Fuck, this is going to kill me today, and this is only fucking trial one. I nod, letting him know I’m fine, and let's carry on. I hear some of the other trainers talking to their people, and I stand up tall, adjusting the weight around me.
The third one, the climb. The Tower Breaker. A vertical wall, thirty feet high. Rusted pipe grips, no gloves, no harness. My arms already feel like jelly.
A deep breath, I take a running start. Jump.
Fingers catch cold steel. My legs dangle. I use core, back, legs, every inch of me, to pull upward. I slip and my feet hit the floor. No one else has tried yet, they look up the wall, but I can’t let them take over me, so I regain. Climb again.
Halfway up, the wind shifts, pushing my weight off-balance. A gust slaps me hard. My chest slams into the wall. I grit my teeth, find a foothold, launch higher.
At the top, a red sensor. I slam my palm against it. Another flare lights the air.
I’m so fucking close to winning and dying.
The game isn’t over, now the gauntlet. Path of Blades.
A tunnel ahead. My hands are bound behind me. Leo’s voice is low. “You’ll find your way by instinct. Walk. Listen. Survive.” I nod and enter.
Swinging weapons brush past. Spiked balls on chains. Wooden rods. Buzzing currents snap at my arms. A blunt hammer hits my thigh. I grunt. “Fuck!” Another to my ribs. A third to the back of my shoulder sends me to one knee.
Focus, Matteo. Focus.
I rise. I do not stop. I breathe through my teeth and let the pain become another weapon.
A flash of heat, one strike nearly knocks the wind from me. But I stagger through the next gate.
“Done.” Leo pats my back, and I kneel because I have nothing left in me. “You’re the only one who’s made it, you fight now. The Ring. Blood Crown.”
I look up at Leo, trying hard to fucking breathe, but it hurts, it fucking burns.
Standing tall, I walk in with Leo next to me.
Floodlights, iron floor, dozens of eyes. My father and grandfather sit like carved ghosts. My brothers grin. They’re proud, but this is only the start.
Aoife’s here too. Somewhere in the crowd. I feel her. The way your skin feels like thunder before it cracks.
I remove my shirt. My skin’s torn in places. My bruises bloom purple. My fists are wrapped but bleeding through. I take a deep breath as I turn to see my opponent. A Russian legacy kid. Taller. Uninjured. This is his first test.
For me, it’s the last for this trial.
The bell rings.
We charge.
He leads with a jab, I duck, twist, hit his ribs with a right hook. He grunts. I feel his shoulder shift. He’s strong. But he’s not desperate.
I am.
He catches me across the jaw. My vision blurs.
I come back with a knee to the stomach. He stumbles.
I slam him into the ground.
He kicks. I block.
Another hit to my ribs. Something cracks. Fuck the pain blooms white behind my eyes.
I taste blood. I spit it. Then I roar.
A deep, primal, animal sound that shakes my chest.
He looks startled. That’s all I need. I tackle.
Elbow to temple. Fist to nose, and I hear the crack.
He drops. But I won't stop. I need to be sure.
One hit.
Two.
Three.
Now I know he is done, I stand up on shaking legs, with nothing left in me.
“Trial complete!” Leo shouts.
I turn to my grandfather and father, and I bow my head.
Breathing like a beast.
Leo claps a hand on my back.
I fucking won.
But it wasn’t just survival.
It was a sacrifice.
And everyone is watching. Now they all know why they should fear me.
The crowd disperses. Slowly. Quietly.
I’m covered in sweat, blood, and the burn of every step that brought me here.
I walk off the platform slowly, limbs heavy. Bruised. Knuckles split. A pulse throbs behind my left eye, blood on my lip. I wipe it on my hand. Still warm. Still shaking.
Marco meets me first. His hand claps against my back, careful, but firm. “You did it,” he says, voice low, eyes sharp. “Fucking brutal. You look like … there’s no words for how you look.”
“Didn’t even crack a smile,” Milo adds, grinning.
I chuckle. It hurts. “I cracked something,” I mutter.
Rosa appears behind them, silent, observant as always. She doesn’t say anything, but there’s a flicker in her eyes, with a small smile.
Then I hear him.
My grandfather’s voice cuts through the air like a blade dipped in old blood. “And that is what we are made of.”
I turn, slow, and there he stands, tall, cold, dressed like power and war had a child.
My father beside him, arms crossed, eyes unreadable. They step forward, and I stand straighter, despite the pain burning through me.
“You made a statement,” my father says. “Not just to the crowd.”
“They saw it,” my grandfather adds. “How you moved. How you held the line. You did not win. You commanded.”
My chest heaves, still burning from the climb, from the holds, from the gauntlet. But something tightens in my chest, a different heat. One I know well.
Pride.
“You’re still reckless,” my father says. “Still too close to snapping.”
“Better than folding,” I reply, my jaw clenches.
He nods. Approves, even if he doesn’t say it out loud.
My grandfather studies me. “You’ve always had rage, Matteo. But rage without focus is chaos. Today, you focused on it.”
He steps forward, places one heavy hand on my shoulder, his fingers dig into my skin. “And now they’ll all be watching. Every faction. Every bloodline. They’ll wonder what the next trial brings.”
“Let them,” I say. “I’ll break them too.”
A grin breaks across Milo’s face. “Fuck. That’s our brother.”
Marco pulls out a flask and hands it to me. “You earned this.”
I drink. The liquor scalds on the way down. For the first time today, I smile, small and sharp. One trial down. Four to go.