8. Leah
Leah
The wolf tests the space it’s made by shoving its snout through the gap. It manages to reach a little deeper this time, and I have to jerk my feet back to avoid its fangs.
“Yeah, about that…” I say, wondering where to start, suddenly almost as overwhelmed by having him back inside my head as I am by being trapped between these rocks. Was our connection always this…intense?
I’m being an idiot; of course it was. I just didn’t expect to have to contend with it along with everything else my body is battling right now. There’s all this fear and pain and yet somehow there’s still room for my nerves to tingle at the touch of his presence.
“Where are you? What’s hunting you?” he demands, like he’s pacing furiously in my mind. At least he’s cutting to the chase and not asking the other questions he probably wants answers to right now—like why I left. Why I’ve been blocking him out.
“It’s a long story,” I say weakly. “But the short version is that I’m stuck in an arena with a bunch of very big, very dangerous beasts and—”
The wolf pauses its digging to try to snap at me again. “And I don’t have much time to talk,” I continue. “I need you to tell that thing to back off. Please,” I add for good measure.
“I see,” he says, with excruciating slowness. “So you let your barriers down simply to use me for my magic?”
An emotion twists my gut, and I’m so jumbled up it takes me a moment to realize it’s guilt.
“Because I don’t want to be giant-ephilium-wolf dinner!” I bite back. I want to say more to defend myself, but one of the stones is really shifting now, and my other arguments die on my lips.
“Why can’t you use your pale-blood magic?” he asks, his voice hard.
The rest is unspoken, but it’s there, lying heavy between us: I chose pale-blood magic, and everything that came with it, over him.
That’s the moment the wolf chooses to shove its muzzle in far enough to sink a tooth into the toe-end of my boot, using it to try to drag me out of my hiding space.
I cry out, but luckily the opening is small, and I can’t be extracted that easily.
Especially when I feel a force push against my free foot—Syrus, shoving my heel against the other rock so I can brace myself.
I throw my hands forward to send a spark of lightning along the wolf’s muzzle, and it releases my boot with a snarl.
The snout retreats for a few seconds, giving me time to pull my leg back before it returns.
A beat of silence passes between us, and I wonder if Syrus is also thinking about the fact that we just worked together, seamlessly and easily, as if nothing has changed between us.
“I’m using my ephilium magic, but, as you can see, it isn’t enough,” I say hotly. “Not yet, anyway. And this creature isn’t exactly giving me the time to brush up on my skills. It wants blood, and it’s obviously decided I’ll be particularly delicious.”
I want to tell him to take his resentful snark and shove off if he’s not going to help me. But then he might actually do it, and I can’t afford to cling to my pride right now.
“Syrus, please,” I beg. “Whatever’s happened, you can’t want me to die like this. And if you don’t help, it will kill me.”
A ripple of emotion passes through his presence, sharp and painful, then it’s gone again.
“Of course I don’t want that,” he snaps. “I’ve been listening to its thoughts this whole time. It’s not just a case of telling it what to do—I have to be persuasive with it. Not to mention I don’t even know if I can channel that specific power through you. We never practiced it.”
“Oh.” I say the word aloud, realizing at once that he’s probably been trying to figure out how to help me since the moment he arrived in my mind, and also that if he can’t help me, I’m really fucked.
“What can I do to help you channel through me?” I ask, desperately hoping that we don’t need an object from Infernum like we did to channel his shadows and fire.
“Just stay focused on the wolf,” he says.
“Shouldn’t be difficult,” I throw back as I stare at the edge of its huge paws scrabbling at the ever-widening gap beneath the stone.
Syrus goes quiet and still in my mind. Moments later, I feel a flash of intense hunger mixed with rage, fear, and confusion. I know the feelings aren’t mine, nor Syrus’s. There’s a base, primal tang to them, like the scent of blood on wet earth.
The fear element grows louder, no doubt from Syrus feeding into it.
The digging slows, then stops. A snort comes from between the cracks, followed by a growl.
But the sound is getting fainter, and when I risk leaning a little closer to look through the gap in the rocks, I see the wolf backing away, ears twitching as if listening for danger.
Then the flicking of its own tail seems to startle it, and it takes off running toward the other side of the arena.
“I convinced it that this arena was the main hunting ground of its only natural predator,” Syrus says, piping up in my mind again. “It should be too wary now to try hunting you.”
For the first time in several minutes, my pulse slows a few beats, but I don’t just sit there.
“Thank you,” I say, pushing through the gap in the rocks once I’ve checked the coast is clear. I don’t want to waste my chance to escape my self-imposed trap—even if I might’ve just trapped myself in other ways.
I don’t have time to think about what letting Syrus back in means, not with the trial still raging.
As I straighten up beside the rocks, I’m suddenly conscious of being out in the open unarmed.
A grim possibility occurs to me. I start to push it away, but…
this could be the difference between death and survival.
I don’t honor anyone by being squeamish.
With that decided, I scramble over the stones toward Bianca’s corpse.
I try not to look at her too closely as I bend down and reach for the sword lying beside her. I hope she’d approve of me taking it.
I can feel Syrus behind my eyes, lurking in my ears, taking it all in. Bianca’s dead body. The groans of the wounded fledglings. The burning scent of ephilium magic crackling in the air.
“What kind of cursed place is this?” he demands.
“It’s called the Eyrie,” I say, lifting the sword and slipping down the rocks again so my back is against them.
The bird monster is lying motionless in the dirt now, all but ripped apart by the fledglings, while Keros and some of the others have taken advantage of the wolf’s jumpiness to crowd it up against the arena wall, taking turns attacking it.
The dermison is now missing one of its huge ears, blood trickling down its wrinkled skin, and has wedged itself back against one of the tunnel entrances, taking swings at anyone coming close with its trunk. “This is the fledgling trials,” I say.
“And what exactly are the fle—”
Syrus stops when a horn blows, the low note rolling through the arena. It’s the same one that blared this morning for the start of the trial. Which means this must be the end. I nearly fall to my knees with relief.
The fledglings around me start to back away from the animals. It seems like a risky move when the wolf and dermison are still very much capable of inflicting more damage, but two golden-cowled figures are already swooping down from the spectator boxes toward us. The seraphim.
They’re more graceful in flight than any bird I’ve ever seen, moving through the air as if they’re gliding across silk toward the two animals rather than riding currents. In the same smooth motion, they stretch out their hands, palms angled downward.
Thick cords of lightning spider outward from their hands, forming a neat cage around the two beasts.
It shows a terrifying amount of control, and when I squint at the seraphim’s hands, I can see they’re making tiny movements each moment to counterbalance the wildness of their power, as if they can predict what it’s going to do next and adjust accordingly.
Then again, considering the extra sets of eyes staring from their wings—perhaps they can predict it.
The wolf and dermison are enveloped in the coursing veins of light. Smoke rises as the crackle of the seraphim’s magic sears the creatures in its grip, closing in tighter around them with every passing second.
Then in a blinding flash, it’s over. The lightning fizzes out of existence. All that’s left is a pair of blackened husks.
I choke back a horrified gasp. This is why the seraphim are in charge.
I asked Filippa the other day how they’re selected to be the ephilium’s leaders. She told me that when a seraphim dies, the Brigade holds trials to see who will replace them. Watching them now, it’s obvious that only the most powerful and skilled of warriors could win the contest.
It makes me feel lucky that they showed me so much mercy. If they were certain I was a threat, things would have been very different.
I expect the seraphim to make some kind of speech, acknowledging the fallen fledglings.
But Orelle and Wyvier simply turn elegantly in the air and rise once more toward the spectator box.
The closest thing we get to recognition is when Seraph Orelle lifts his hand and releases a flash of light.
I guess it must mean something, as it seems to give many of the fledglings around me relief, their shoulders lifting as Orelle lowers his hand.
“So, have I served my purpose? Do you want to dismiss me now?” Syrus’s voice sweeps over my mind, sharp and bitter. It sends a chill through me. Now I’m not scared and desperate anymore, I can absorb the scale of the mess I’m in.
I’m surrounded by hundreds of armed ephilium—including the seraphim themselves—and I’m currently being possessed by a demon.
I quickly shut my eyes, as if that might hide any possible traces of him.