Chapter 6
Istart toward the front, toward the path that leads to Ryker, but my eyes catch on one figure in the crowd. And in a single breath, I forget how to move.
Zyrel stands near the edge, flanked by a line of acolytes from the Church of Change and Beasts. He wears black. Not plain or ceremonial but tailored with sharp edges and finer thread.
It’s too elegant, too refined, even for a special event at court. And in a flash of horrified clarity, I understand—he is Thul'Barak’s chosen Champion.
But that realization is nothing compared to the dread that seizes me. Because he’s still the Red Hunter. The man who’s made it his divine calling to track, cage, and destroy the cursed women. They say he has a special sense for sniffing out the cursed, and he’s staring directly at me.
Perhaps he noticed the argument, me pulling away from Mael, the tension crackling between us. Gifted or not, his eyes are locked on mine.
I don’t hesitate. I spin and retreat, heart pounding, rushing back toward the balcony, to the stone walls that might shield me from the man who sees me not as a person, but as prey. To Eva.
To safety.
Mael follows close behind, grunting under his breath, likely having noticed Zyrel’s interest as well. I think Eva’s duenna is somewhere behind us, but my thoughts are too jumbled to focus.
All I know is that Eva is here. As I reach the top of the stairs, Eva turns. Her brows furrow in confusion the moment she sees me.
“She wanted to stay for the Ascension,” Mael says smoothly from behind me, cutting in before I can speak. “How could I refuse?”
Eva’s searching gaze settles on me. She only needs half a breath to read the truth in my eyes. Her arms cross, sharp as a drawn blade, and she turns on Mael with a glare. “What did you do?”
I’m ready to rush to her side, to spit out every flicker of doubt because Eva wouldn’t need proof. She’d only need my word.
But as my mouth opens, Mael’s voice curls through the air, slicing off my words before they can form.
“Nothing except stick to our plan,” he drawls. “We all know how prone young Raylane is to flights of impulsivity.”
“Ray,” Eva says, confusion lacing her words. She looks at me, and her features still. Her eyes slide to Mael, then back to me. She doesn’t yet know about my suspicion, but she’s perceptive enough to recognize that something is brewing inside my head.
“Zyrel is there,” I say quietly so her duenna doesn’t hear.
“We have to wait it out till he walks away, I don’t trust walking by him.
He has a scent for… things.” I will tell my friend the truth of my suspicions of Mael, when the opportunity arises.
Until then, I won’t expose her to angering the prince, and his potential wrath.
She hesitates. I can see the flicker of uncertainty in her eyes, the silent weighing of consequences.
Then, after a beat, she lifts her chin, voice measured.
“Fine,” she says. “I suppose there’s no harm in staying a bit longer. I’d like to watch the Champions’ ascension as well. The last Archpriest outlived almost three generations, so chances are we’ll never get to see another ceremony again.”
Her tone is casual, almost offhand, but I don’t miss the way her gaze flicks to me again, searching for confirmation. She’s giving me what I need, just subtly enough not to raise suspicion.
Mael leans in, his voice quiet. “Indulge yourself a little longer, then,” he says, the words brushing against me with a strange sense of threat.
I shift my weight, barely perceptible, testing my ability to move, but the moment I do he steps closer and his fingers brush against my wrist. Light. Deliberate.
My pulse hammers against my skin, as my thoughts stretch further, back to the night when he sat in my room with the wine and nudged me to down my glass. I shift away and breathe deeply through a growing nausea.
Below, the ceremony moves forward, unbothered by the quiet battle unfolding on this balcony, and I force myself to calm, to focus.
The Sibyls’ voices weave through the temple, their layered cadence ringing with finality. “Zyrel Falcon.”
He strides toward a statue of Thul'Barak. Thick, spiraling horns jut from the god’s skull, wide at the base and ridged like something torn from the wild. They arc upward, framing a face etched with grim authority.
All the gods are depicted with horns, as if they rose not from the heavens but clawed their way out of the bowels of the earth and were never quite able to shed the monstrous parts of themselves.
Zyrel slices his palm without hesitation, a wolf’s snarl curling his lips as his blood drips onto the temple’s pristine marble and he slams his palm against the statue of his god.
The crowd does not gasp. They do not recoil. They know him, and worse, they welcome him and wait to see which godbeast will appear to serve him.
My fingers tighten at my sides as the air splits with a sound like tearing canvas, and a giant form bursts forth.
Monstrous. Black as oiled ink, all jagged muscle and madness. Foam slicks its fangs, dripping from a snarling maw that gapes too wide. The dragon’s wings are bare bones, strung like a corpse’s ribs, stripped of flesh, splayed over its back in a skeletal shroud.
It loosens, not a roar but a scream: high, sharp, and so loud it rattles the temple walls. It looks just as unhinged as the champion who summoned it. Even Ryker, slumped and hollow-eyed in his throne, seems to stir.
“This cannot be our next Archpriest,” Eva spits beside me.
I look back at Mael who stands in the only direct path out of the balcony, his presence a quiet, immovable force. I arrange my features into what I hope passes for neutrality, but my stomach twists with uncertainty. I feel trapped on the balcony.
“Seraphina Bardot.”
I blink, the name drags me back to the present.
A girl glides forward, all elegance and poise, as if she were woven from the temple’s own light.
Her white silk ensemble, tailored for ease in battle yet refined enough for court, catches the glow like spun air.
Her bright green eyes serene, posture unshakable, she moves as though the world itself was made to look her way.
Like she was born for the spotlight. For the Trial.
A flicker of envy passes through me. She is everything I am not.
Seraphina slices her palm in a fluid motion and presses it against the statue of Velskan, God of Traversing and Lust.
Then her Godbeast steps forward.
A green dragon, the size of two large horses, appears.
This one’s wings are twisted, malformed, unable to spread.
The practice the gods adopted centuries ago to domesticate wild dragons—still carried on, it seems—feels barbaric when seen this closely.
The dragon should be fearsome, instead it’s…
restrained. Compared to Zyrel’s feral-looking beast, this one moves more like a trained pet.
When it nudges up beside Seraphina, something awful knots in my chest. Pity.
Mael exhales beside me. “Do you see now?” His voice is barely a whisper, deceptively gentle. “Sometimes we must take what life gives us,” he murmurs mockingly, “and be grateful.”
“You mean accepting a monster,” I ask innocently, “when we’d hoped for a god?”
I’m met with silence and do my best to ignore him as the champions step forward, one by one.
Then, out of the corner of my eye, I catch movement.
A few men shift in the crowd beneath the balcony, peeling away and drifting toward the base of the stairs.
Their eyes flick subtly toward Mael, a silent signal, they understood the command.
A sharp, ice-cold breath grips my lungs.
Mael has presented our marriage as a choice—even a favor. But perhaps I have no real say in this at all.
Before I can react, the cadence of the Sibyls’ voices drags me forcefully back into the present as they finish detailing the Trial’s decree. “The victor’s sins, debts, criminal charges, every blemish upon their past, shall be expunged, granting our ultimate champion the gift of rebirth.”
The words latch onto me. A rebirth. A clean slate. A deep, painful ache shudders through me as I consider what I would give for such a chance. If only I were a warrior, like the brutal champions standing below.
I stand frozen, the weight of the proclamation pressing down, forcing an idea to the forefront of my mind. An idea so outrageous my head shakes slightly at its absurdity. But this is a chance to undo everything, I say to myself. To erase the stain of my existence. My sins. My curse.
This could fix everything.
The thought is so sudden, so all-consuming, that my throat constricts around it.
I was raised to believe that some stains cannot be washed away, some sins cannot be forgiven.
And yet, the Sibyls speak of absolution as if it is as simple as winning.
As if blood and sacrifice could rewrite fate itself.
The temple erupts in a storm of roars, as the last Godbeast announces its presence to the world. The sound crashes over me, a deafening tide, but I barely hear it.
Because my eyes find Ryker’s. He sees me.
For a moment, the world narrows to just us. His haunted gaze locks onto mine, his mouth slightly parted, as if he is only now realizing I am here. As if he can still feel the echo of my betrayal, the ruin we left behind.
A hundred things rise to my lips. Pleas, apologies, warnings… but I don’t speak. I can’t. Because I see it, the moment his gaze flickers, the moment his expression hardens.
He’s seen Mael standing next to me. The raw emotion—the disbelief, the confusion—fades into something colder. His mouth tightens into a thin line and the hurt in his gaze hardens into something horrible.
Finality.
He’s already letting go.
Shame and fury curdle inside me. I want to hold his gaze, to make him understand, to make him see past the lies, but I can’t. Because there is no past anymore, only the moment ahead. Above the roaring crowd, the seven Sibyls bellow.