Chapter 7
Darkness closes in, dense and suffocating, swallowing the room and the air from my lungs. The shock seizes me, but it sharpens into all-consuming horror as I feel something within me awaken. A presence. A force.
It surges through me from the base of my neck, flooding my body. It fills me, overwhelms me, and even when there is no space left inside, it keeps pouring in.
And then it finds release.
Screams.
I don’t know if they are mine or theirs.
My hands tremble violently as the energy erupts outward. I can’t see it, but I feel it—a raw, ravenous force devouring everything in its path. I rub my palms together, desperate to grab hold of it, to stop it, but there’s nothing except the dampness of my own skin.
A sharp, eerie clinking echoes in the void.
“Would you take this ring?” A voice cuts through the darkness, low, sharp, edged with irritation.
I jerk around, breath unsteady. The shadows are absolute, but somehow, I see him. Or maybe I just feel him—his presence, oppressive and vast, as if the darkness itself bends to his will.
A towering figure stands just two feet away, wrapped in black, his hood drawn low. His arm moves and in his open palm, a simple ring gleams. Unadorned. Unremarkable.
“It will help you control your magic,” he says, flat, clipped.
When I don’t move, when my breath rattles too hard for me to answer, his fingers tighten into a fist, and his tone darkens. “Before you rot anyone else.”
Anyone else?
My breath hitches.
I snatch the ring and jam it onto my index finger. Cold bites my skin. I stare at it, waiting, hoping for something—anything—to change.
Nothing.
The horrifying magic still pours from my hands, unstoppable.
The shadows remain, cloaking the destruction, and the hooded man circles me like a beast forced to entertain a fool.
“I can’t control it!” My voice cracks, and I clench my fists tight enough for my bones to ache.
The man stops inches from me, his glowing gray eyes pierce through the darkness, narrowed in scrutiny. His voice is curt, edged with irritation, like he’s dealing with a hopeless case. “How does your magic make you feel?”
Magic. I uncurl my fingers. The blackened tips blend into the surrounding shadows, and I stare at my shaking palms. Thick rot slicks my palms, viscous and alive.
I’m stunned into silence, frozen in the sheer wrongness of it. I’m becoming a monster.
“How does it feel?” he asks again.
“Like an overflowing river…”
A long, slow inhale. His jaw flexes. “Then dam it.” Not a suggestion. A demand.
I stammer, struggling to form words, but his voice cuts me off. “Imagine a whirlpool at your core, drawing that river inward.”
I try. I fail.
His exhale is sharp, edged with impatience. “You’re wasting time.”
There are too many streams, too many currents pulling in different directions. The force is too wild, too vast. A cry of frustration escapes me.
The man’s voice is suddenly closer, brushing against my skin like a whisper of ice. “Tighten it.” His tone hardens. “Coil it. Wind it at your core, like twisting thread around a spindle.”
I squeeze my eyes shut and pull. At first, it’s like grabbing smoke, like trying to cup water in my palms. But then… something shifts. The power, once a raging storm, begins to coil. Not perfectly, not completely, but enough.
“Finally. Open your eyes,” he commands.
I obey. I wish I hadn’t.
The shadows begin to retreat, revealing the scene beyond.
The screams are gone. Not because the terror has ended, but because the dread etched into their faces has crossed the threshold where screams become pointless.
Silence smothers the air, thick and unnatural, broken only by the distant crackle of torches and the quiet drip of something wet hitting the floor. My breath stutters as I take in the devastation.
Bodies lie collapsed across the marble—blackened, porous, half-melted into the floor. The Chastity Warden and guards who had stood closest are nothing more than heaps of decaying flesh, their red wigs, armor and uniforms eaten through, their features bloated and unrecognizable.
On two benches, nobles slump in grotesque forms—limbs warped, mouths frozen open.
The decay hasn’t spread evenly. It hasn’t swallowed the temple whole. It lingers only in a single horrific radius around me, pulsing through the carpet like a heartbeat, creeping over spilled goblets, trampled flowers, discarded shoes.
But it stops where the carpet ends. The stone remains untouched, as if the magic can’t—or won’t—cross it.
Mael. Zyrel. The Sibyls.
They stood just far enough. Out of reach. Safe.
As if the magic had drawn a boundary, and only those inside were marked to suffer.
A ragged inhale scrapes my throat. Some of these people had been only too happy to watch me fall, laughing and cheering as I writhed in pain. Others were friends, people I grew up with at court, who probably wanted to help, but could do little. None of them deserved to die.
A sickening, wet crack sounds as one of the corpses shifts, collapsing further into itself. A strangled noise catches in my throat and I stumble backward.
Somewhere nearby a sharp wail cracks through the silence, as if the crowd is only now beginning to comprehend what lies before them, what I’ve done.
Beyond the decay, clusters of survivors cling to the edges of the room, huddled near doorways and windows. Some help the fallen to their feet, dragging them away, their eyes wide as they glance back at me.
But I barely see them. I barely see anything through the haze of my own horror.
A thought slashes through my panic. Eva. Did I hurt her?
My gaze jerks upward, locking onto the balcony. Eva’s bright brown eyes peek from behind the parapet, wide with fear.
She’s untouched. The rot hasn’t climbed the stone walls either. Her skin is a shade paler, her hands gripping the ledge tightly, but she’s alive.
Our eyes meet. Her lips part, but she hesitates—uncertain, afraid. I wonder what she sees. Am I still human? Am I a monster? And then she leans forward, her expression softening.
“You’re okay,” she says, her voice shakes. She forces a small, wobbly smile. “You’re strong. You’ve got this.”
Then, movement behind her. Her former duenna steps forward, hands on her arms, pulling her away. Eva doesn’t fight her.
I am glad for it. Let her take my friend to safety, far away from whatever I have become.
“You’re a natural,” the hooded stranger says, stepping closer. “Maybe there’s a chance for you yet.”
Finally, I look up and take him in.
He is massive, broad-shouldered, cruelly calm. Dark, tousled hair falls in wild locks around his face as if he’s emerged from pelting wind and rain. A storm, bound in the body of a man, waiting to break free and wreak its havoc.
Under his black cloak, he wears a worn, black leather vest. His muscular chest is bare.
Shadowy chains crisscross his torso, shifting between tangible links and intricate tattoos that pulse with a sinister energy. They solidify for a moment before dissolving back into dark ink, an eerie metamorphosis that blurs where the chains end and the tattoos begin.
“My name is Kaelzar,” the stranger announces, “and I am—” He leans in, close enough that his breath ghosts against my skin. “What’s your name?”
My throat tightens. My body trembles, nerves fraying at the edges. “Raylane Troubelle,” I whisper.
He cocks his head, nose wrinkling in bemusement, as if my name is the strangest thing he’s ever heard. “Trouble? Fitting.” Then, his lips curve into something almost amused and he finishes loudly, “—Raylane Trouble’s Godbeast.”
“It’s Troubelle,” I murmur weakly, as the weight of my choice settles like iron in my chest. What have I done?
And then the second part of what he’d said settles in.
My Godbeast.
The words beat inside my skull, repeatedly, unable to settle.
My gaze flies to the dais, where the other participants stand, their Godbeasts at their sides—a wall of scales shielding the king and their Champions.
This can’t be right. Godbeasts aren’t men.
I wrench my eyes back to him. “You’re not a beast...”
Kaelzar doesn’t react. Doesn’t blink. This isn’t possible. He can’t be mine. I’m supposed to have a creature—a beast, a relic of the gods, a thing of magic and might. Not… a man.
A man who looks at me like I’m less than dirt, who speaks to me like I’m a burden.
I shake my head, taking a step back. “This is a mistake.”
A flicker of irritation crosses his face. Kaelzar exhales sharply, then lifts his left wrist, flipping it palm-up. A mark is burned into the inside of his wrist, as if pressed there like a brand.
A jagged, interwoven sigil—an upside-down triangle lined with outward-facing spikes and blood-like droplets pooling within—marks his skin. The symbol of Calista, the Witch Goddess.
I force myself to look at my own throbbing left wrist, knowing what I’ll find. The same mark. It wasn’t there before. I rub at it, as if I can erase it, but the skin is smooth, unbroken. The sigil is part of me now.
Kaelzar watches, unimpressed. “Each champion and their Godbeast bear this shared mark. A contract sealed in blood.” His tone is unbothered, as if we’re discussing the weather, not a bond that has just shackled my fate to his.
I swallow hard, but it does nothing to ease the tightness in my throat. I can’t undo it. I am bound.
I have a Godbeast.
I have this Godbeast. He has no fangs or claws, not so much as a sword, that I can see. Even so, threat radiates off him like a serpent, coiled and ready to strike. Either way, I have no other choice.
The Challenges have begun and I cannot turn back now.
Mael pushes forward with colorful curses, shoving the guards who try to stop him aside. “The festering doesn’t touch the stones, you imbeciles,” he snaps at a particularly stubborn one still blocking his way, clearly not thrilled about being forced closer to me. “She has it under control.”