Chapter 8 #2
“You know what?” I say aloud. “I’m not sorry.
And I don’t care about your problems.” I push the thought outward, let him feel the truth of it.
“You don’t belong in this realm, and my fate isn’t your concern.
But it goes both ways. I didn’t ask for you either.
You were forced on me as much as I was on you.
And if you’re going to be an ass about it, I will gladly stoop to your level.
You are bound to me. Here to serve me. So shut up and serve. ”
A pulse of irritation ripples through our bond, but he doesn’t argue.
“Good.” I exhale, centering myself. “What is that thing inside me, like a sack filled with oil? It presses against my magic, ready to burst.”
Kaelzar’s response is immediate, matter of fact, yet edged with something unreadable. “It belongs to the Blood magic in you. Your Decay took the lives of those people,” he continues, his tone impassive. “And now their essence is stored within you. A reservoir of stolen life.”
A twisted balance.
My eyes burn as the memory of what was left of those people after my magic had finished with them resurfaces.
I swallow the hard lump rising in my throat and manage to ask, “And what happens if it bursts?”
“Then their deaths will not have been in vain.” There’s no mockery in his voice now, only a cold, knowing certainty. “You will release it to heal yourself or others.”
The truth drifts down through me, settling like ash after a long, devastating fire. Take life to give life. Steal breath to restore it elsewhere.
I was right. This magic is no gift. It is a burden. A debt.
I open the palm that should have been cut, now smooth and healed. It worked so efficiently, I didn’t even notice.
I press both my palms against my eyes, rubbing at them before remembering too late that Eva had coated them with paint. No doubt I look horrific. Bloodied, filthy, streaked with black smears. But none of it matters. Not my magic. Not my appearance.
Right now, survival is the only thing that counts. “There has to be a reason our minds are tethered,” I muse aloud. “I should be able to track you through the connection.”
A distant shout slices through the air.
My muscles tighten. It’s impossible to think when death lurks at every turn. If only there was somewhere I could be safe, somewhere beyond reach of the contestants, beyond the elements themselves—
Not within these walls. Above them.
Kaelzar’s hum brushes against my consciousness, a whisper of approval laced with surprise.
“I don’t need your validation,” I snap, and fix one part of the dirty hem of my dress to my waist so it doesn’t restrain my legs’ movements.
Hand over hand, I begin to climb. Every movement feels like it takes too long.
My muscles tremble, breath shallow, fear slicking my skin.
The stone is jagged, its sharp edges biting into my fingers with every shift of weight.
I should be sore from the fall off the balcony, but the aches are gone, most likely erased by the Blood Magic before I even knew it was there.
My arms burn. My knees shake. But I keep going.
I’ve done harder things in the last two days. Survived worse.
The tether between us thrums faintly, brushing against my senses. A thought—not mine—slips through before he can shove it away. A single, fleeting impression: She doesn’t stop. Even when she should. Even when it’s hopeless.
A misstep. My fingers slip, just for a second, as his thought is smothered under the weight of his usual disdain.
“Stay focused, or you’ll fall and break your legs,” Kaelzar murmurs, his voice a low thread in my mind.
An image flickers through our connection—my legs, bare beneath the silk of my drenched skirt as I knelt before Ryker back at the temple. I hadn’t realized how the fabric had gathered, revealing the elegant lines beneath. The thought isn’t mine.
Surely, Kaelzar hadn’t meant to share it. Most likely, it slipped through by accident because it vanishes just as quickly. But in that fraction of a second, I feel what he felt. Not just the image, but the unbidden wave of admiration that came with it.
It stuns me, the stark contrast between this and the expectations he carried when he was wrenched from his world. He had assumed he would be bound to someone plain, unremarkable.
But instead, he saw me. Something he hadn’t expected. Something that unsettled him. Beauty where he expected nothing worth noticing.
In that fleeting moment, his thoughts touched on a force more dangerous than desire.
He reached for hope.
A hope that if I had even half the intelligence to match my appearance, perhaps we’d stand a chance in this Trial.
By the time I reach the top of the wall, Kaelzar is silent, his presence in my mind wound so tightly, I almost believe he’s gone.
I balance on the broad, flat stone, my fingers steadying me against the rough edges. “There’s no need to hide your thoughts, Godbeast,” I say. “I already know you find me exquisite.”
“If you knew what I first imagined you to be, you’d understand that even a mud puddle would seem exquisite by comparison. So maybe don’t get too carried away with yourself.”
Whatever flicker of satisfaction I felt vanishes instantly. Of course, this insufferable, rude beast would chew off his own arm before saying something kind to me.
I rise, adjusting to the precarious perch with ease. The maze unfurls before me, paths crisscrossing into a labyrinth of uncertainty.
Whatever clever retort I had dies on my lips. Instead, questions rise to the surface of my mind. “What is this place?”
His reply comes instantly. “The Sphere’s magic can transform any place in your realm into anything it wishes. This is most likely a common location, merely altered and currently veiled from the rest of the world.”
Mist sprawls in thick sheets, swallowing the northern edge, but not enough to obscure the massive oval shape of the space. I recognize it as the Tourey Arena, home to the monthly tournament horse and spear games.
From here, I can see where the southern paths remain clear, but for how long?
My eyes continue scanning the shrouded expanse, tracking every shift and flicker within the fog. And then I see it.
A hundred feet away, ice devours the wall’s surface, fangs of frost jutting outward in jagged spires. It creeps forward in slow, deliberate hunger, inching along the stone. Not toward me, but that could change in a breath.
The tops aren’t safe. Nothing is. And the longer we play this game of hiding our minds from each other, the longer it will take for me to find him. If at all.
“You know what?” I snap, dragging my focus away. “I don’t care what you know about me. You want honesty? Take it. Enjoy.”
I shove my mind wide open, reckless, desperate. I need to find him. Need to feel which way to go. If he must choke on my pain, then so be it.
“Now, open your mind, beastie,” I say, my voice cold steel. “Or die before I find you.”
Silence stretches, taut and excruciating. And then a shift. A crack in the walls between us. And I am the one choking. Drowning.
His agony slams into me like a storm-wracked tide. This is a different sort of pain, not in the way flesh wounds or broken bones ache. This pain has curled inside him for so long that it has reshaped him, carved him into the jagged, unyielding thing he is now.
I stagger, gasping. The weight of it is too much.
Kaelzar doesn’t block me out, not this time. He lets me feel it. All of it. And I wish, desperately, that he wouldn’t.
A thousand shattered moments snarl together in the dark of his mind—memories, regrets, shame. I glimpse them only in flashes, like reflections in broken glass.
His thoughts stutter on one in particular: a woman, the most beautiful I’ve ever seen, bleeding out in his arms. Kaelzar’s tears fall onto her fading body, then the vision fractures again, kaleidoscopic, slipping through my grasp.
One memory of a promise made. Another of a future torn away. There’s the unbearable certainty that whatever he lost, he will never reclaim.
Then another sharp memory pushes forward. A wrinkled, weathered hand cups Kaelzar’s face. A voice, soft but unyielding, murmurs, “When evil seeks to break you, remember this—”
Kaelzar’s fury slams through me, a violent surge that severs every image at once, as if by touching this memory, I had trespassed where I was never meant to go.
My breath shudders. I have no words for what I feel, no clever retort to throw at him. I don’t know if I want to push him away or pull him closer, just to lessen the terrible weight of his isolation.
The silence between us is no longer empty. It is filled with something neither of us has words for.
Why did he let me feel all of that? The thought isn’t meant for him, but he hears it anyway.
His answer comes, as if spoken through clenched teeth. “You wanted my mind open.”
My chest tightens. I hadn’t expected this. I was hoping for some advantageous knowledge, but I have no use for his grief.
I swallow hard and force myself to focus. The tether between us pulls me forward, steady and insistent, guiding me like an unseen thread through the maze.
I take a step. Then another. The more I follow it, the more confident I become. Until I’m running.
A mass of fire sweeps across the paths below, crackling like a living thing, but it doesn’t reach the tops of the walls.
A scream slices through the air, sharp and fleeting, but I don’t dwell on it. Those are my competition, I remind myself. I don’t need to worry about their survival. I can barely cling to my own.
The center of the maze is near. That’s where Kaelzar must be. Predictable. Godbeasts in the middle, Champions forced to fight their way inward. I ready myself to sprint the last stretch when a wave of water crashes against the wall, sweeping my feet out from beneath me, knocking me off the wall.