Chapter 16
Syneca
Blood calls to blood, and the deepest magic demands the highest price.
No warning. No time. One second solid earth. The next... nothing.
We fell.
Wind tore at my face. My stomach slammed into my throat. The walls rushed past in a blur of jagged stone and twisted roots that could probably punch through my skull like paper.
Fuck. Fuck. We were going to die. Splattered across rock older than the city, older than anything anyone alive had ever seen, and this far down, nobody would even find the pieces.
I needed to think.
But I panicked for two seconds longer than I needed to. Two seconds of pure animalistic terror where my brain just screamed and my magic cowered in my chest.
Twenty feet down. Thirty.
Think, damnit.
“Levitas!” I screamed, dragging every drop of moisture from everything near, from the earth, even from my own mouth. Water erupted beneath us like a fist punching upward. The pressure slammed into my ribs, crushed the air from my lungs, but we were moving up instead of down.
We burst into gray light, flying upward for only seconds before I cut off the magic, and we were falling again. This time, several feet away from the hole in the earth. My shoulder cracked against something hard. Pain shot down my arm. But I could wiggle my fingers, could feel my toes.
Not dead. Not broken.
I lay there gasping, staring up at the magical barrier while my heart tried to beat its way out of my chest. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking. My legs felt like water.
Not dead. Not broken.
Not even solid.
Wickett was already standing, both swords in hand, dripping wet but able to move like nothing had happened. He stared down at me with gray eyes that held something sharp and unreadable. “You saved my life.”
I rolled over and spat blood. My tongue had found my teeth on the way down. “Don’t get used to it.”
I hated this moment. Hated he’d seen what I could really do when desperation stripped away control. That kind of magic required more than clever words and careful planning, and it would draw too much fucking attention.
We stood in the center clearing where the five passages had once been. Where, in the distance, the crown probably still waited on its pedestal, untouched and gleaming. But the passages were still sealed. And with only a subtle shift in the wall, Katarina emerged.
Blood trickled from her nose. Her hands shook with the effort of maintaining control over the maze. “I never wanted this, Syneca. They said participate or die anyway. At least this way I choose how.”
“Kat—”
Wickett moved like an unnatural blur. Too fast. Not the steps I’d seen when he was clearing a path. This was something else entirely. The Ripper unleashed, both blades singing as they cut through air. No hesitation. No mercy. Just inevitable death walking on two legs.
“No!” I gasped.
His first blade took her across the throat. The kind of strike that ended things before pain could register. His second followed a heartbeat later, ensuring she’d never rise again. Katarina’s eyes found mine as she fell. No accusation there. No blame. Just acceptance.
I fell to my knees beside her, taking her hand.
We weren’t close. I couldn’t name her favorite color or what she dreamed about.
But I knew her in the way all witches knew each other, through the weight of surviving.
I could pick her out in a crowd of thousands because we carried the same exhaustion, made the same impossible choices, understood what it cost to keep breathing.
“You’re not alone. And you were brave, and smart and strong. ”
And then suddenly I remembered why I hated the Ripper. Why there could never be anything more than hate. Because no matter how kind I was, no matter the empathy I tried to draw from him, he would always be a monster.
“I’m sorry,” Kat whispered.
Sorry. For what?
For fighting back? For not dying quietly? For betraying Vitoria? For daring to exist in a world that had never wanted her?
But those were the final words on her lips, as she released her grip over the thorny bushes and drew her final breath.
“May ashes carry you home,” I whispered.
Wickett watched from a few feet away, cleaning his blades with mechanical precision. “She would have killed you.”
“She was already dead the moment they put her here.”
“All of us are dead. The only difference is timing.”
I stood, wiping my hands on my cloak. “Is that supposed to be comforting?”
“It’s supposed to be honest.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat and turned away from him, headed for the pedestal holding the crown. I needed an escape. I needed to get away from him. I needed... Silas. And Calder. And Vitoria.
One foot after the other, I pushed through the hedges, letting them rip at my clothing.
Letting them slice into the exposed skin on my cheeks and neck.
Letting those slices remind me that I still felt things.
I still had a heart, even though it ached.
But when I stepped into the clearing, with Wickett close behind, thanks to the godsdamned tether, I stumbled. All three artifacts were here.
Footsteps came from a reopened passage. Felix burst into the clearing next, his hunter uniform torn and bloodied, eyes wild with desperation. He saw the artifacts and lunged for the blade without hesitation.
The moment his fingers touched the hilt, he screamed.
The blade had burned him.
Actually burned, I realized as his skin sizzled where metal had met flesh. He jerked back, staring at a blistered palm with growing panic.
“It won’t—why won’t it—”
Understanding hit me. “The items were never meant for each team. They don’t care who we entered with. There’s one for each race. This is the final trial.”
Felix’s face went white. “No. That’s not—I’m a hunter. I belong.”
“You belong to what will take you,” Wickett said, moving toward the chalice. “And that one just told you to fuck off.”
“If that’s true, then—” Felix lunged for the crown but his tether to Lucette Varrow jerked him backward. Good. She was still alive.
My fingers closed around gold, avoiding the black thorns just as he reached for it. The moment I touched the artifact, magic shot through my system, but wrong.
Muffled.
Like someone had thrown a blanket over my connection to Silas. Furies fucking help me, I had to resist the urge to throw the damn thing.
“No!” Felix spun toward the chalice, arm out behind him as he fought the magical tether. The other teams had always seemed to have far more space than Wickett and I, but in the end, it just wasn’t enough for him to get any closer.
Sitting on its own pedestal, silver and ancient, the chalice was covered in runes woven with blood magic. Old blood magic, the kind that required sacrifice to activate. Blood magic that was supposed to be banned.
Wickett examined it for less than a second before drawing his knife across his palm. Blood welled up, dark and rich, dripping onto the chalice’s rim. The runes flared to life, accepting his offering, binding themselves to his blood.
“Wait!” Felix’s voice cracked, all his earlier bravado dissolving. “Wait, we can negotiate. Wickett, you need an ally. I’m valuable. I know people. We could both win. Fuck the rules, we’re hunters.”
Wickett didn’t even look at him.
“Please.” The word came out strangled, pathetic. Felix dropped to his knees, the magical tether dragging him backward even as he clawed at the ground trying to stay close. “I’ll tell them whatever you want. About the witch. About the plan. I’ll say it was all her, that she manipulated us.”
“Stop talking,” Wickett said quietly.
But Felix couldn’t stop. The man who’d spent the entire trial posturing and threatening had completely unraveled, reduced to bargaining and begging. “My father is on the council. He’ll owe you. Wickett, please, we trained together. We’re both hunters. We’re supposed to—”
“You’re embarrassing yourself.” Wickett’s tone held no emotion. Just flat disgust. “And the name hunter.”
Branches rustled. Lucette appeared from one of the passages, covered in Marcus’s blood, her eyes immediately taking in the scene.
Wickett with the claimed chalice. Me holding the crown.
Felix on his knees, tears actually streaming down his face now as the reality of his situation finally broke through whatever delusions had been holding him together.
“Lucette!” Felix twisted toward her, desperate. “We can share. Work together. You need me. I can help you. I know tactics, I know—”
She walked past him without breaking stride, heading straight for the blade.
“Wait!” His voice went high, frantic. “I’ll give you anything. Money. Information. My family has resources.”
The blade sang as she lifted it. In perfect acceptance. No hint of burning. No sign of rejection.
She tested its weight, smiled with cold satisfaction, then looked at Felix with casual disdain.
“Please,” Felix whispered one last time, all the force that had defined him completely gone. He was nothing now, just a man who’d built his entire identity on being stronger, more brutal, more feared, discovering that none of it mattered when the magic chose someone else.
“Only one of each race walks out,” Lucette said.
She cut him down before he could respond.
Felix hit the ground with a wet sound, his blood already staining the earth. His eyes stayed open, still wide with disbelief, as if even in death he couldn’t accept that he’d been reduced to begging and still found worthless.
The moment his heart stopped beating, the maze vanished.
Not gradually. Not with ceremony. One second we stood in a chamber of living walls, the next we were in the center of the Nexus arena under a gray sky, a massive dragon and screaming crowds.
The transition was jarring. Disorienting.