Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
RAE
Jai isn’t here.
We are gathered on one of the lower palace terraces, the humans who survived the first trial, waiting for the telchin and the boat that will carry us to the other side of the arena. To the entry point.
Dragons circle overhead, riding on currents. They look to be draks, your average colorful middle-sized dragon sort, used by the king’s army to ride into battle—or mostly to burn down villages and towns, and to kill any human opposing the fae king’s rule.
In contrast, the Great Dara live near the firmament, so high up they are rarely seen. They aren’t visible now, nor do I expect them to be.
As for the smallest dragon kin, the darakin, of whom I’ve seen a lot of recently—flying over the sea, fighting seabirds, and one of them perching on my shoulder last night—well… they are conspicuously absent.
Just like Jai…
The humans speak in harsh whispers to one another, gesturing at the arena and the sea.
All of us are dressed in white this time—the better to see us as we battle the insane odds?
—and I hate that we women were given dresses once again.
Dresses are the worst garments to swim and fight in.
Or for any occasion, if we’re being honest. They remind me of a fishtail, and now I’m finally getting used to having legs again, I don’t miss it.
However, this is the trial of air, if I got that right. So why does the sea level inside the arena seem higher than the last time?
My mind can’t focus and formulate a theory. My attention is torn, pulled between the remaining humans and the sneering fae on one side… and the complete and utter lack of a certain dark-eyed, dark-haired man on the other.
Gods. The arena. The arena is what I should be studying, what my mind should be on. Not the humans, not the telchin, not Jai and that kiss, the way he touched my body and made it sing, or the words he spoke afterward, breaking my heart…
And definitely not the fae king who is watching us from higher up, standing on his high balcony.
I know he’s there, because in a passing glance I saw his closest entourage gather around him: a collection of tall, bizarre hats in every color of the rainbow, and long banners of black and gold emblazoned with the royal coat of arms hanging on the palace facade.
He’s there.
I won’t look again.
I won’t look for Jai, either.
This strange panic in my chest has nothing to do with the trial and everything to do with the two of them.
A bad idea, when I should be thinking of myself.
I can’t see much of the arena, even from up here, on this large palace terrace. It’s wreathed in sea mist, tall structures rising out of the water here and there. Towers? Lighthouses? Enormous tree trunks?
What is the king up to now?
My thoughts of him feel oddly distorted. My anger at him is not an arrow anymore; it’s curved and aching as if it’s bent and about to break.
King Rouen is… Mars.
My Mars.
How is it possible? Wasn’t he killed, after all? I was assured by my family that his life was cut short.
A bland way to describe an event that splintered my heart.
But the words the king spoke to me last night are words nobody else had ever heard apart from me. Nobody had been around, I never told anyone about them—and then Mars was killed, and I was gone, too.
Gone and lost in the dark, dissolving into nothingness.
My point is, the fae king had no way of knowing those words—unless he was the one who spoke them in the first place. And if it was him…
The implications.
All my grief, all my anger… was for nothing?
No, not for nothing. My family is dead. My people decimated. I followed their fate until I returned to avenge them—but given that this fae king was the one who gave the order of their deaths… then how can I reconcile my feelings? Anger and relief. Hatred and love.
I wipe at my eyes. They are dry but they feel wet, as if the tears are only waiting to flow.
Meanwhile, where in the hells is Jai? We’re about to board. The barge is tied below, a few scant steps away, at the dock.
The barge is black, but that much I remembered from the first trial.
It’s so low that the deck is almost flush with the water lapping at its sides, washing the gold swirls and symbols engraved and painted into the ebony edges.
Two golden eyes shine on either side of the prow—an eosphoric symbol, the all-seeing eye, the symbolism echoed in the wings carved on the stern.
In the middle of the barge stands a tall pole made from the same ebony wood, the king’s banner fluttering at the top—the pillar and the crowned dragon—along with two other banners.
One of them is the banner of the temple, a tower divided into nine horizontal segments representing the worlds, a bird of prey flying over it with wings outstretched, holding a snake in its beak.
The third banner I don’t recognize. It depicts what looks like a rose inside a cage, stitched with golden thread. Whose coat of arms is that?
A shout echoes, breaking my attention, dropping into the human group like a stone in a pond, causing ripples. “Humans!”
I’m pushed and pulled by the movement, and it takes me a moment to recognize the voice as the priest’s.
That is, the telchin’s. Telchins are mysterious, humanoid beings who move between worlds to protect and control nexuses of power, such as gates, rivers, and passages, and the dark spaces connecting the Nine Worlds.
Now he has climbed out of the barge and onto the dock, coming to stand before us.
The wind whips his long, gray beard, making it look like a living thing, and his dark eyes flash like storms—so unlike Jai’s and yet so similar, full of secrets.
His long robes are white, threaded with so much gold he seems to glow, reflecting the dawn spreading over the firmament in splashes of pink and orange.
“Humans!” he thunders again and thumps his tall staff on the flagstones, making the entire terrace shake. “Listen.”
“Shit, he’ll sink us and kill us right here and now,” a familiar female voice quips. “What a pity, and I was so looking forward to becoming monster-breakfast at last.”
“Mera,” I whisper.
“Hey, the mute girl isn’t mute anymore.” Mera arches her dark brows at me. “Fancy meeting you here. And what a strange voice. It’s fitting for a strange human, I suppose. Not worshipping Anafia anymore? Are your vows of silence over?”
“The goddess of silence will have to forgive me.” I sketch a tiny curtsy and keep my voice low. “I serve the Gods in other ways.”
“Such as by joining the games.” She wags her brows. “We’re going to have so much fun.”
I fight an answering grin—which is insane, given where we’re standing and what we’re about to do.
“Where’s your amazing black moth?” she asks. “And where’s your dragon summoner and your little dragon? How come you’ve lost all your accessories?”
I swallow hard. “I seem to have misplaced them all.”
“A mere human now, are you?” she huffs. “Wow.”
No, I most certainly am not a mere human, and my grin fades at the thought. I’m stronger now, despite my loss of magic, and as for my past, I shouldn’t dwell on it, except…
Except that the king’s words last night have upended my world, and I’m still reeling.
He didn’t explain. Didn’t say more. He sent me to my room, delivered into the care of Daria who fussed and coddled me while casting me furtive, frightened looks. I didn’t see Jai or his friends outside my door.
His friends who were keeping guard in the sacred garden as the king told me all about Jai’s wickedness and showed me how deceived I was. How little I knew. As the king told me who he really is and put his mark on me.
Of course I didn’t spend the long, dark hours before a deadly trial grinding my teeth and digging my palms into my eyes, trying to understand what happened, only… that’s exactly what I did. His words haunted me through the night, and still haunt me today.
“You are a thorn, not a flower.” And then, “Opening a gate means he can bring back the dead.”
Jai could bring back the dead… Could he bring my brother back if I convinced him? My parents? Why would he refuse such a power?
“We are gathered here today,” the telchin booms, lifting one hand, drawing my reluctant attention back to him, “to celebrate the second trial, the second game in honor of the divine World Pillar. We celebrate the Sleeping Gods. All hail Anafia, Goddess of Silence, Aides, God of Death, Eos, Goddess of Light, and Tethys, Goddess of the Sea. All hail the God in the Pillar, Hyperion, the resurrected god, the mighty Winged Serpent, the Hinge of the World over which the spirit hovers, the sacred vulture of rebirth.”
I’ve never heard of the Pillar referred to that way.
“Shake the sistrums,” he roars, “bang the drums, raise your amulets of protection! This is the raising of the Pillar, of the Djaid, our triumph over death. The gate let us through, and it will open again one day.”
Djaid? For a moment, I thought he’d said Jai, and an image lodges itself inside my head, of Jai in his black armor with the symbol of the world tree engraved in the breastplate, his nightgold swords strapped to his back, wreathed in shadows.
The armor and swords he couldn’t use in the games.
The shadows he was barely able to summon.
“You know why I entered the games. Why I’m here.”
I shake my head, hoping to clear it.
“In honor of the Djaid Pillar,” the telchin intones, “we offer a mighty fight and a sumptuous sacrifice, here, near the spine of the Hollow Worlds. These humans, born of this world, of this soil, bonded to the finnfolk inhabiting the tricky seas, shall perform in this trial that we call the Trial of the Air, the second element conquered by His Majesty, King Masren Eriwen Ridan of the fae as he led his people here.”
Masren has to be King Rouen’s father, and… perform? As if this is a circus, and we’re trained animals. As if we chose to participate in this show, this spectacle the fae are putting up, as paid actors.
Only we are the ones paying—with our blood and tears.
With our deaths.
“Now there are ten of you left, and…” The telchin’s dark gaze narrows under his bushy brows. “Guards! I only see nine. Where is the tenth contestant?”
“Athdara,” the murmur goes around our group, echoed by the fae gathered on the higher terraces. They are leaning over the rail so that their high, elaborate conical hats throw a jagged shadow over us. “Where is Athdara?”
“He ran away,” one of the contestants says. “Got scared and ran.”
“He volunteered,” another man says, and I recognize Axwick. “That’s not the act of a coward. Rather the opposite.”
“Maybe now he realized his mistake,” the other man insists, “and turned tail.”
“You don’t know him enough to pass such judgment,” I say, before I remember that I don’t know how I feel about Jai right now. “He saved many of you in the last trial. You don’t get to criticize his delay.”
“And who do you think you are?” The man fixes me with a beady eye. “Athdara’s favorite, aren’t you? And in league with the fae king.”
Heat rushes up my face, and I open my mouth to put him in his place, only… am I? I hide my hand behind my back, hiding my wrist where the fae king put his mark last night. Where do I stand now? Everything had been so clear when I’d arrived, cast in black and white.
Now it’s all smoke and shadows.
“Leave her alone,” Mera says, quite unexpectedly. “She’s one of us.”
Who went and made her my savior? Another thing I don’t know how to feel about. After all, twice she shunned me and mocked me publicly, only to turn around today and pretend to be my friend.
I spot Amaryll among the humans, the one potential ally I have, and she’s not saying anything.
Then again, she’s busy staring at something behind us, obviously not paying attention to our little back-and-forth, and I turn to see what has caught her eye.
Shit.
There he is.
Jai.