25. The Fall
THE FALL
Seraphina
Iknow something’s wrong the moment we arrive at The Meet for the third game and are told to form three lines instead of the usual one.
One each for Ferrum, Aes and Stannum.
Boots scrape against stone as The Meet hums with nervous cadets who can’t quite stand still.
Ferrum’s line is the longest, though not by much. I step in behind Reiva, Diana following after me. I give her a nod that I hope is reassuring, and she offers a soft smile in return that actually reaches her eyes.
They aren’t empty and devoid of life anymore. When did that happen?
Az is in front of Reiva and blocking my view of Khali, though I can see he’s resting a hand on her shoulder, squeezing every few seconds when the muscles there tighten with tension.
They’ll be okay.
I’m not sure when things changed, but I realize I truly hope they will be. That they’ll still be here tomorrow, another game down.
Lilliana moves into line behind Diana, chin lifted and doing her best to look bored. I hate having someone like her at my back, prime position to stab me in it whenever the impulse may take her.
We make eye contact, and something flickers across her eyes. I expect her to say something, almost will her to, but as usual since taking my journal, she doesn't.
Not only did she scheme to out my secret about not having wings, but she knows too much about other stuff. She has to by now.
Elias has proved himself her ally, whether he knew what she was going to do with the information he gave her or not. The journal and Elias could have given her everything she needs to know about my past, my lineage, my secrets.
But then why isn’t she calling me out on it?
What’s she waiting for?
At the front of each line the Overlords stand, jaws set, no theatrics on game day. Yuvi hasn’t brought Ravi with him, which is strange. Even more odd is how much I was looking forward to seeing the mutt. There’s something calming about stroking a hound, even one born of Hell.
The Overlords communicate between themselves without saying anything out loud. Yuvi shakes his head, Zaheer shrugs and then Silver steps back, raising his palms.
His fingers fan out and his wrists twist as the markings over his skin begin to glow, brighter and brighter the faster he moves his hands.
Ferrum’s cadets straighten without being told. We know the drill now, ready to start stepping through the gate when he’s done creating it.
Heat rolls over my skin and the smell hits next. The scent is all him. Cedar, metal and smoke.
Like his sleep quarters.
His bedsheets…
My heart pounds in my chest.
He draws in a slow breath, then carves the air open.
Silver’s power is fascinating. If only he was the type to share with the class how it all works.
Survive the game and ask him tonight.
Yeah, right.
The hellgate appears, both dark and luminous depending on which part you look at, the liquid silver and turquoise blue outer rings or its pitch-black center.
My pulse kicks up as the first Ferrum cadet steps through. Mine and Diana’s bunk-mate, Gappy Garrick as Az calls him.
I shift forward with the line, heavy boots shuffling toward the threshold, one step closer to likely certain death.
Khali murmurs something to Az, then they step through hand in hand, knuckles white.
I reach behind me and find Diana’s hand, giving it a gentle squeeze.
We’ve got this.
That’s when the doors of The Meet open.
Not slammed or swung. They simply… part.
Two women walk in and the energy in the room changes.
Silver gives them the faintest of nods in greeting, then snaps at Reiva. “Rhodes, you're up.”
“Yes, Sir,” Reiva says, shaking himself as he tears his gaze from the women and steps through.
The women stop before Aes and Stannum’s lines, and my skin tightens, as if every nerve has been put on high alert.
I learned from Khali during one of our private sessions that females can be Overlords. I don’t know how I know, but I’m certain that’s not what these women are. They don’t carry that weight of command like the others do.
No. These women are something else. Something elegant and far more dangerous.
“Eurya?” I murmur to Silver.
He shakes his head.
They’re both tall, athletic, and dressed in dark traveling leathers traced with fine, colored thread that glows faintly when they move. One purple, one green.
They look human, no visible horns, wings obviously glamoured, but there is something about them that’s not human at all.
Their beauty is ethereal, mesmerizing.
Sisters. Two of them. Within a few meters of me.
I clench my fists and my heart rate spikes with adrenaline.
A heavy hand closes around my wrist and flames that heat but don’t burn, lick around where our skin touches.
“Scar,” Silver growls, his voice low. “Are you aware you’re staring at Maeva and Seren like you can’t decide whether you want to fight them or fuck them?”
Heat rushes to my cheeks and I rip my eyes away to meet Silver’s glowing golden gray ones.
“Isn’t everyone?” I quip. Not a lie.
He glances around, then shrugs, and I can’t help but look over at them again.
When I do, it’s in time to see Yuvi and Zaheer step aside, and the women raise their hands, like Silver had moments before.
Only their perfect skin isn't covered in patterns like Silver’s, nor do veins or anything similar appear when flames start to circle their palms.
Instead, it’s like an aura around them, a hue that matches the colored stitching on their clothes, only brighter.
The flames grow, spinning and scorching with heat, creating a hellgate exactly like the ones Silver forms from thin air.
But where his flames blur to blue and then silver, theirs are solid purple or green.
“They have the aura of pride and envy,” Diana whispers directly into my left ear.
I swallow.
Purple for pride.
Green for envy.
Yuvi clears his throat. “For this game, each company has a different starting position,” he gestures between himself and Zaheer.
“As crazy talented as Zaheer and I are, hellgates are a smidge too far.” He pinches a finger and thumb together.
“But Sister Maeva and Sister Seren have come to help us get you where you need to be.”
He winks at the two women, and the one with the purple flames winks back, while the one with the green rolls her eyes.
The cadets of Aes and Stannum begin to step forward one by one, entering the hellgates with a look of awe taking over their eyes where fear and nerves had been moments before.
“Scar?” Silver growls, his hand still around my wrist. “You’re holding up the line.”
“I—” I stop myself.
Rather than argue, I step forward.
Pulling me more toward him than the gate, he asks, “How’s your back today?” He’s so close I feel his breath on my neck, like I had last night.
Ignoring the goosebumps prickling my skin that his voice seems to be able to induce on its own, I drop my gaze to where his fingers curl around my wrist. I take a deep breath before forcing myself to meet his unusual, swirling eyes.
I swallow. “Better. Thank you.”
He nods, then tugs at my arm and pulls me through the hellgate.
The last thing I hear is Lilliana’s shrill voice introducing herself to Maeva and Seren. “Hello, I’m Lilliana Valtren—”
Then I’m weightless, flying and falling, suddenly more rattled going into the third game than I was for the first or second.
The Sisters were right there, and I hadn’t killed either of them. Didn’t even try.
Another huge hand grabs me, this one slamming down on my shoulder and ripping me from the hellgate.
It’s Az, I realize, as he pulls me toward him.
My feet are on the very edge of a rocky ledge and far below, lava rolls and bubbles, thick, violent and deadly.
Diana steps out the hellgate shortly after me, and the skin on my back prickles at the stomach-churning sensation of being about to fall, like the scarred skin there holds memories of my wings and is twitching for them to come out and save me if I do.
“Make room for two more,” Az calls out to no one in particular, and cadets boots shuffle back as Az’s arm herds us away from the jagged edge like goats on a mountainside.
“Some of us should fly instead,” Diana suggests, then blushes, looking guilty.
I swallow. “Yes,” I agree.
Just not you.
I can almost hear them thinking it.
“As much as we’d all love to finally see those pretty feathers of yours,” Az says to Diana. “We learned the hard way that the magic is being blocked. Can’t you feel it?”
Diana rolls her shoulders and her features contort as she concentrates, trying to unglamour her wings.
Eventually she shakes her head, giving up. “That’s horrible.”
I nod to agree, but the look of pity in her eyes reminds me I don’t need to pretend anymore.
I don’t feel any of what she is feeling and she knows it.
“It’s claustrophobic,” she says. “Like the glamour is frozen, trapping my wings.”
She looks at me like she owes me more of an explanation so I can understand exactly what I’m missing. I decide to pretend I haven’t noticed and turn my head to Az instead. “What do you mean, the hard way?”
“Reiva almost ended up as lava food.”
My eyes meet Reiva’s. “Are you okay?” Though I don’t feel the same connection to him as I do to Diana or Az or Khali, he isn’t anywhere near the top of the list of demons I wouldn’t mind becoming lava food today.
“I’m fine,” Reiva confirms.
“Az caught him,” Khali says. “Hence him grabbing you as soon as the hellgate started whirring. What took you so long, anyway?”
“The Sisters showed up,” Diana explains, something close to awe in her voice.
I nod. “They had to open hellgates for Aes and Stannum. They have a different start position in this—”
“You got to meet the Sisters?” Garrick’s distinct lispy voice complains, though I can’t actually see him. “Not fair!”
“Now’s not the time for whining about it, Garrick,” Khali grits out, but then as though she can’t help herself she looks at me. “Was Eurya there?” Excitement makes her dark eyes shine as she says the name. “She has long, straight black hair and black eyes. Absolutely stunning.”
“You literally just described yourself,” Az murmurs, making Khali’s cheeks flush. Then he shrugs. “Figures.”
I frown, but shake my head, recalling the names Silver had mentioned. “Maeva and Seren.”
“Ahh, no way,” she says, like she’s familiar with all of them, even if Eurya is her favorite for whatever reason.
A reason I intend to learn as soon as we survive this game.
“Though, we were wondering how the others were getting here when we saw them appearing on the ledges over there.” Khali points across the vast ravine.
Not a ravine, I realize as I look around. We are inside a volcano.
Sharp rock walls and ridges everywhere, and across the molten river, two more ledges jut out, mirroring ours, protruding from the diagonal wall. Big enough for maybe five people, ten if wedged in like sardines in one of those tins Elias used to bring me from the citadel's pantry.
Before he was a traitor who goes on dates with evil demonesses.
I shake the thoughts of Elias and Lilliana away and try to work out how the whole of Ferrum is going to fit on this ledge.
Stannum has the fewest cadets left, with only eleven having survived the first two games. Then Aes with twelve.
We have thirteen.
Impossible.
The hellgate churns and Diana and I squeeze further back on the ledge to make as much room as possible. Once I’m balanced and braced, I risk a glance around to see what else the third game has in store aside from lava with narrow, jagged ledges hovering over it.
Like that isn’t enough of a predicament.
The last person I want to see, Lilliana, steps out of the hellgate and Reiva quickly loops an arm around her waist, then huffs. “Oh, it’s you.”
Rather than let go and watch her plummet to her death though, he pulls her closer so she doesn’t fall. We all move back toward the wall with them as much as we can, but it’s becoming harder and harder with each cadet's arrival.
Lilliana doesn’t thank Reiva, wrapping her fists around his leather gear like she’s determined to take him with her if he lets her fall.
“We need to spread out onto that path over there,” Garrick says, pointing at the narrow stone path that stretches out over the lava. It’s fractured and cracked, about a meter from our ledge and leading toward the center of the volcano.
Suspended there at the volcano’s core, held aloft by massive iron chains bolted into the volcanic rock ceiling, is a structure that makes my chest tighten.
A building?
I squint and blink like I must be seeing the structure wrong.
Not a tower. Not a bridge. A building, hanging in midair.
Where in the nine circles have we dropped into this time?
It's two levels tall. The lower level has an iron grate which looks to open onto the path, and the second floor has a balcony directly above, the railings warped by heat from the lava.
I assume Aes and Stannum have the same view of the building from their side too.
The chains creak softly, swaying just enough to remind us that nothing here is stable. Especially not the ledge beneath us, which we are all reminded of with each Ferrum cadet who steps through the hellgate to join us.
“The toothless ogre might be right,” Lilliana says, referring to what Garrick suggested. “Looks like Aes are thinking the same. I say we let them go first.”
Silently, we watch as an Aes cadet hops from the ledge to the path with no room for a run up. Somehow, he clears the gap and his shoulders relax when the path holds.
He cups his mouth with his hands, saying something to those still desperately clinging to each other on the ledge like we are.
In response, another cadet from Aes company jumps and joins him on the path.
Our hellgate swirls as Lilliana announces, “It worked.” Then holding onto Reiva with one hand, she uses the other to grab Diana, twists and propels her toward the path.
“Jump,” she calls once she’s already let go.
Rather than think fast about her footing or bending her knees to jump, Diana screams, falling toward the gap that acts like an open door to the fiery pit of lava below.
Fighting the shock that has my lungs clinging to my last breath, I snap out a hand, reaching to grab hold of her.
Her leathers, her hair, anything.
That’s when rumbling sounds from over where two of Aes’s cadets are now balanced on their path, and it starts to quake.
They throw themselves back toward the ledge, but it’s too late. The section of path they’d been standing on crumbles away beneath their feet.
My fingers brush Diana’s blonde hair and I snap my hand closed.
There's nothing in my fist.
Her screams mix with those of the two Aes cadets, rapidly becoming more distant by the second as they plummet toward the lava.
“Diana!” I scream.
But it’s too late.
I was too slow.
I missed.
And now there is nothing I can do to save her.
Other than wretch as I watch the only other Nephilim left in the games falling to a death she does not deserve.