40. The Seventh Game
THE SEVENTH GAME
Seraphina
The iron bars rise before us like the ribs of some ancient beast. My nostrils flare and my stomach twists, it smells like an ancient beast here too.
Welcome back to Hell.
Half of Ferrum Company are crowded behind the iron bars with me, chosen weapons in hand, shoulders brushing in the narrow space, wings glamoured away. For now.
Of all the places Silver’s hellgates have spat us out, this has to be the worst.
Cold iron presses against my palm as I grip the grate with my free hand, peering through.
Beyond the iron stretches a pit.
It’s circular and carved out of brimstone, the walls rising impossibly high toward a ring of dark, blood-colored sky.
Ferrum Company aren’t alone either.
Across the pit to our right, another iron grate holds Aes Company. I’d recognize the three of them almost as easily as my own Company at this point. Off to our left, another cage of iron bars contains Stannum’s lone survivor.
Beneath my feet is ash, like the sparring yard, and I wonder if that’s intentional.
Is this what the Triad has been leading to? The final dozen cadets in a final fight to the death.
All of us having survived six games only to be trapped like animals waiting to be released and set on one another.
Once Reiva, the last in line this morning in The Meet, steps through the hellgate, Silver appears behind him.
His eyes sweep over each of us. He has eight cadets left. Is that a record? More importantly, will it help us now?
Silver’s gaze stops on me, his expression a far cry from the look of satisfaction and feral pleasure on his face last night.
He clears his throat. “The seventh and final game.”
A murmur ripples through the cadets and my stomach tightens.
“The Pit of Wrath,” he goes on, pulling a few nervous laughs from somewhere behind me.
Silver doesn’t smile, he gestures toward the grate and towering walls around the pit.
“All you have to do is fly up and out.” Several cadets shift uneasily. “The only rule is that you fly yourself and only yourself out.”
Some glance at me with pity in their eyes, others with glee, while the rest shuffle closer to the iron and look upward.
The walls are terrifyingly tall and smooth, impossible to climb.
Silver continues, voice surprisingly calm. “Now is a good time to remember your first day in The Meet. Specifically the part where we told you that you may kill other cadets in the games.”
The words drop into the pit like a stone.
“If there is any dead wood left among you, anyone you do not trust or would not want fighting at your back in a real battle…” His gaze moves slowly across to the cages holding Aes and Stannum cadets. “Deal with them in the pit before they fly out.”
My fingers tighten on the katana in my hand, but the grinding sound of machinery echoes through the holding chamber and the grate begins to rise.
The moment the iron lifts from the floor, something slams into me.
Anger.
Hot and sudden and violent.
It crawls under my skin like fire ants and my jaw clenches.
Around me, Ferrum Company surges forward, pouring into the pit. Wings flare open in a rush of leathery membranes as cadets leap into the open space.
The air feels wrong. Like it’s too heavy, charged like a storm about to break.
I don’t know if the fury boiling in my chest is because Silver just placed a target on my back in front of every cadet here. Or if it’s something in the air itself.
I’ve learned by now that these wicked games often play tricks with the senses. They poison the mind and feed the worst instincts. The Pit of Wrath would hardly be the first.
I watch as Az leaps into the air beside Khali, wings snapping open as they catch the rising current of heated air. Reiva follows a heartbeat later, his dark wings beating hard as he launches upward.
“Sera!” Khali calls over her shoulder.
I nod from the threshold but don’t move. Not yet.
Cadets are already shouting, blades flashing as the first fights break out across the pit floor, wrath spreading through them like wildfire.
I step toward the opening, but just as I cross the threshold, a hand wraps around the back of my neck. Hard.
My breath catches as I’m yanked sideways and the world vanishes into shadow.
I smell him before I see him.
Silver shoves me back against the cold stone wall inside the chamber, hidden from those in the pit.
My heart beats even faster as his body presses close enough that I feel the heat of him through my clothes.
His fingers tighten at the base of my neck, forcing my chin up. “Look at me, Scar.” His voice is low and rough.
I meet his gaze, his gray-gold eyes dark as sin in the shadow, the faint veins beneath his skin glowing subtly like dying embers.
His breath ghosts across my lips. “Remember our lessons.” My heart hammers. “You can fly. You don’t need anyone to carry you out of there. They’ll fail too, if they do. Believe in yourself the way I believe in you.”
His thumb presses briefly against the pulse in my neck and my throat tightens.
“Trust your wings and use the others' surprise to your advantage.”
I nod.
His mouth curves faintly. “They are beautiful fucking wings, don’t let them take a single feather from you.”
The sounds of fighting echo from the pit but Silver ignores it, leaning closer, his forehead nearly touching mine.
“Ignore the violence beating through your lungs, it’s not real. Be patient, but if the fight comes to you…” His voice drops lower and he dips his head to murmur against my mouth. “Give them hell, Little Nephilim.”
Before I can answer, he kisses me.
Quick, hard and too brief. His lips are gone almost before I feel them and the heat of him disappears as he steps back toward the hellgate forming behind him.
The swirling magic cuts the air open like a scar and Silver pauses long enough to look at me once more, then turns and steps through.
The hellgate snaps shut, and under my breath, so quiet no one will ever hear it, I whisper, “Goodbye.”
Because that’s what the kiss felt like.
I’m alone in the shadows.
The roar of battle fills my ears and among the shouts and screams I hear the voices of my alliance calling for me.
My fingers curl around the katana, both hands now.
The pit erupts the moment I step onto the ash and a body slams into me before I’ve taken three steps.
Steel flashes and I twist sideways on instinct, the blade meant for my throat slicing through empty air instead as I drive my elbow into the attacker’s ribs.
He staggers back, snarling, eyes wild with the same molten rage boiling under my skin.
Wrath.
I can feel it thrumming through my veins, thick and poisonous, crawling under my skin.
It’s not real.
Someone screams while someone else laughs. All around the pit, cadets crash into one another in a frenzy of steel and wings and blood.
Across the chaos I see Az, Khali and Reiva in the air. Not as high as they should be.
I swallow.
They waited for me.
Lilliana streaks after Khali like a thrown knife and the two collide midair, wings beating violently.
Khali shoves Lilliana back with a savage strike of her blade and Lilliana answers with a vicious kick that sends them spinning through the air.
Only then do I notice something wrong with the sky.
It isn’t the sky at all.
The air above us is dark like sunset, but something about it shimmers and ripples like heat waves rising off desert sand.
Or a veil waiting to be broken.
Like a hellgate.
Movement catches my eye and Brandor launches upward with a roar, his wings tearing free as he goes after Az.
Ulrik and Elijah aren’t far behind. Of course they aren’t, Lilliana’s loyal hounds.
I glance up in time to see Reiva drive his sword through the chest of an Aes cadet. He rips the blade free and the cadet falls. Before he has landed in the ash, Reiva surges upward, flying toward Khali and Az as their fights twist through the air.
Steel flashes against steel above me and I almost miss the blade coming at me as it whistles past my ear.
I duck just in time and spin, shoving the attacker away, my pulse hammering.
Enough.
I close my eyes for a heartbeat.
Silver’s voice whispers through my mind.
Remember our lessons. Believe in yourself the way I believe in you. Trust your wings. Don’t let them take a single feather from you.
My shoulders relax momentarily, then tighten as the pressure builds.
Then something tears through my back.
My wings punch free in a rush of power and the thick air flows across the feathers.
For one glorious second, relief floods my chest.
It worked. They’re here.
Then something slams into them.
Hard and sharp, pain explodes down my spine and a blade slices across the edge of one wing.
I whirl around, off balance, unused to the weight and reach of them.
A cadet lunges again and my katana flies free.
The curved blade sings through the air as I pivot and cut across his throat in one clean motion. Blood sprays and he drops before he even understands what’s happened.
Another cadet charges. Stannum’s lone survivor.
I don’t want to kill him, truly I don’t. But he’s leaving me no choice so I step inside his swing and drive the katana straight through his ribs.
His breath leaves him in a wet gasp and I rip the blade free.
A third cadet hesitates. He sees the bodies, the blood, and his eyes flick from my wings to the weapon in my hand.
Then he backs away before launching himself straight upward.
I’m on my own, with wings ready to fly, nothing but air between me and getting out of this final game alive.
I look up in time to see the cadet who’d thought better of attacking me slam into the shimmering barrier above the pit.
For a second nothing happens. Then the sky splits, the ripple tears open like a wound and the cadet vanishes through it.
My breath catches.
I’ve never been more happy to see a hellgate.
Above me Khali and Lilliana clash again, blades ringing violently.
Khali flips and slams her boots in Lilliana’s chest, using the momentum to shove her away, shooting upward.
Straight into the rippling veil.
It parts and she disappears through.
I sigh with relief as Az sees it too.
He tears free from Elijah and Brandor with a brutal slash of his wings and streaks after her.
I almost laugh. Who in their right mind thought going after Az was a good idea?
He ranked first overall in the Triad for a reason, and that would have still been the case without him ever having to step into the ring again after that first day.
I bet he’s one of the Iron Choir’s greatest assets and he hasn’t even graduated yet.
Below them, Lilliana crashes into the pit floor hard enough to shake the stone.
She groans, rolling onto her back. I move before she can recover.
My knee slams into her chest as I pin her to the ground, the tip of my katana pressed against her throat. “Where is it?” I demand.
Her eyes narrow. “What?”
“Don’t play fucking games with me,” I warn. “The journal, where is it?”
The blade bites deeper, a thin line of blood appears against her skin.
Lilliana smiles. “You don’t have it in you to kill me.”
My grip tightens. “You don’t know me at all.”
Her smile falters.
“I’ve held plenty of people in this exact position,” I tell her quietly. “Usually they’re called marks.”
Her eyes flicker with fear.
Good.
“But they are usually begging for my mercy,” I continue softly. “Mercy I never show them because they have fallen so far they aren’t worth saving.”
The blade presses harder. Another bead of blood slips down her throat.
“Tell me, are you worth saving, Lilliana?”
Still she doesn’t answer.
“No? Well, luckily,” I say, digging the edge in just enough to make her gasp, “we’re already in hell.”
Her breath catches.
“So leaving you here to rot in ash on the pit floor feels appropriate.”
I shove the blade deeper.
“Scarvo!” Brandor barrels toward us. Elijah right behind him.
Their blades flash up—
But then they must see the blood on Lilliana’s throat.
“Help Lilliana!” Brandor calls to Elijah.
They drop beside her, hands scrambling to stop the bleeding.
That’s all the distraction I need.
I push to my feet, roll my shoulders and test my wings. Then bend my knees to spring up into the sky.
Just in time to see something falling from it.
Someone.
Reiva.
His body tumbles through the air like a puppet whose strings have been cut.
His wings hang limp, helping only to speed up the fall as he hurtles to the ground, blood spraying behind him.
“No!”
I launch up, throwing my weight toward him, but my wings are still clumsy. Heavy and slow. By the time I reach him he’s already hit the ground with a hideous crunch that sounds like every bone in his body breaking.
My knees give out when I land at his side.
Blood pours from his chest, too much of it and too fast.
“No. No, no, no!” My hands press uselessly against the wound. “Stay with me.”
Reiva’s lips move but blood bubbles at the corner of his mouth.
“Ser… go…”
With the katana resting close beside me, I reach out and take his hand in mine. They are red with his blood. So much blood.
“Leave… me…”
His voice is all wrong, wet, like he’s talking under water.
“No!” my voice echoes off the pit walls. “Silver!” I scream. “Silver, save him!”
But the shadows stay silent. No hellgate opens, no warm healing flames come.
Reiva’s body shudders as he sucks in one final rattling breath. “Fly… Sera.”
He goes still.
Tears blur my vision as I look out across the pit floor, my heart breaking for my friend. He’d been so close to making it…
But there’s no time to mourn.
Lilliana’s recovered, Brandor and Elijah flank her now. All three of them glare at me with violence and rage and murder in their eyes.
Wrath.
Pure and deadly.
They start toward me. I look up at the rippling sky above, then back to Reiva.
Az and Khali will be devastated.
I have to live to tell them myself. They won’t want to hear it from anyone else. They’ll want to know that someone held his hand as he went.
That it was quick and that he didn’t suffer for long.
I have to live, and to live, I have to fly.
My wings explode outward, and a single feather, so dark gray, it’s virtually black, drifts down to land on Reiva’s chest.
‘Don’t let them take a single feather from you.’
I shake my head. No, it’s okay. This one's okay.
Reiva is not one of them.
I’d give my friend every damned feather on my back if it meant he didn’t have to die.
With a scream that tears from somewhere deep in my chest where grief for the friends I’ve lost in these games lives, I launch into the sky.