Prologue
Prologue
M y robes brush against the stone floor as I run. This is the last moment, the last day before my life could change forever. The last day of my life?—
“Tory.”
My head whips around at the sound and my running slows. Blood rushes through my ears and my chest rises and falls. My eyes dart around. It’s not safe to stop. I need to keep moving. I need to keep running. I need to get there first.
From the shadows, he emerges, watching me, his brown eyes locked on me, the gold flecks in them shimmering.
“Deon, you can’t be there,” I pant, hissing as I push him back into the shadowed alcove that had been concealing him.
He looks me over; his eyes appear so much older than he is, so much -wisdom there. “It’s not too late, Tory. We need to get you out of here. They’ve created a faction.”
I already knew that. I had known it would happen the second I was -selected for Guild Ranking placement. The only female ever selected. But more than that, what makes me dangerous is that I have a real chance to beat them.
I shake my head, “There is no simply leaving. You know what this would mean for me. You know what this will do for me. What he will?—”
He cuts me off, his hand covering my mouth and he presses me into the wall, his body completely covering mine.
I look up at him. In this darkness I can barely see him, only the gold flecks in his eyes shimmering down at me.
I’m about to bristle about the rude interruption when I hear them. The footsteps gaining on our location.
How did he know?
We stand there, his hard, tight body pressed against mine, neither of us breathing and my lungs feeling like they’re going to explode from the need for precious oxygen. Another long moment passes and he slowly lowers his hand .
“Leave with me,” he whispers, watching me with an intensity in his eyes I’ve never beheld before. From anyone.
I shake my head. I need what the guild was promising if I was ever going to become anything. If I was ever going to achieve what I wanted to. If I was ever going to prove myself to him.
“Well, I’m leaving,” he says and I frown.
This decision wasn’t one he would make lightly, the last of his kind with only the protection of Avalon keeping him safe from capture.
We had been friends since the day we both started but my ambitions were bigger than being a runaway, as much as I would love to toss aside my responsibilities. This would be huge for the species.
He cups my cheek. “This will be the last time we see one another.” I’m taken aback by the tenderness of his touch, the look in his eyes.
“Deon—”
“You need to win,” he says, his thumb stroking my cheek and then he bends, brushing his lips against the corner of mine. “Please.” And then, in a wave of heat and flame, he’s gone.
I swallow, my stomach fluttering a little but I push it away. I had never seen him in any other way than as a friend but something in our interaction has confused me. He knows my heart belongs to another. Belongs to his friend. But I can’t think of that right now. Because he’s right. I have to win.
I tap a rune on my palm and press it to the wall of the alcove, and the walls seem to melt away though it flickers, my power dwindling.
Just long enough that I can ensure that there is no one in my immediate vicinity.
I take a breath and brush my fingers over the arrows in my quiver, counting them. Five left.
I know that there are seven left in the competition, including me.
Shit.
I push out of the alcove and something inside me tells me that someone is close.
I ready my bow and nock an arrow, slowly peering around the corner.
In the distance, one of the sconces bursts into life and my fingers tighten on the shaft, drawing the bowstring.
I peer around the corner again and another sconce is burning with bright orange flame illuminating the face of Francis.
“There you are.” He smirks and then starts to advance on me, pushing into a run, but I’m prepared.
In a breath, the bow is lifted and the arrow is sailing through the air, embedding in his chest or, at least, that’s where I aimed.
I don’t watch to ensure its landing. The sickening grunt of his pain is enough and I whirl, pushing into a run .
I need to find the artifact and rune it before anyone else does.
I need to end this now. I hope they’re so busy on the hunt for me that they aren’t searching for the key to end the games.
If they find me, there will be a bloodbath after it.
They’ll all turn on each other. Such are males.
Only allies while there is a common enemy, then they stand alone. It weakens them. Good.
I round another corner and walk up what feels like endless flights of stairs.
The corridors feel never-ending but I’m getting close.
I can feel the power of it from somewhere in this fucking house of mazes.
Suddenly the ground starts to tremble beneath me and I turn, noticing one of the others crouching at the end of the corridor, a rune shining on his hand and he slams it into the stone again.
The ground trembles harder and then starts to crack. I grab the wall as a chasm starts to form but then something distracts my eyes from the stairs in front of me.
That’s it . . . It can’t be . . . but ? —
I press my back into the wall more as a chasm starts to open.
The ravine starts to widen and my heart races.
I must make my move now. Before it’s too late.
I mentally search my spell wheel for anything that might help, but we’ve been in this for days and my power is dwindling from constant use with no time for rest. I peer down it and take a steadying, shuddering breath before I close my eyes, saying his name like a prayer, the name of my love and hurl myself over it.
My stomach drops as I feel the yawning abyss beneath me but I collide with the other side, my body hanging freely.
I cling to the stone, pulling up enough that my forearms are braced against the cold stone, trying to gain purchase.
There is a deep laugh from behind me and then something slams into the rock beside me, barely missing me.
Whatever it was leaves a warm, foul-smelling, slippery substance.
I glance down and my heart stops when I see my assailant.
A cavernous wyrm. It sends its large heavy tongue out again and slams into the rock on my other side, but this time, one of the poisoned spines pierces me, ripping into the soft skin of my thigh as it’s pulled back.
My hand slips a little and I groan in pain but then that shimmer pulls my gaze again, I can almost hear his voice, the voice of my love. “ Tory?.?.?. ”
I curse and then slice my hand on one of the jagged rocks and sloppily draw a strength rune on my now bare leg.
“Should I just end this now?” a slimy voice crows from behind me and I feel the rune starting to take effect.
I need to use it to pull myself up and my power is nearly wilted.
But I snarl and send a blast of power at him.
He’s not expecting it and it pierces his left eye, leaving a gaping hole.
His body falls forward and I count to twenty before the ground shakes as the wyrm he summoned swallows him.
Fuck, stupid. I should have used that to get out of this mess. I hear my father’s voice berating me. “Females don’t amount to anything because they allow their emotions to take over. You are proof of that.”
No. I will not prove him right. Think Tory.
I look at my quiver, take one of the precious arrows, and pull my long rope from my robes, yanking it free.
The robes billow more now that they’re untethered, and I feel more of the rank air being expelled from the wyrm.
I desperately try to hold onto the side but the power from the hole is trying to pull me down, like a vortex.
I need to get up or my shot won’t be worth a damn.
My breath shudders as I look down and my heart jumps a beat, but then my gaze snags on a small ledge that must have been made by the wyrm’s tongue when it bashed against the side.
I groan in pain as I stretch my leg but I’m just shy of touching it.
I curse and snarl as I shimmy my body along a little, the jagged rocks of the chasm mouth ripping what’s left of my shirt.
I stretch my leg out again and my foot just touches the small ledge.
Good. Take a breath, Tory. I shuffle again, this time, the cragged rocks cut into my ribs.
With the move, one of my feet is now planted on the ledge and I need one more rune.
One I’ve already banked. It was one of the three I was allowed to install before the competition, and this one was only to be used in the most dire of straits.
This is it. I shift, nocking the arrow as best I can, and my eyes start to glow as I ignite a small rune on my neck.
It’s a portal rune, but it’s linked to the amount of power I have, and I know I don’t even have enough to propel me up the cliff. But I might just have enough to?—
In a blink, I am surging away from the wall.
My power couldn’t even give me any height but it doesn’t matter.
I don’t need height. I just need this moment where I don’t have to hold my weight.
I know I’m about to plunge and plunge hard.
The breath gets caught in my throat but I push past it, my gaze locking aim in the direction of the glimmer.
I have no idea if that is the stone of Alexandria or not, but I need to take the chance.
Time appears to slow as the arrow flies through the air, the only sound its slight whistle. I watch as it pierces into the glass case and, as if pulled by the power of it, it wraps around it .
As I fall, I reel the string in as quickly as I can. Fear claws at my throat, not even allowing me to scream, but I must concentrate on my goal. The pain radiates through my body from the days of torture I’ve endured. But I keep pulling it faster and faster.
I will not die like this. I will not prove them right.
The stone is almost in view and my stomach is churning.
I yank harder and faster until the smooth stone presses against my palm and the second my hand wraps around the stone, everything stops, a white light blinding me.
I need to complete the rune. The timer has started.
My brain is a mess, the adrenaline coursing through me but then?.
.?. it’s there, in my mind’s eye clear as day, almost as if the stone wants me to win.
I continue to fall but the hot stench of the wyrm is gone, the oppressive feeling of the power-lined halls absent.
There is only bright white light. If I fail, I will burn in the acid of the wyrm’s stomach.
But I will not fail. I slice my finger with the sharp edge and draw the intricate rune on the flat edge.
At first, nothing happens. Have I done it wrong? But then the power thrums in my palm almost painfully, and I have to cling to it with every drop of strength I have left. My hand burns from it and I groan in pain but then everything stops. A gong sounds.
The Guild Ranking is over.
I have won.