Chapter 30
The walk back to my room feels like the first time I came to the palace, when I wasn’t sure if I would make it out of here alive. This time, each step is heavier than the one before it.
The Mercyenforcer stops at my room and unlocks the door. “Be ready at seven.” Inside is as breathtaking as I remember, pale light spilling from the windows. The city is a blur beneath cloud cover. Beyond it, the ocean curls at the edges of the cliffs like it too is desperate to touch Skyhaven.
“Contestant Fifty-Four?” Syra’s voice cuts through the dark, and it startles me.
“I’d like to be alone right now.”
“That’s not an option. I’m here to help you get dressed for dinner.”
“I know how to dress myself.”
Syra pulls the formal dress she selected for me from the wardrobe.
It’s a deep blue so dark it looks black with silver beads that shimmer like stars.
To my great frustration, she disappears into my bathroom, where she fills a tub with lavender water.
My body betrays me, curling toward the rising steam.
Syra leaves, and I dip my toe inside the hot water, imagining it could melt away all the terror of the last few days.
I try to exhale, but Caelus moves into my thoughts like a storm cloud.
He can’t die for this. I need him to live.
Because…because how else will I get on a ship?
How else will he get the magic he wants?
I undo my hair and rake my hands through it.
I shouldn’t be thinking about him at all.
I should be thinking about what to do if he doesn’t survive this interrogation by his father.
Or what happens if he caves and betrays me. I have to be smart.
The suds in the colorful water cover my arms. I massage the soap into my skin and clean myself before getting out. Syra is waiting for me with an arm full of ribbons, hairpins, shimmery face paints, and colors. I cover myself in a towel.
She selects one the color of wilted roses. “This will soften the severity of your eyes.”
“What’s wrong with my eyes?”
“They’re too…” She pauses, pursing her tiny heart-shaped mouth. “There’s much at stake. You want to be Skyborn, don’t you? We should lead with your meekness. A little sallow brown beneath the eyes, taupe on the lids, turning the corners down. Sit.”
I don’t want to obey, but I sink into the stool at the vanity. She works the pasty colors over my face, humming softly, something Skyborn.
“You’ve done well to make it this far,” she murmurs. “Most break in the Trial of Loyalty. You find someone to fight for?”
“I’ve always had someone to fight for.”
Syra smiles, pinning my hair. “Of course you have.”
She finishes beautifying me by brushing a scent of oil onto my wrists, neck, hairline, inside my elbows, and behind my ears. Then she grabs the shimmery gown. I slip it on, and she laces me up tight, cooing compliments, going on and on about love being fought for—won.
“Such a lovely choice,” she says. She turns me, like I’m a doll made of glass, pinning, prodding, and tweaking the paint on my face for what feels like an entire evening.
I can’t stop worrying about Caelus. Every thought feels like a betrayal. One I wasn’t planning. He has not left my mind since leaving the arena. As if a tether connects us. Not soft or silk like thread, but a chain dragging me into a trap I am trying to escape.
I can’t.
I just can’t.
Even if I could help him somehow, which I absolutely cannot, that risks everything we planned. I catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror and notice a bruise blooming along my collarbone. It aches as I brush my fingertips over it, trying to remember when I got it.
“May I?” Syra ropes a sparkly necklace around my neck, over my bruise. “We don’t want anyone distracted by that ugly thing.” She winks, steps back, and takes all of me in. “You are perfection!”
My feelings for Caelus whatever they may or may not be, will have to be another distraction I hide. Love might be powerful, but the cost is still too high. I will survive this tournament without losing myself, and I will get on a ship.
I just need to make sure Caelus is going to be alright.
If he’s not, I need to start planning. And quickly.
The other contestants are already at the throne room when I arrive.
The Benevolent sits on top of his rigid seat like a statue carved from cold obsidian, looming over the reception, watching a room full of Skyborns mingling with contestants.
Not with joy but with a predator’s presence.
Each guest’s flinch of mirth is measured.
A long table set with golden plates and all kinds of decorations is piled with copious amounts of food.
I don’t see Caelus.
Dorian and Mae are arm in arm, dressed nicely.
His face is still bruised, but he is here.
She clings to his arm like a lifeline. A Skyborn couple with matching haircuts launch question after question at both of them.
I’m not close enough to hear, but every few words Dorian and Mae share a smiling glance between responses.
Talia and Jace are connected by the hands. She leads him through the crowd in a pale-blue gown.
Orrick is in lush tan robes with gold stitching, his hair neatly combed back, pulled into a long ponytail. I almost didn’t recognize him.
Kade is on the opposite side of the room, chatting with an audience of Skyborn, and it looks like a performance. He catches me staring, excuses himself from his conversation, and drifts through the crowd to me. “Prince boy is gone,” he says. “So, what are you going to do now?”
He’s bluffing. “You don’t know anything,” I say.
“I know more than you realize.” He disappears in the crowd, and a tightness cinches in my chest. If Caelus is still a contestant, he would be here, right? Along the table there are names by each golden plate. Caelus’s name is not there. The Benevolent stands and the crowd quiets.
“What a remarkable occasion to celebrate the final twelve,” he says.
Twelve would include Caelus.
Rhythe lurks at the edge of one of the tables alone.
“You have shown grit,” the Benevolent goes on. “Forsaking others to follow through on your commitment to the tournament. To this great island. To me.”
He applauds.
The crowd joins in obediently.
“What better way to prepare for the third and final trial than a night of revelry?” He gestures at the doors, and they groan open.
A stream of lowborns flood in: Saltblood, Grainfolk, Stonebound, their chests glowing with the faint light of a Heartfiller.
Their clothes hang loose, patchy and worn, thin from too many washings.
Most keep their heads down. Others tug at their gloves, stitched so tight it looks like fabric grown into their skin.
A few gape at the surroundings in awe as they shuffle forward.
Orrick emerges from our ranks to greet a woman who looks just like him. She has bland brown hair with leaves woven gracefully through her braid. She hands him something.
They’ve brought people from our villages here? But where—
My heart speeds up just as I see her. Miss Omon.
“Contestants, welcome your special guests; tell them about your courage and loyalty. Tonight you and your guests will dine and celebrate like Skyborn.”
The contestants stare at one another in disbelief. Horrified, Talia gapes across the room at a woman I suspect is her mother. The mother who beat her trying to stop her from coming here. I spot a boy who must be Lira’s brother. Jace’s father is here.
A low, metallic hum rolls through the hall—music.
It then transforms into a triumphant fanfare blaring.
The Skyborn guests tangle their hands, spinning in loose, dizzying circles.
Arms twist, legs stumble in half-remembered steps, hips swaying.
Bodies orbit each other, keeping some part of themselves connected with a partner, fingertips hooked to fingertips like lifelines.
Glasses clink, overflowing with fizzing gold bubbles down their wrists.
In corners and shadows, some press too close.
Hands trail along necks and linger. Mouths hover near ears, then slide lower.
The lowborns stand still at the center of the room—eyes wide, shifting on their feet, uneasy and awed, watching something forbidden and divine and angering all at once.
I elbow through the crowd to Miss Omon. Her chest glows.
I told her no more Heartfillers. Her watery gray eyes fill with more emotion than I’ve ever seen.
I burn with an urge to hold on to her for a moment.
She tenses, holding her hands tight against her sides, and I wonder, for the first time, if she’s ever bent the rules.
“You’re here. You’re really here,” I say. A knot wells in my throat. I don’t know if I’ve ever been more happy to see someone from the orphanage in my life.
“They brought me up this morning,” she says, and I’m haunted by the second trial all over again, pinching myself to make sure this is indeed real.
“Was the journey okay?” I ask. “Did they treat you well?”
“Well enough. Thanks for sending the medicine. She is improving slowly. But she will need more. Can you get some?”
“I’ll try.”
She looks at me without blinking. “You look so different, Axira.”
“It’s still me.”
Scanning the Skyborn dancing, she whispers, “Can you really see yourself living here?”
“I am Saltblood; I will always be Saltblood.” I pull her away from the commotion, retreating to the cold corners of the throne room for more privacy. She follows, her gloved arms one around the other, hugging herself. “Listen to me, there’s so much you don’t understand.”
“And this must be your mother?” Kade has found us. A vein at his jaw pulses.
“Her caregiver,” Miss Omon says. “And you are?”
“Kade. Contestant Eighty-Seven, from Grainfolk district.”
Miss Omon glances at me. “Axira, is this your—”
“No.” I can still smell the blood all over the arena floor.
Kade smirks, then holds out his hand. “Would you join me for this next song? There’s so much about Axira I’m dying to know.”
“She will not,” I say.