Chapter 36
They come for us at night.
Kade and Rhythe’s list of targets claws at my mind—it’s kill or be killed. Mercyenforcers drag us down the hallways with hushed voices, ordering us to be quiet.
“Trial of Strength?” Jace whispers to Talia, and a Mercyenforcer’s fist slams into his face.
“You’re hurting him!” Talia cleans the blood from his swelling lip with her sleeves, glaring at the guard. “We have to be our strongest today.”
The Mercyenforcer raises his fist at Talia.
“Do it, you waste of space.” She presses her shoulders back, edging her chin up as if the feelings she and Jace share now are real—and it’s made her bolder.
Stronger in a different way. The guard touches the almost faded bruise on her face, the bruise she came with, smiling.
She snatches her head away from his hand.
Rhythe watches Talia and Jace comfort one another with creases hardening above his brow.
He doesn’t like it. Losing Lira has shaken the ground beneath her, tipping her into Jace’s arms—the opposite impact Rhythe hoped for when he ordered Kade to kill them.
Maybe now Talia will believe I was telling the truth about Rhythe plotting behind the alliance’s back with Ivy.
The longer we walk, the more groggy I feel, like I haven’t slept in several nights. Caelus joins us at the entrance to the palace, taking his place in line beside me rigidly. The scent of him sharpens my stride.
The Benevolent is plotting to have him killed during the third trial. But we are going to survive this, whatever it takes. Even if I have to get rid of Kade myself.
“Into a transport, everyone.”
The transports are small, only big enough for a few of us each.
Rhythe breaks from the lines first, stepping into the first vehicle, cutting a sharp glance at Talia and Ivy, signaling them to join him.
Kade lingers behind like the snake that he is.
Dorian and Mae are already inside a different transport with only two seats left.
Kade pulls Callie along to take the seats, but I squeeze Caelus’s arm gently and side-skirt them, stealing the open seats.
This is my chance to talk to Mae. I try to exhale but can’t as the doors to the transport shut.
When the door closes, Mae leaps into my arms for another hug. “Did you sleep? I couldn’t sleep at all.”
“I slept okay.” I was up most of the night worried. Rhythe plans to “deal with me.” Syra is convinced Caelus won’t survive the tournament. Kade has a kill list.
Caelus is deathly still beside me, staring out the window with a fear in his eyes I haven’t seen before.
“Hey, we have to think like winners,” I tell him.
“I am. You will be fine.”
“We will.”
“Right, that’s what I meant,” he says, but I don’t buy that he believes the words he’s saying.
The transport groans in motion beneath us as we leave the Citadel, turning sharply east toward the mountains of Ethyria.
The usual warmth in Dorian’s brown eyes has frozen over.
His shoulders are bunched tight with tension, and each bump in the road jerks his frame like a doll on a string.
“Mae told me Orrick and Lira were targeted by another contestant,” he says, looking between us, as if searching for the truth.
“Yes,” I say. “And you’re on the list too.”
Mae turns to Dorian. His jaw grinds as if he’s trying to swallow the truth whole.
I rush to explain—about Rhythe and Kade’s conversation, Ivy and Rhythe’s secret love, and how Lira and Talia whispered about getting rid of Ivy.
When I’m done, no one speaks. Dorian stares out the narrow viewport, his reflection ghosted in the dark glass.
“They’re probably after me as well, if that makes you feel any better,” Caelus mutters.
“Dorian,” Mae whispers. “I’m scared.”
“Don’t be,” he replies, too quickly, pressing his shoulders back into his seat as if he could will himself to relax. “I just have to be smart.” But the way his throat tightens around the last word betrays him. Mae folds her arm across her stomach. Dorian pulls her closer.
“Caelus and I are going to make sure you both win this,” I say.
Mae’s head tilts. “Don’t you want to win yourself?”
“I mean, yes. I meant, survive. May the best”—I clear my throat—“couple win. But we will do everything we can to help you both stay safe.”
“Thanks,” Dorian says, smiling tightly before moving his forlorn stare back to the window.
We continue our descent in heavy silence.
Through the narrow window, the spires of the Citadel shrink behind us.
For a moment there’s peace in the whitewashed streets and gardens we pass, an order held tight by steel and tradition.
But then we reach lower Skyhaven, where Caelus and I strolled during our date the other day.
Someone has painted messages on the walls of the outer watchtower in pale gold:
No Crown Without the Prince
“What’s this place called again?” I ask.
“The Industry Quarter,” Caelus says.
I press my nose to the glass. As we descend the winding mountain paths, the signs multiply—scrawled across stone fences and etched into frost-flecked windows:
Pull Him Before They Kill Him
Succession Matters
Clusters of highborns stand near the road in hushed knots, watching the transports pass. A few hold candles. One woman clutches a torn purple cloak with the Skyborn symbol stitched into the fabric. Her lips move in a chant we can’t hear.
And then we see barricades. Not official ones, but piles of debris—broken crates, firewood, overturned carts—stacked along a narrow service lane.
A young man throws a stone at one of the pylons.
Another sets fire to one. I gasp. Deep fear presses like pins behind my eyes.
What’s happened? What will happen because of this?
“What is it?” Dorian shifts closer, then pulls back from the window with a pensive glare.
Mae takes a look after him, and her breath catches. “I don’t understand.” She’s pale.
“They want me pulled from the tournament.” Caelus scrubs a palm down his face. “This is not good.”
The Skyborn were so upset when they saw he’d gotten injured. Now this?
“I don’t understand,” Mae says again.
“His father had him beat to a pulp and made him lie about how he got hurt to everyone,” I say.
“Axira.” Caelus’s glance cuts.
“It’s time they know the truth.” I turn to Mae and Dorian. “His father is a monster, whether you can see or not.”
Mae stares at me as if the words I’ve just said are in a language she’s never heard before.
“So let them be mad,” I continue. “Let them rage. Let them burn this whole place down!”
Dorian doesn’t argue. But I’m not sure if he agrees with me. His silence is grim.
The transport stops suddenly, lurching us forward in our seats.
Through the viewport, I catch a glimpse of a checkpoint ahead—blurry figures moving in the mist, voices raised, a single flare of fire.
A hand reaches inside, dragging down the shield over our window, closing us off from the truth of what’s happening out there.
The transport rumbles onward in silence, leaving Skyhaven behind as it plunges toward the Stonebound district—where the streets run narrower and the cliffs are steeper.
“Is this true, my prince?” Mae asks Caelus, suddenly casting her eyes down like a lowborn.
“The people do love you. I saw that myself. There must be a reason…I guess your father could resent that, perhaps? But I’ve never seen him do anything unkind.
Confusing at times, yes. But he has his ways of doing things because he understands happiness in a way we can’t.
The crops. The fields. Rations. It doesn’t always feel right.
But we have to trust that it is. The crops we burned were full of poison.
He was protecting us.” She nudges Dorian. “Right?”
“Right,” Dorian says stiffly. “We have to trust our leader, wherever he leads us.”
“No,” I snap. “No, that’s wrong. He poisoned the crops. That was perfectly good food.”
She cracks a smile as if she’s waiting on me to say I’m kidding, but when I’m silent it quickly fades.
I grip her arm gently over her sleeve. “Mae, you believe the Benevolent gives us Heartfillers out of kindness—because you’ve been raised on the lie that he wants us happy.
But that’s the story he fed you to keep you starving for the love he forbids.
The Heartfillers, the pamphlets. It’s all manipulating you to follow a person who couldn’t care less if you live or die.
That feeling—that some of his orders don’t feel right—is because they aren’t right!
Being hooked on Heartfillers to feel good isn’t freedom, Mae. It’s a prison.”
She blinks long, swallows hard, and then turns to Dorian. “It’s too much.” Her voice cracks. “This is just all too much.” He strokes her hand.
“Caelus,” I say, “you have to tell them the truth. They’ll believe you.”
“He had me beaten. It’s true.” Caelus’s chin rises, but I don’t miss his flinch. “Wasn’t the first time.”
Mae sucks in a breath.
“Why do the people love you so much, Caelus?” she asks. “Is it because they know he hurts you?”
“No one knows that,” he says.
“Then why?” I ask, curious too.
He shrugs. “I don’t know.”
“When did you first notice the people treating you differently?” I ask. “Shouting your name and cheering louder for you than him?”
He settles back uncomfortably. “This feels like an interrogation.”
“It’s just a question.”
“It feels like an assault.”
“It shouldn’t.”