Chapter 5
Five
Cara
When the battle bells tolled out an end, signaling that the monsters released were all dead, cheering went up through the labyrinth.
“And now we count,” Fear said, moving toward the count as the crowds above were moving toward applause.
Clan Bismyth had to go out to the arena to bow along with the other clans. But our real work was in coming back together. Bismyth was well-organized and flowed together from the passages; everyone had moved in pairs, in sets of pairs, and so the count was quickly given.
“Everyone’s well,” Anayla delivered to Fear. There was an abrasion across her temple where she must have met a stone, but she didn’t seem to have noticed yet.
Fear nodded, and his head rose to check on the other clans.
He looked toward Amber first, where Ander stood at the center of the knot with his second and third officers.
Fear always saw through us; did he know we could read the way he checked in on Ander and Nixi before anyone else?
Then, beyond. His gaze skipped quickly over the clans.
“Malachite needs to keep better discipline,” he muttered.
His gaze went up to the mirrors that lined the arena, which reflected frozen scenes from the labyrinth: moments where we had been caught in mid-stroke fighting—there were none of Fear and me together, because that would strike mortal fancy—and one where a shifter sprawled out dead.
Fear only looked grim for a moment, bitterness and hate flashing across his face as he looked up at the crowd before it was controlled.
He was once again the charming, careless prince.
It reminded me to control my own expression, though I doubted I was wholly successful.
Keeping my thoughts off my face had never been my strong suit.
“Not Bismyth,” he murmured to me, knowing my question without me needing to voice it. “Selenite. They wear light gray accents.”
The corpses of the monsters had been hauled out of the labyrinth. They were laid in long rows like trophies, larger ones near the center, smaller ones flanking.
The Selenite shifter had been covered in their clan’s banner.
All the other banners still swayed about their clans, carried by newer recruits; Sera had the pole for Bismyth’s banner braced in the hollow of her arm, the flag hanging down above her head.
Fear made a small gesture, and she lowered the banner as a sign of respect.
All around the arena, the banners dipped.
A Selenite woman bent over one of them and did not weep. The crowd was watching.
“Selenite has been loyal to the queen,” Fear whispered to me. “You see how she repays our loyalty.”
I nodded, appreciating the way he tried to teach me about the clans and the monsters.
Bismyth lined up to bow. So did the other clans.
Each clan leader took the dais step in turn, and the queen, who was radiant in white and gold, accepted their bows with the patient generosity of a hostess receiving guests at her own party.
Mortals in the lower tiers cheered. Fae in the higher tiers smiled careful smiles, the kind one wore at the theater.
Theater. That was what it was.
Theater where we fought and died as the entertainment.
Anayla touched my arm, then began to bow, and I followed her lead. I bent toward the crowd, showing them respect though none of them grieved our deaths. Something cold and hard seized me, a shell that allowed me to be blank-faced.
The queen stepped forward, smiling. “In celebration, I am pleased to bestow the highest reward this kingdom has to offer to mortals every night of the Hunt. Tonight, I have chosen a worthy young man to be raised.”
She was going on, but the sound was muffled in my ears. A young man? Not Tay, not Tay. My blood hummed in my ears.
Fear’s hand found my shoulder. He moved to my side, as if he were my anchor. “Not Tay. Look, Cara. It will never be Tay.”
I raised my gaze. My vision had gone dark at the edges, tunneled as it had become during the monster fights, and it took me a moment to see the young man making his way across the dais to the queen.
He knelt before the queen. She laid her hand on his forehead.
I slid my arm around Fear’s waist, letting myself lean into him, because the crowd was exultant, and if it had not been for Fear, I would’ve felt alone.
When the once-mortal man rose to his feet, his face was sharper and more handsome; he stood taller than he had before. He was weeping openly with what looked like joy.
The mortals in the lower tiers were standing. Cheering. Some of them had begun to weep, too, at the promise of it. I could be next. I could be raised. I could be one of them.
If only we were obedient. If only we endured. If only we were worthy.
Then we could escape the unbearable indignity of being a mortal.
I did not want to watch anymore. But as shifters, we were bound to this arena, to the labyrinth, to bow to the Fae and to serve mortals.
Was I the one who was wrong? The only mortal who seemed to despise the chance of being raised to Fae? I wanted my own magic. Not theirs.
“I have to get out of here,” I whispered to Fear.
He didn’t look away from the queen on the dais. His lips barely moved. “Go.”
I walked confidently out of the arena toward one of the many doors that led back into the barracks. Or at least, I tried to.
I found myself in a service corridor. I walked down one hallway after another, my rage giving way to the embarrassing sensation of being lost.
When I turned a corner, I found myself in a busy corridor.
Servants in dark clothes rushed back and forth.
At least I must be close to the dining hall and barracks.
I slipped through the crowd, trying to find my way out.
The scent of wine and fresh bread and sweets mingled in the air, along with shouted organization.
Then I pushed through a door, ducking aside as a mortal rushed past me with an empty tray, and ahead of me was the cavernous dining hall with its tapestries and long tables and candlelight.
I only had a moment of relief before someone seized my arm. “Girl. Malachite is still waiting on wine. Where’s the gratitude?”
I looked up into the face of a shifter dressed in dark green, with dragon scales as epaulets, and an arrogant smirk. I shrugged his hand off. “Not a servant. Not that you should speak that way to them.”
His eyes moved over me, and he frowned. Before he could respond, a second Malachite shifter, a woman this time, paused beside him with the pleasant authority of someone who had never been disobeyed in her life. “Fetch the Saurin red. Last year’s vintage, if they have it. Quickly, girl.”
I had a sword at my hip. I had ichor on my boots from the labyrinth. I had killed a kethryn an hour ago.
But all they could see when they looked at me was a mortal, and that meant all they saw was a servant.
I glanced over my shoulder, but these two were the only other shifters who seemed to have escaped the arena already. I had no support from Bismyth or Amber, and I was keenly aware of how much shorter, smaller, slower I was than these two shifters.
“At once,” a cheerful voice said at my elbow. Heida, appearing in the corner of my vision, looped her arm through mine. “I’ll show you how we serve the wine.”
She pulled me away. Back into the mass of servants, then out again into the hush of the empty antechamber outside the dining hall. “They never remember our faces,” she confided. “They won’t notice you don’t come back.”
Then suddenly, she seemed to realize how she was touching me, and she yanked away abruptly. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. I—” I glanced back, worried the shifters would follow us out. “Come with me.”
“I should get back to work,” she said, but she followed me.
I glanced around for a place to hide. Then I led her into the life dome.
She gaped up at the ceiling. Mortal, Fae, and shifter lives hung in a kaleidoscope of stars above us. Dappled light fell on both our faces, turning her skin to the shades of blue and purple and white from the stars above.
The dullest stars represented mortals stripped of their magic. When Heida stared up, her lips parting in wonder, it was the Fae and shifter stars that seemed to cast magic over us both.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” There was no keeping the bitterness from my voice. My anger had been building since we emerged from the tunnel, as my relief shifted into something else entirely. “Thank you for rescuing me.”
“Oh, I thought I was rescuing them.” Heida turned a wide-eyed, innocent look on me. “It would be so rude of you to kill them when I’m on dining hall cleanup duty tonight.”
I grinned. But it only lasted a moment. I was still so troubled by what I’d just seen. “Did you watch the raising?”
“No. I have to lay out Bismyth’s requests in the barracks. I don’t mind.” She added that last hastily as she saw my face change. “It only stings me to watch anyway. It’s so rare to be raised. I can’t imagine it will ever happen for me.”
“Is it so terrible to be mortal?”
In this world, it was. I knew that. I had been seized by that monstrous Fae who had intended to kill me for his own pleasure, and if I had been a regular mortal servant, no one would’ve cared. The thought was sour.
“You’re giving us all hope it doesn’t have to be.” Heida’s eyes were lit with hope. “If we can become shifters—if the prince has really found a way—imagine what we can do.”
Her gaze rose to search the stars. “Imagine having a brighter star.”
The story that he could create shifters from mortals was one of Fear’s many decoys, and her joy made something twist in my gut. I wanted her to find hope in what was possible, not in a lie.
“Imagine if we were free. To keep our magic to ourselves, to see what we can do with it—”