Chapter 16
Zeriel’s last words echo in my skull as we step back into his quarters. The chamber feels suddenly closer, as if even the stone walls have ears. He drops the bundle of clothing onto the bed with little ceremony. I perch on the mattress beside it, careful, tense.
“I don’t believe I mentioned,” he says without prompting, “that this year the Ironhold will host all fourteen provincial champions for the Emperor’s Tournament.”
My stomach tightens. “Which means?”
“They’ll begin arriving within the week, with their entourages. An entire floor has been set aside for them. More bodies. More ears.” His gaze hooks mine—dark, hard, gleaming. “More eyes on us.”
I swallow. “Which means we’ll have less freedom?”
“Precisely. Which is why we begin now.” His stare drags over me, assessing. “And given how quickly you’re moving again”—his mouth tightens—“we don’t need to wait as long as I thought.”
My skin prickles. “Wait for what?”
“Your preparation.” The word comes like a sentence passed. He turns, unlocking the trunk at the foot of his bed with a key drawn from a chain around his throat. The mechanism snaps open with a sound that echoes loud in the chamber. From inside, he lifts a bundle wrapped in black cloth.
I lean forward despite myself. “Which involves?”
“A visit to the dragon pens, after the handlers retire for the night. Which is within the hour.”
My heart lurches. “Tonight?”
“That’s right.” He doesn’t look at me as he unwraps the bundle, revealing a vial of dark liquid and a slender, curved blade. He lays them on the table. “The Emperor’s Tournament begins in less than three weeks. Time is not my ally.”
Selen’s warning echoes sharp as frost in my ribs: People are watching you now… you must not get caught again.
“And what exactly will we do in the dragon pens?” I ask, keeping my voice level even as tension winds itself through me like wire.
“Test your… connection.” His eyes rise to meet mine. “See if what happened in the pit was chance, or something more.”
The air thickens, charged. “And if it was something more?”
“Then we forge it into a weapon.” He simply gestures to the clothes. “Choose the darkest. Selen gave you options.”
My hands don’t quite tremble as I sift through the pile, pulling out a charcoal tunic and black trousers. But the weight of his eyes follows me as I cross the room. Without giving him the satisfaction of a glance, I slip into the adjoining chamber and shut the door behind me.
I press my back against the wood, lungs tight, breath shallow. So this is happening.
Helping Zeriel Caelith in his reckless, treasonous mission.
And what unsettles me most isn’t the treason.
It’s how some part of me wants to see what happens next.
I let out a long breath, trying to gather scraps of calm.
Then I open my eyes to the dim bathing chamber.
For a prison fortress, it’s surprisingly spacious: another privilege afforded to champions.
Stone walls glisten faintly with condensation, a metal basin gleams with running water, and from one corner of the ceiling hangs a spout for a private shower.
In case the precious champion prefers not to bathe with the commoners.
I strip quickly, eager to be dressed again before Zeriel decides to rush me.
But as I drag the tunic over my head, something catches my eye: a pale mark on dark stone.
I pause, tugging the cloth free, then move closer.
Behind the water basin, half-concealed, a hand has etched words into the wall with chalk.
“My name was inked in blood, not gold,
And blood will call when tales are told.
Though scattered now, we share one breath,
Our story waits beyond their death.”
I freeze, staring. They seem to almost shimmer in the dim light, carrying weight beyond their simple presence. Poetry? A code? A warning?
My thoughts leap to Zeriel. His quarters. His wall. His hand?
Tomas’s voice resurfaces: “Son of the disgraced House Caelith… backed the wrong faction in the court. Instead of execution, he chose the arena. Been fighting his way back to honor for two years now…”
“My name was inked in blood, not gold,” suggests someone who gained their reputation through violence rather than wealth or privilege. Fitting for the arena champion.
But the rest… blood will call when tales are told… It doesn’t sound like the man I’ve seen: brutal, calculating, ice-edged. This feels older. Fae-old. Careful. A blade hidden in verse.
Though scattered now, we share one breath… Who are the “scattered”? The fallen courts? The bloodlines fractured when magic was outlawed? Or something Zeriel still ties himself to, long after the empire tried to burn it away?
By the time I dress, the verse is still circling in my skull. Whoever Zeriel Caelith is, he isn’t just an arena brute. And maybe that’s more dangerous.
I school my face to calm as I step back into his chamber.
Whatever he’s scrawled on his walls, whatever he's hiding behind that mask of his, I’ll keep to myself, for now—just like my conversation with Selen.
I’m starting to sense that power trades in secrets here, and I’ve only just begun collecting.
“Ready?” Zeriel doesn’t look up, his attention still on a map sprawled across the table.
“As I’ll ever be,” I murmur, the verse I found in his chamber still whispering at the edges of my mind. “Though I’m still convinced this is madness.”
“Madness,” he says evenly, rolling the map into a cylinder with a snap, “would be ignoring an advantage when it falls into your lap.”
“Or drags you down into its grave,” I counter under my breath.
His mouth twitches, not quite a smile. “That depends who’s holding the shovel.”
He ties the map, steps closer, his presence filling the space, eyes fixing on me. “The guards move with precision. Twenty minutes after the western corridor patrol, fifty before the pens are checked again. That is our window.”
Like that means anything to me. The Ironhold is a maze carved from the bones of mountains, and without a guide, I’m just another lost rat in its belly.
“And if we’re caught?” I ask.
“Then you follow my lead, of course. A champion can excuse much as training. Though not everything.”
“Comforting,” I mutter, but my throat feels tight.
He picks up the vial of dark liquid and the curved blade from the table. “Follow me. Step where I step. And for once, keep that tongue of yours still.”
“Careful,” I murmur as I slip after him into the corridor, “if I go silent, you might miss the best part of this adventure.”
This time, the corner of his mouth does lift, quick and unwilling, before vanishing as he turns away.
The chill of the stone bites through my shoes as I follow, shadows pooling thick between the torches. Zeriel moves through them, his tall frame cutting a path I can’t help but take.
Selen’s warning claws at my mind: People are watching you now. You must not get caught again.
The risks ahead are bone-deep, maybe worse than I can even grasp. And yet, for the second time tonight, something stirs in me. Not fear. Something sharper. Alive. A pull toward whatever waits in the dragon pens.
Maybe it’s the chance to unravel what happened with the ashblood dragon.
Or maybe it’s the thrill of walking straight back into danger in a prison that’s taken everything and still expects me to kneel.
Or perhaps it’s the fact that, for better or worse, I’m stepping into the unknown beside a man who scrawls verses about blood and death on his bathroom wall. There’s a kind of poetry in that, too.