Chapter 36
Selen's smile is cold and just as sharp as Zeriel’s expression. “First, you must survive the games, whether you're able to use your gifts or not.” She steps back, surveying the ravine, seeming to suddenly shift focus. “Speaking of which… let’s take a moment to introduce the rest of the class.”
She turns to face the rest of the group, who have gathered closer now that the danger has passed. “Each of you has been practicing. How about you show us what you've learned? One by one. Just a glimpse.”
Nyx steps forward first, rolling her shoulders like she’s about to break up a bar fight.
Her gaze sweeps over the rocky slope until it lands on a half-buried spearhead, long since snapped from its shaft.
She raises her hand, palm open, and the metal stirs, shivering loose from the dirt like a snake waking from hibernation.
It slithers across the gravel into her grasp, where it coils lazily around her wrist before going rigid again. She smirks.
“For some reason, metal calls to my blood,” she says. “Must be the smithing side of my family.”
I watch, transfixed, as she uncoils the metal from her wrist and lets it fall back to the gravel.
Not smithing. More likely a remnant of the old forge traditions.
Bloodlines once tied to craftsmanship and transformation, fae who could shape what others only wielded. Perhaps Nyx is descended from them.
Lira moves next, every step fluid and sure.
She kneels and presses both palms to the ground.
The soil ripples under her touch, then splits.
A tiny seedling forces its way through the crack, stretching upward with unsettling speed.
Its leaves unfurl in a slow curl, their edges serrated like tiny blades, and the stem bristles with hooked thorns that catch the light.
My mouth hangs open. Life where there was none a moment ago. Growth that should take seasons forced in seconds. A briarblood, maybe. I’ve heard stories of those; fae whose ancestral magic was bound to living growth…
“Who knew I had a green thumb?” she says, grinning, pride bright in her eyes.
Vex hesitates before stepping forward. She flicks a quick glance at Zeriel, then at me, before closing her eyes. When she opens them again, the color has deepened, her gaze unnervingly focused.
She nods toward a small stone about twenty feet away.
“That rock’s got a quartz core with three different mineral bands. There’s a fossil shard on the east side—looks Third Age—and a hooktail tucked under the base.”
She blinks, and her eyes soften back to normal.
“Not magic sight exactly,” she says. “More like tuning in to every detail. Shifts my perception into… overdrive.”
I guess that would’ve been a useful tool for an assassin. But I’m not sure what her bloodlines might be…
Talyra moves with quiet confidence. She shifts her stance, and for a moment my eyes can’t track her properly. Her outline seems to waver, flicker, split into two, then three overlapping shapes before settling again.
It’s not speed so much as misdirection, a trick of movement and angles that makes my focus slip.
“Displacement,” she says. “We probably picked it up from…” The words catch, her teeth pressing into her lip. Her gaze flickers to the empty space at her side, and for a moment her eyes shine wet. Then she backs away without another word.
I can’t help wondering where her twin is. It feels wrong to see them apart. Even without speaking to them, I’d sensed they were inseparable. Hard to imagine one enrolling in this without the other.
The chestnut-haired fae, who introduces herself as Maris, cups her hands and exhales slowly. The air between her palms whitens, moisture crystallizing into a delicate frost that creeps across her fingers. “Temperature shaping,” she says with a modest shrug.
Tessan, auburn-haired and wiry, simply steps toward the ravine wall. Her movements are measured, controlled, and, to my shock, she walks upward as though the incline is no different from a flat road. “Gravity magic,” she explains.
Sivra, with the deep mahogany hair tied into two braids, steps forward without a word. She kneels, pressing two fingers to a flat stone at her feet. There’s a faint thrum—not loud enough to hear so much as feel—and the pebble gives a tiny shiver before going still.
She straightens and takes three steps back, then closes her eyes. “There,” she says, pointing straight at the stone without hesitation. “I can sense exactly where it is. Could be under a pile of rubble, could be across a field. Doesn’t matter. Once I mark something, I know where it is for a while.”
“I call that tethering,” Selen adds. “Like catching a scent, only this one lasts.”
I can only imagine what mix of blood she might have. It feels like each of us uncovers only fragments, the tip of something vast. Peaks of an iceberg breaking the surface, while beneath lies everything that was lost… the history that was carved out and stolen from us.
The last woman is Kaelin, the blonde. She lifts her hands, palms open. At first, nothing moves. Then her shadow on the ground stirs, stretching unnaturally, writhing like spilled ink.
It lashes toward a loose rock, curling around it before snapping back into place.
Her eyes open, calm. “My shadow obeys me. Selen calls it leashing.”
The Obsidian Court, maybe? Fae whose darkness was said to act on command, clutching, choking, defending. Half-legend… until now? I regard the blonde with wary fascination.
Byron steps forward next. He still doesn’t speak. Instead, he crouches near a nervous lizard perched on a sun-warmed rock. His hand hovers a few inches above its back, and his eyes half-close.
The lizard stills completely, not frozen in fear, but calm, as if the world beyond his hand no longer exists. Its sides stop heaving, muscles loosening until it almost looks asleep. After a few seconds, he lifts his hand, and the creature blinks, scurrying away.
So, Selen wasn’t joking when she said we both have a similar ability. I study Byron more closely, wondering how he picked his up… and why he never seems to talk.
Finally, Ellis clears his throat, clearly reluctant. “Mine’s not something I can easily prove here,” he says. “It only works on living things. When I look at someone, I sense… where they are in the turning of the stars. Like, their alignment… their pull.” He pauses, as if weighing how much to say.
“You mean… you can see the future?” My voice wavers between awe and confusion.
His frown deepens. “Not exactly. I doubt even the stars know the future for certain… I read the pull of things, the direction, not the ending. Like sensing the tide before it breaks.” He shuffles back, shoulders tight, eyes avoiding mine.
A prickle runs through me. His discomfort feels contagious, and I can’t help wondering what he sees ahead—and whether it’s closer than I want to believe.
Selen's focus shifts back to Zeriel and me, her teal eyes gleaming with something that makes my stomach tighten.
“Returning to your question: what am I proposing?” she says.
“Well, the emperor expects compliant spectacles. Blood and anguish. A parade of desperate tricks and tragic endings.” Her mouth curls into a smile that is nothing like humor.
“My idea is to make things more… unpredictable. And, if you’re smart enough, survive. ”
Zeriel doesn’t move, his gaze locked on her, frown carved deep. Ellis is the one to break the hush, his voice quiet. “You mean you want them to… cause disruption.” It’s more a statement than a question. His knuckles look white.
Selen’s mouth curves faintly. “Disruption. Manipulation. Perhaps worse. I can’t give an exact strategy until we’re on the ground.
But I’ll be there with you. Considering the preliminaries, we’ll likely be called to leave the day after tomorrow, travel in the evening, and be in place for Day One.
” She pauses. “The tournament is designed to break people down. My aim is different. I’d prefer to bend it.
Twist it so that it no longer serves the emperor. ”
“That sounds easier said than done, Selen,” Zeriel says, his voice dangerously level.
“As does everything,” she replies. “But I hope, after we arrive, you’ll trust that what I suggest is worth the risk.” Then her voice drops, weightier, suddenly colder. “This might be more important than you realize, Champion, because the stakes may be higher than you can imagine this time.”
Something in her tone presses against my ribs, making it hard to breathe for a moment. I think back to the rumored unrest in the outer provinces. Trouble apparently significant enough to shift the entire location of the games… closer to that trouble?
“And… in the meantime—” My throat feels dry.
Selen’s eyes hold mine and she finishes for me. “In the meantime, you do what you can to prepare.”