Chapter 41
The transport vessel vibrates as we hurtle toward our unknown destination. I shift uncomfortably on the bench, my back aching from the posture I've maintained for what feels like hours. The air inside is thick with the smell of metal and tension.
Across the narrow aisle, Elara sits beside her champion, Sorven Varrin of the Volcanic Belt, a powerfully built man with corded arms and the kind of steady, coal-dark gaze that sizes up both your worth and your weakness in the same breath.
Elara’s and my eyes meet briefly, but she gives only the slightest nod before looking away.
The other ward I spoke to at the emperor's banquet—the younger woman whose name I never caught—sits three spaces down, her gaze fixed on her hands. No one speaks. It’s almost as if everyone fears at this point that anything they do might be somehow utilized and turned against them.
Zeriel leans his head back against the wall, eyes closed, but I can tell from the tension in his jaw that he's far from relaxed.
One hand rests on his thigh, fingers splayed, ready to move at the slightest provocation.
Every so often, his eyelids flicker, tracking something in the darkness behind them.
With no windows and no indication of our trajectory, time becomes fluid, stretching and contracting until I lose all sense of how long we've been traveling.
Hours, certainly. Most of us have had to get up and use the small, adjoining lavatory chamber.
Perhaps half a day. The not-knowing feels intentional.
Another way to keep us guessing, off-balance.
Just as I'm beginning to wonder if we'll be trapped in this metal coffin forever, the vessel shudders. My stomach lurches as we begin to descend, the angle steep enough that I have to brace myself against the bench. Zeriel's eyes open, his posture immediately alert.
“We're landing,” Champion Maeve of the Coastal Reaches murmurs next to me, her voice barely audible.
The descent continues for several minutes, the vessel occasionally banking sharply left or right. Finally, with a bone-jarring thud, we touch down. The beating of wings winds down to silence, leaving only the faint pings of settling metal.
For a long moment, nothing happens. Then the heavy door at the end of the compartment begins to grind open. Pale, misty light spills in, carrying the scent of damp earth touched by something faintly acrid and strange, a note that prickles at the back of the throat.
“Champions,” a voice calls from outside. “Please exit.”
Zeriel rises smoothly, and I follow, my legs protesting after hours of stillness. Together, we move toward the exit, the first to disembark.
The sight that greets us takes the breath from my chest.
We’ve landed in a vast clearing ringed by a forest unlike anything I’ve ever seen.
The trees soar skyward, their trunks as wide as small houses, but it’s their glow that stops me cold: a blue-green luminescence pulsing faintly beneath the bark, following the slow paths of their sap.
The light drifts upward through the canopy, shifting and rippling as the breeze stirs the leaves, turning the whole forest into something unearthly and unsettling all at once.
Mist drifts around our ankles, catching the glow from the trees in faint ribbons of color. The air tastes different here. Richer, heavier, charged with something that makes my skin prickle in a different way than iron.
A man in the formal attire of an imperial supervisor steps forward. His uniform bears an emblem of a sinuous dragon with luminous markings, coiled around what appears to be a lantern. The same emblem as Raine Selwyn, Champion of the Twilight Forests.
“Champions and friends of champions,” he announces, his voice carrying across the clearing with practiced authority. “Welcome to the Twilight Forests.”
I glance at Zeriel, whose eyes are sweeping the perimeter with careful assessment.
The Twilight Forests. The name stirs a distant memory.
Stories I’d heard as a child, the odd map of the empire I’d glimpsed with its fourteen provinces.
This one lies far from the Capital, one of the outer territories, known for rare resources… and other things I don’t recall.
The supervisor continues as the other champions file out behind us. “I am Overseer Pellvorn. I'll be coordinating your stay in this province.”
As the last of the champions emerges, I spot the local champion among the officials gathered to one side. Raine Selwyn, long-limbed and poised, her features stark in the forest’s glow, her black hair merging with the shadows like it belongs to them.
“This year's tournament,” Overseer Pellvorn announces, “will be quite unique. Rather than confining the events to a single arena, we'll be showcasing the glory of the empire by traveling to selected provinces for each stage. What better way to celebrate our diverse land?”
Murmurs ripple through the gathered champions.
“Unprecedented,” I hear Damiar of the Mountain Territories breathe behind me.
I glance at Zeriel, and his expression confirms he’s thinking the same. I’d thought the Emperor’s Tournament had always been held in the Imperial Coliseum, where the court can watch in comfort and convenience.
“We begin here, in the Twilight Forests,” Pellvorn continues.
“Tomorrow morning, the preliminaries will commence in the Umbral Arena. Despite not participating, attendance is mandatory for all champions and their entourages.” His gaze sweeps over us.
“I suggest you all get an early night. The forest can be... disorienting for newcomers.”
Only now do I notice the structures circling the clearing: a dozen wooden lodges, elegant in their lines yet unmistakably utilitarian, their walls threaded with faintly glowing fungi, their windows protected by bars. Above each door hangs a provincial emblem, stark against the wood.
“Your accommodations,” Pellvorn says, his tone almost pleasant. “Comfortable, though far from indulgent. This is, after all, a tournament of skill… not comfort.”
With that, Pellvorn inclines his head in a nod, signaling our dismissal.
The champions immediately begin to disperse toward their assigned lodges.
Zeriel is the first to spot ours, closest to the clearing's edge, marked with the Capital's imperial emblem. We follow the narrow path to it, our steps sinking soundlessly into the moss.
Inside, the space is larger than I expect. A main living area, a small kitchen nook, and three separate bedrooms. The furniture is simple but well-crafted, the walls adorned with tapestries depicting forest scenes that seem to shift subtly when viewed from different angles.
Zeriel secures the door behind us, checking the locks before examining each room methodically.
I sink onto a cushioned chair, my legs still unsteady from the journey. “Why move the tournament around? And why start here, of all places?” I say quietly.
He shakes his head, then pauses by the window, gazing out at the glowing forest. “This province has always been... different. Less controlled.”
Meaning close to the unrest? We’ll find out more tomorrow, whether we want to or not.
I watch Zeriel, the blue-green light from outside casting strange shadows across his face. Our interrupted conversation in his quarters feels like it happened in another lifetime, but questions still burn within me.
I wait for him to collect a jug of water from the kitchen and pour a glass for each of us. Then he faces the window, drinking deeply.
“Zeriel,” I start, and the sound of his name makes him pause mid-sip. “Just… about your family. Were they really guilty of the treason?”
His shoulders stiffen. He doesn’t turn right away, as though bracing against the question. When he finally does, it’s slow, reluctant. Not the careful composure of someone rehearsing a lie, but like a man dragged into a room he never wanted to enter. He sets his glass down with deliberate control.
“No.” The word is low. Clipped. Final.
I wait, but he offers nothing more. “Then what happened?”
His jaw works, muscle flexing. When he speaks again, the words sound carved out of him.
“House Malvric happened. We were getting too close to the emperor’s inner circle.
Too much sway for their liking. They planted evidence.
Claimed we were smuggling weapons along with rebel factions.
” His voice flattens, controlled, but I see his hands curl slightly at his sides, betraying the restraint.
“By the time my father realized what they’d done, the verdict was already written. ”
The words land heavy in my chest, raw with conviction. If he’s lying, it’s buried so deep even he can’t see it anymore.
“And… Celisse?” I press, quieter.
The change is immediate. Pain flickers across his face, so raw it jolts through me. “Part of the same setup.” The words cut like glass.
My pulse spikes. “How?”
“She was... they used her...” The syllables are bitten off, more force than speech, as though saying them strips something out of him. He stops there, the rest lodged in his throat, his eyes fixed on a point far beyond this room.
I know I won’t get more tonight, but the shards of truth he’s given feel heavier than the pieces he’s refused to give.
He turns back to the window, his tall frame casting a long silhouette, the forest’s glow tracing the hard planes of his stance.
I can’t tell if he’s looking for answers out there or just somewhere to put the weight he refuses to share.
And if this is only part of the story, I’m not sure I want to hear the rest.
Celisse was family, their own blood. How could the Malvrics have played a part in her demise?
What kind of minds would contrive such a plot?
Yet it’s either them—or Zeriel, agreeing to murder his defenseless wife.
Judging by my impressions of Blaise so far, I can’t help the feeling that the former is less farfetched.