Admirable fool.
He was going to get himself killed sooner rather than later if he kept acting like that.
Which, of course, didn’t matter in the slightest. She certainly didn’t care if he died.
Unfortunately, she also couldn’t explain why the knot in her chest tightened at the notion.
Elyria pushed the thought away. She had to focus on her present situation. On whatever was comingnext.
The chamber she’d been thrown into was large and spacious. Thick stone bricks etched with intricate carvings made up the walls around them, which were dotted with high, small windows before curving up to form a large domed ceiling that loomed overhead. Wide stone benches and large floor cushions were strewn throughout the space. Tables laden with pitchers of water, bowls of fruit, and plates piled high with cheeses and dried meats dotted the room.
This was a space for recovery. A reward for having survived the harrows of the first trial.
The archway she’d entered from was affixed to the wall on one side, while multiple doors lined the opposite wall. She watched a couple of curious champions try and fail to open all twelve of them.
The air was thick with ancient magic. Eager to test whether the rules from the arena were still in effect, Elyria drew forth the usual magic she used to cloak her wings, shuddering in relief when she found herself able to hide them withease.
A heavy silence swept through the chamber as the other champions soon followed suit—flopping onto cushions or perching on benches to heal, to replenish, to refuel. She tried not to let her vision linger on Cedric and the sylvan woman—Zephyr—in the corner. His gauntlets and vambraces lay in a heap on the bench next to him as she wove some sort of healing magic over the knight’s head.
Kit was close by, scanning the chamber with the same sharp awareness Elyria was wielding. Elyria felt a prickle of pride, then a pang of guilt as she thought of their earlier confrontation—er, make thatconfrontations—and the harsh words they exchanged in Castle Lumin.
Now was not the time for regrets though. Not here. Not with whatever the hells the Arbiter, or the celestials, or whoever designed this stars-damned game had lurking around the next corner.
The next trial. The next danger. That needed to be Elyria’s sole focus—making sure that when the dust finally settled, Kit would still be standing.
Even if Elyria herself wasn’t.
“Still breathing?” Elyria’s voice was rougher than she intended as she stepped closer to Kit.
“For now,” Kit said.
“Good. Let’s try and keep it that way, shall we?”
A sudden tension filled the room. “So...is nobody really going to say it?” Gael said, waving her arms in a wide gesticulation, as if calling the champions to attention. “Fine, I’ll say it. What thefuckwas that?”
“To what, precisely, do you refer?” The nocterrian, Tenebris Nox, was half-buried in shadows as they leaned against the left wall. “The onslaught of fangs and claws? The trek across mountain and valley just to get to another gate?”
“For me, it was the stars-damned dragon at the end,” Thraigg chimed in gruffly.
“And the lack of absolutelyanyinformation whatsoever,” groused the rodent-faced human with sand-colored hair, Alden. During the rundown Kit gave Elyria in the arena, she’d learned he was a “saint,” a title for his talent for healing magic that would have had Elyria snorting with laughter, had an enormous cockroach-like creature not decided to attack at that very moment. She’d long thought human namingconventions for their magic wielders were pointless. They called their mindwielders “sages” and their oracles “seers,” seemingly for no other reason than a desire to distance themselves as far as possible from the Arcanian terms—even if they meant the exact same damned thing.
“Precisely! They throw us into a literal lion’s den and expect us to figure out what to do, where to go?” Leona Blackwood’s voice hovered somewhere between snide and shrill, and it had Elyria cringing.
It also had her begrudgingly concurring, and she didn’t like that. Because shereallydidn’t like Leona.
“We all knew the risks coming in here,” said Cedric, though there was the slightest tremor in his voice.
“We hadno magic!” Leona cried.
Paelin pursed his lips. “Yes, that wasa bit surprising, to be sure.”
“Oh, was it?” Leona spat. “I noticed your wings weren’t affected. You could have simply soared across the entire arena. How is that fair?”
“If only,” Paelin said with a snort. “Would have been nice. Too bad the volacarnii made doing sojust a littletricky.”
Kit tensed at the mention of the creatures. Elyria knew what she was thinking, and was suddenly incredibly grateful that they hadn’t encountered the vicious flying monsters in the arena. They really were nasty pieces of work.
“Could barely get off the ground before they descended,” Paelin continued, pinching his tunic at his waist and holding it out to showcase a large rip in the fabric. “One of them nearly got me.”
