“Are you hurt?” Elyria asked, examining the fae with alarm.
He waved away her concern. “Fear not, beautiful,” he said, the flirtatious lilt of his tone dragging Elyria’s inspecting gaze back to his face so she could give him a pointed look. “I’ll survive.”
He shifted his focus across the cavern to where Belien sat on his knees, staring over the edge of the chasm. There was something vacant about the look on his face, something sharper than despondence, darker than disbelief over Leona’s fall. It sent a shiver up Elyria’s spine.
The ground was still, the cavern hauntingly quiet. As if Leona’s death had satisfied the labyrinth. With a groan, Elyria sat up, testing her limbs and prodding gently at her abdomen. Pain radiated through her body, her muscles tender and strained, but nothing was torn, nothing broken. She raked a hand down her face, grateful to note that her nose had stopped bleeding too.
Her shoulders sagged, relief and exhaustion chasing the adrenaline from her blood, and for a few moments, all four champions sat in silence. Elyria didn’t think she could move even if she wanted to.
The sound of shifting metal and thattugfrom within her forced Elyria’s eyes to the cavern entrance just as Cedric came into view, his chest heaving. Surprise and an annoyingly disproportionate amount ofrelief lit her from the inside when she saw him.
Zephyr emerged at the knight’s side, her large green eyes taking in the scene before them—the piles of shattered stone, the champions on the floor, the split in the ground.
Kit’s head whipped to the newly arrived champions. “Gael?” she asked.
Zephyr nodded and cast a look behind her, where a pale-faced Gael stepped out from a shadow. Elyria’s eyebrows shot up as she realized the fae was propped up by the formerly-missing Tenebris Nox.
“Well, fuck me,” Thraigg whispered as he skidded to a stop next to them, his blue eyes scanning the broken cavern before falling on Elyria, Kit, and Cyren. He cleared his throat with a low cough. “Glad to see ye’re still alive.”
“Most of us,” Kit said, a sadness in her tone that had Elyria’s throat tightening with pride. She had such a good heart. As awful as Leona was, Kit didn’t relish her death.
Unfortunately, her empathy didn’t seem to make much of a difference to Belien, who was suddenly whipping his head between the two groups of champions—Elyria, Kit, and Cyren still sitting on the other side of the rift, Cedric, Zephyr, Thraigg, Gael, and Nox at the cavern’s entrance—as if he just remembered he wasn’t alone.
He staggered to his feet, his face a twisted mask of anguish. Eyes bloodshot, his breaths came in shallow gasps—speeding up and slowing down in an erratic pattern, like he was fighting a growing panic.
A pang of pity ran through Elyria. Belien was an absolute asshole, but he had now lost his sister and Leona both. He was without allies. How alone he must have felt. Elyria’s eyes flicked to his token, which glimmered weakly with his residual mana. How alone and how powerless.
“You.” His voice was a rasping snarl, filled with venom and despair. Elyria returned her gaze to his face, expecting to find his malice directed at Cyren, Kit, or herself.
It wasn’t.
Belien’s hand trembled as he raised it at Cedric, his expression shifting—turning darker, more hateful—with each infinitesimal degree he lifted his arm. “You were supposed to be the one to save us. We cameto try, came to do right by our people, but it was always supposed to be you, wasn’t it? Champion of Kingshelm. Savior of Havensreach.” Sneering, he took several steps toward Cedric. “Look at you now.”
Cedric mirrored his movements, moving away from Zephyr, Gael, Thraigg, and Nox, all of whom had fanned into the cavern behind him. “I never claimed to be anyone’s savior.”
Belien’s laugh was bitter. Hollow. “Now you stand withthem.From the instant you arrived at Castle Lumin, you’ve been clamoring to join forces with them. Jumping at every opportunity to work with our enemy. Betraying your own kind. Becoming atraitor.And for what? So they can steal the crown right out of your hands when you make it to the end? So they can continue to hoard the land and power of Arcanis while more of us die each day?”
Cedric’s jaw hardened. “That’s not true. The Arbiter said?—”
“Fuck the Arbiter.” Belien took another step toward Cedric, the two of them now standing on parallel sides of the rift in the ground. “All this talk of unity, ofharmony. It’s bullshit. They’ll only continue doing what they always do. Stepping on our necks to raise themselves higher.”
Elyria’s breath hitched. The tension in the air was so thick she could have sliced right through it. But the labyrinth had already shown them what became of fighting in here. “It’s over, Belien,” she said. “Let it go. You don’t have to end up like them.”
It was the wrong thing to say.
Belien whirled toward her, hand clamped around his token. “I won’t let this be what Belis gave her life for. I won’t let Leona have died for nothing.”
Belien raised his hand and time seemed to slow. Using his magic to draw a jagged piece of stone from the floor, he carved its razor-sharp edge into the underside of his forearm. Crimson spilled down both sides of his wrist, dripping onto the floor like raindrops summoned straight from the fourth quarter of hell.
That’s when Elyria felt it.
Felt the power emanating off the sorcerer in palpable waves. Heard the magic crackling through the air. Saw the dark scarlet veins blooming under Belien’s eyes.
“Blood magic.” Kit’s voice was barely a whisper as the groupwatched the heinous transformation unfold.
Magic rolled off Belien, ricocheting off the stone walls of the cavern in random bursts as if he couldn’t contain it. The other champions were in disarray, trying to avoid the crimson bolts of power. Zephyr yelped as one struck alarmingly close, Nox pulling her into the shadows just before it bounced back.
But Elyria’s gaze was still on Belien. Gray-blue eyes transformed into a deep, burning red as he met Elyria’s wide-eyed stare. The side of his mouth tipped up in a dark smile and she knew. He was going to kill her.
