He wouldn’t lie, I tell myself. Not after everything.
Still, doubt slips in, sharp like a splinter beneath the skin. I remember the first time I questioned him about offering the ring. How he said it would help me to control the magic, only to later explain that it was actually making him aware of when I’d need help. How I’d never questioned it further.
I remind myself that here he is, standing beside me, risking everything without hesitation.
I want to believe that means something. No, I need it to.
We move deeper into the estate. The marble floors gleam, and the sconces cast a soft, golden light. Everything around us seems immaculate, but the illusion shatters when I notice the servants.
Red hair. All of them.
They move quietly, scrubbing, polishing, scurrying around with pots and rugs in their hands. Rust Hollow’s women. The exiled. Each of them wears crude metal gloves, the ones Zyrel demonstrated during the Spectra Judicium.
I halt to a stop, anger flaring like fire through my veins. I grab the arm of a young woman kneeling at the base of a column.
“What are you doing here?” My voice comes out too sharp.
The girl flinches. “Working, my lady,” she says quickly, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Willingly?” I demand.
Kaelzar’s hand brushes mine, a gentle nudge to release the terrified girl. I let go, dimly aware of how unfair I’m being, yet powerless to stop the anger churning inside me.
“We were given a choice, my lady,” the girl says, eyes fixed on the floor. “Stay in Rust Hollow or… come here. Work for free but be fed.” Her throat bobs with a hard swallow. “Many of us chose to serve for food and a bed.”
My fists clench, knuckles whitening as anger eats away at my resolve. I tried so hard to save them. To fight for a better life for them, for the life my mother was denied. And yet here they are, serving, scrubbing. Because they chose to.
Something cracks inside me.
“Work for free?” My voice spikes, sharp and loud. “He made you into slaves. And you’re just going along with that?”
The words curdle on my tongue, bitter and useless. Everything I’ve done in the arena, every promise I dared to throw into the wind, it dissolved the moment I stepped out. Out here, none of it holds weight. At least not to them, it seems.
What else don’t I know? How long has this been happening? How long have they been working here? The girl shrinks back, eyes wide with fear.
“Ryker had to know,” I hiss, bitter heat curling in my bones. “He had to have approved this.”
“Once you are Archpriestess,” Kaelzar says quietly, “you’ll fix it.”
I take a long, deep breath, trying to calm myself. I can’t fall apart now. Not while Peonica’s still missing. So I tear my gaze away from the red-haired women and keep walking, but their images stay with me. Tied-back hair. Iron gloves. Hollow eyes. I see them every time I blink.
Kaelzar’s shadows guide us to a pair of mahogany doors guarded by two armored men.
“Move,” I say, unfurling my whip to the floor. Rot oozes from its tip in slow, sinister tendrils, curling over the rugs in a warning. The guards don’t move.
I tap one red nail against the hilt of my whip.
“Three. Two…” I almost smile, watching them hesitate. I can’t harm them, not directly. But there’s nothing in the rules about touching the things around them.
“One.”
The whip lashes out with a crack, slashing across the doors. Rot explodes through the wood like invisible termites from hell. The frame groans, blackens, and collapses inward on itself.
There’s more magic in me than ever before, and I can feel how different it is now from when my power first awakened. It spills over in a heavy torrent. Before, it was too thin to sustain for long, burning out almost as soon as I released it. Now it surges in a dense rush that feels endless, as if it could devour the whole city if I let it.
The doors are gone in seconds, reduced to drifting ash. I find myself grateful for all the times Kaelzar forced me to practice control, despite my grumbling and stubborn refusal. Even now, I know I’m far from mastering it, but without his training, this power would have spiraled out of control long ago.
The guards stumble back, terror overtaking duty, and flee. Through the widening hole in the wood, I see them: Mael, Consul Montagueand a few others I don’t recognize. A gathering of smug faces and half-filled glasses, frozen mid-sip. They stare at me like I’m a ghost.
