I couldn’t read my brother’s expression through the blood and swelling, couldn’t tell anything except that his gaze kept flicking upward, again and again, to the narrow slit in the stone dome above, where a thread of daylight shone like a promise.
The guard followed my stare and chuckled, dragging me back down to my knees.
“Even now, the fool is searching for a way out.” He grinned behind his mask. “As you know, there isn’t one.”
His hand clamped down on my jaw, forcing my face back toward the ring.Yeah, I was going to kill this fucker, and then I’d kill the Overseer and every other bastard here.
“The boss wants you to watch.” His fingers dug in until skin tore. “This will be entertaining, that’s for sure. He doesn’t want you to miss a minute of theexcitement.”
Two things happened at once.
The gate on the opposite side of the ring grated open.
And Nico walked out.
Relief hit me like a punch.
He was on his feet. He was breathing. He didn’t look half-dead, and while it was just like the Overseer to turn ally against ally. Nico would never hurt Emberline.Never.
Then he lifted his head.
His pupils were blown wide, swallowing the pale brown of his irises until his eyes looked wholly black. His skin had a sheen to it, not sweat exactly—something unnatural crawling under the surface, feverish. His jaw worked as if he were chewing on his tongue.
I’d seen that look so many times before. They’d given him the draught. He held a sword sharp enough to carve her head off her shoulders in one strike.
My eyes found Gabriel’s, and even he was leaning forward, face paling beneath the bruising and blood, hands clutching the edge of the metal baluster in front of him. He didn’t know about the draught, but he recognized the danger.
A laughing guard tossed something at her feet, then walked away.
A sword.
Not a blade worthy of a duel. Even from here, I could spot the flaws—metal pocked and tired, a long crack running along one side of the blade like a scar, the tip snapped clean off.
A broken thing, made to fail.
Emberline stared at it for a heartbeat. Then she bent, picked it up with both hands, and tested the weight.
Her knuckles whitened around the hilt as she swungthe too-heavy weapon, her footwork impeccable, her stance perfect.
The Overseer stalked back to me, a satisfied smirk on his face.
“No,” I rasped. “No… don’t do this. Don’t?—”
His smile widened. “What’s the matter, Prisoner 1445? Lost your appetite for blood?”
“Put me in there instead,” I pleaded, beyond pride, beyond anything but saving the female I loved. “I’ll fight him. We’ll give you the spectacle you want. Just let her go free. Her uncle will kill you if you let this happen.”
He chuffed out a dry laugh. “I know for a fact her uncle already believes she is dead, which means she’s mine to do with as I wish. Save your begging, Prisoner 1445; it will be your turn soon enough.”
I didn’t know where to look. At Emberline, braced for that first strike. At Nico, spinning that curved sword like a scythe, nothing on his face except the promise of death. Or at my brother, leaning further out over the railing now, as if he was thinking of jumping.
Two guards shouldered down through the crowd and dragged Gabriel back, pinning him in place with their shoulders, forcing him to watch.
Emberline’s shoulders tightened. “Nico,”she said, voice carrying across the sands as she lifted her broken sword, not to defend herself,but to point at me. “Nico, it’s Emberline. Remember why we’re here. We came to save your friend. We’re here to saveDante.”
He blinked once, then lunged.
Emberline barely got the blade up in time. Metal met metal with a jarring shriek, and the impact drove her back afull step. Nico pressed his advantage immediately, faster than he should’ve been, stronger than any male had the right to be. An empty blankness on his face.
