Page 134 of The Heart Trials

It’s a good plan. Not foolproof, but it’s the plan we have. It will work. It has to. I know what they do with thieves. If they catch us, whatever they do will be far worse.

We can’t fail.

The room waits in a silence that tightens around us. My stomach knots, but Caelus’s hand finds mine. Then the air shifts as the doors to our waiting room open. The arena roars so loudly the walls tremble.

“Courage. Loyalty. Strength.”

I go still.

Caelus squeezes my hand again. Not soft this time—urgent.

It’s time.

45

Hand in hand, Caelus and I step from the waiting room into the bright sunlit arena.

“Rhianne said there will be two specific guards who stand aside when we try to escape,” he whispers. “When it’s time, look for the safe ones.”

I squeeze his hand in understanding, the knot in me too tight to form actual words as my bare feet find hot stone. We’re going to make it out of here. If we produce the shards, they’ll be even easier to steal. This will work.

The heat from the torches above burns golden patterns across the floor. The entire amphitheater pulses with sound—screaming, cheering, chanting. I didn’t expect this to be such a show. The noise slams into me like a wave and knocks my heart sideways.

Every seat is filled.

Skyborn citizens, cloaked in finery, lean forward in anticipation like this is a meal they’ve waited ten years for. The banners above them snap with the wind—purple and silver, stitched with the symbol of the Citadel: a fist gripping a heart. Beneath them, the arena floor gleams, inlaid with mirrors and gilded carvings of statues of lovers. Pearls sear their eyes, sapphires glitter in their crowns, and trails of emeralds trace the folds of their robes. Gold filigree curls around the gemstones like vines, catching every flicker of light.

It shifts and I notice a faint haze looming over the audience, drifting along the edges of the arena like a thin ring of clouds that wasn’t there when we were here before. Or maybe it was but I didn’t notice. It shimmers faintly, nearly invisible—just a trick of the light, unless the sun catches it right.

“Do you see that?” I whisper to Caelus. “It’s another Scent.” Scents are like Heartfillers released as gas. “Do you know what kind that one is?”

He glances toward the haze. “That one dulls the connection between the mind and heart, which deadens feelings of empathy—you can watch someone beg for mercy and feel nothing but indifference. Everything produced or grown in Skyhaven is soaked in it.” He pauses. “That’s why I didn’t mind when they stripped my room. Less of it for me to breathe. It’s why being in the arena with you was so refreshing.”

Caelus grips my hand tighter than before. The others emerge behind us.

Ivy’s eyes flicker with nervous glances, as if she’s trying to see every angle at once, searching for a way out—or a way through. I search for the fury she held days ago. The one that made me believe she might finally turn on Rhythe. But I can’t find it. Maybe it was never real in the first place.

Rhythe is a statue, stone-faced and silent beside her.

Kade and Talia stand together, stiff and silent—there is no love between them. Talia’s heavy-lidded eyes are swollen. I watch her for some hint of what she thinks of Rhythe. Has she broken ranks?

As if Talia can hear my thoughts, her gaze snaps to me. Her gray eyes are glassy, but there’s a rage behind them—a storm held back by sheer will.

It gives me a sliver of hope that Rhythe’s plan to kill the Benevolent might destroy him too.

Dorian trails at the rear, eyes sunken, body moving like something half-dead. Still sick with grief over Mae. I move closer to him. “Dorian.”

But he shrugs past me with a harsh glance, too shattered to want to hear anything I could say. I ache for him. He will be disqualified. When this goes wrong, will they kill him? The worry spiraling through me coils around my own fears for Serafina, the orphanage, Caelus and me getting out of here, and it’s tight and suffocating. I stare straight ahead as we move to the dais at the center of the arena.

Two chalices wait on a pedestal carved from crystal and set in steel. The platform rises above the arena, steps spiraling up from the floor to a throne shadowed beneath golden canopies. There, seated in opulence, the Benevolent watches us.

His glare is ice.

“Ascend! Ascend! Ascend!” The crowd chants over and over. A rhythm of devotion, of expectation blaring in my ears as we are directed to our own raised platforms, arced around the stage. The stone floor is warm, polished to a shine so bright it reflects flashes of gold from the overhead torches. Caelus walks beside me, our hands still locked.

We ascend the short stairs that lead to our designated platform—where the chalices glow on their gold pedestal. The platforms are high enough to give the crowd a clear view of our every expression, every twitch of doubt, every flicker of fear.

The chanting keeps rising, louder, faster, crashing like a storm tide.