Page 70 of The Heart Trials

Syra wraps me in a dress, tying it painfully tight at the meeting of my ribs—and I see the metal poker tearing through Finn’s chest all over again. She turns me, examining my exposed knobby knees and bony shoulders like I am a doll being put on display.

“Eyes up,” she reminds me. “Show you know how to be Skyborn.”

I meet her eyes. They are sharp, cut like glass, not angry, but focused, and it’s oddly comforting. She doesn’t look at me the way she did when we first met. I’ve passed the first trial and elimination. I’m one step closer to winning. That’s bought some of her respect, it seems. She shellacks my hair into submission and spreads cream all over my face and color onto my lips. But when she grabs Authorized Scent 6—Allure, to spray on me, I grab her wrist.

“No.”

She blinks rapidly as if I just smacked her across the face. “Your real match needs to be sure about you. You cannot take chances.”

“Real match?”

“You may be misguided and emotionally reckless, Contestant Fifty-Four. But you are clever. I know you’re smart enough to not want the prince as a truest-love match even if you’re going on a date with him. You refused him at first. You want to survive. He is not a good choice.”

Cold slithers down my spine.

“Am I wrong?”

“I…No. I don’t believe the prince is my truest match, but—” I search for an excuse that’s believable. “I worried refusing him wouldn’t be smart. He’s the prince.”

She purses her lips as she brushes something shimmery onto my shoulders. “You are right. He is trouble.” Her cold green eyes fix on mine. “If you listen to nothing else I say, stay away from Caelus Altair. He will not survive this tournament.”

The words land like a stone on my chest. I force my expression to stay still and nod slowly, as if I understand. I search her face for more, some hint of what she means. Caelus suspected this when he found out he was in the tournament.

“Good,” she says, making it clear we’re moving on from Caelus. “Who are you interested in?” She makes me sit and slides my feet into shoes that squeeze my toes together. I hate this. Why does a date require all this? If I were really looking for someone to love me, it seems like I’d be able to show up just as I am.

“I’m interested in getting to know Kade more.” His name tastes like bile in my mouth.

“Hmph,” she says as if she couldn’t see a more unlikely pair. Then she steps back, taking all of me in. “I think you’re ready.”

I glance in the mirror and have to search for some version of me beneath all the layers of disguise. The girl staring back has lips painted too bright, skin powdered into someone else’s smooth perfection. Her eyes look larger than I remember, but emptier too, as if some piece of her has been scrubbed away. This look says: I am what you want me to be. The stiff shine of the dress reflects like armor, pinching at the seams, pressing against, pushing up, and exposing parts of myself I usually keep hidden. But it doesn’t feel like freedom. It feels like being owned.

I tilt my head, trying to reconcile the stranger’s facade with the ache blooming behind my ribs. This is what being a Skyborn would require—looking like the rest of them, acting like someone I am not.

Syra pinches her chin, studying me. “You really should be eating more. You look like you could blow away,” she says as if I’ve had a choice the last eighteen years. And I realize just because she doesn’t expect me to fail anymore doesn’t mean she understands me. She could never understand me. No Skyborn can. I think of Caelus.

“You’re all pink in the face all of a sudden.” She taps my lower back. “Up, tall. You are confident, disciplined. Not nervous. This day is an honor, a rare privilege. You get to enjoy Skyborn life.”

I straighten my posture. The heat that flushes my cheeks fades.

“Better. How do you feel now?”

Syra is not someone to trust. Just another to fool.

“Thank you,” I tell her, pulling back my lips into a smile. “I feel ready for the best day of my life.”

I’m the first one down from my room to the Great Hall. Mercyenforcers wait just outside the palace doors, stationed beside a caravan of transports—each fitted with two high-backed chairs—to escort us into the city. Dreth paces back and forth, stopping when he spots me. His brow raises in challenge. Syra made it sound like by now I should show them that I can be a Skyborn.

When my chin rises, I meet Dreth’s cold eyes, remembering how he stripped me bare and his orderly hit me when I spit on him. Remembering how he put his lips on Talia. Now he stares at me as if daring me to step out of line. As if regardless of how Syra dresses me, he will always see me in itchy, lowborn rags. He watched Orrick kill Finn. At the very least he knows about the Scent Kade used to mess with everyone. A Skyborn doesn’t hold their tongue. A Skyborn doesn’t ask for respect. I stare right back at him and my knees feel like they could go out from under me.

Dreth stills, and breath sticks in my chest. But when footsteps echo behind me, he keeps moving and I exhale.

It’s Rhythe slithering toward the waiting area. My arms wrap around my ribs like armor as I stare past him.

“You missed a meeting,” he says, voice low and gruff, almost too quiet to catch. He leans against the steel wall, half sunk in shadow, his dark hair shading his light eyes, with an ease that feels rehearsed. He’s so close the scent of him assaults me, smoke, iron, and sweat. Like home. The world sways a moment, caught by the suddenness of it. “In my room. Before coming down.” His head tilts just slightly, like a seabird circling something half-drowned.

“Oh?” I say. I hadn’t heard about any meeting. But I fled the arena and went straight to my room the moment we were dismissed.

“We will move on him today.”