Page 226 of Revels on an Angel’s Grave

He didn’t think he’d been drugged. At least, he didn’t remember inhaling or being injected with anything.

He remembered dancing with his sisters and mother, talking with Leo.

He remembered needing Emmeline to calm him down when his uncle arrived.

Each memory was fleeting, only lasting a moment. But he remembered pieces until he…slipped away.

Roremar brushed a mental touch over the Fatesworn bond. It reacted sluggishly, a beast slowly waking.

He pushed himself upright, and the world spun with every slight move, like he wasn’t entirely present. Something crumbled beneath his hand. A note⁠—

Say goodbye, my Heir of Chaos.

Her ruin will be your greatest loss.

“Fates,” Roremar grumbled. Fury burned through him at the handwriting that had become familiar without him realizing.

What did it mean again? He had to chase the thought through his mind.

It was the same handwriting as another note.

He will have her.

A violated, tainted feeling squirmed through Roremar’s gut, but he couldn’t fully reconcile why.

Dryvius. The Fate had kidnapped his sister.

Fuck, he had to get out of here.

Anger pulsed through him, and Roremar used it to fuel his movements, to steady his vision and pull his knees up so his boots were firmly planted on the cool earth. To lean against the wall and stagger upright, like a fawn learning to walk for the first time. He breathed deeply over his wavering surroundings.

“Be logical,” he reminded himself.

First step, figure out where the fuck he was.

The trial. That’s what this was. A sneaky fucking move on Rocarri’s part. Get the competitors wasted or relaxed with their families and then spring the greatest challenge on them when their guard was down.

Why, though? Was it purely for the added dramatics?

Roremar didn’t have the mental capacity to figure that out right now. The pieces weren’t lining up the way they normally would for him. Had enough time passed that it was the next day or had the final task been moved up?

And what in the stars did it entail? What had Emmeline figured out, again?

Roremar breathed in the damp air, palm slipping against the cool stone wall. Mossy stone. Dirt pressing down on him. Everything dim.

“Underground,” he whispered, tongue still heavy.

He was in the tunnels beneath Valyn. The ones that ran between catacombs and crypts and Fates knew what else. But what part of the city was he beneath? Was the goal to reach the arena?

He forced his feet to take stumbling steps in the direction that had more moss clinging to the walls. Life felt like a good sign to follow.

His mind was fuzzy, but coordination slowly returned to his limbs like a steadily dripping tap. With it, the icy fingers of a chill pressed into his spine. Something was off kilter down here.

“Think,” he instructed himself. The neat files of his mind were cluttered.

The first trial was physical. But Emmeline had another theory. It wasn’t only physical it was…moral?

The second trial had been poisoned Fate ties, he remembered that for sure. Morals, then magic. What was the third?