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The bells rang, the sound vibrating through my body as the ashvan soared into the sky above the flame-lit circle of the arena, their jewel-toned bodies alight only by the blue streaks of magic carrying their hooves as they ascended into the blackened sky. Snowflakes kissed my face, landing in my lashes.
Haleika stepped out of the silver box, her feet unsteady as she walked across the metal door beneath her. She was my test. My chance to prove myself as a soturion to the Emperor, to stay in Bamaria, to claim my birthright and protect my sisters. It all came down to me fighting and killing my friend.
She looked up at me, her head cocking to the side with curiosity, the gesture so like Tristan’s, and yet not. A moment passed before she moved, shifting her body preternaturally slowly. It was the movement of a predator. As the bells softened into faint echoes of the night, only seconds remained before Haleika completed her transformation from forsaken to akadim.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
IstaggeredbackasHaleika took another step forward. The reality of what was about to happen and what I had to do crashed down on me. “No. No. No.”
The horror of this test. The cruelty. My hands shook at my sides.
Outside of her box, her form was now recognizable by the audience filling the stadium. She glanced up, her movements oddly precise, hinting at the monster lurking beneath the surface.
Horrified cries rang out from the arena as she was recognized, the sound deafening and full of pain.
This was no test. A test would be a Bound Five. An obstacle course. An opportunity to show my skill with different weapons or to answer questions about combat theory, soturion history, or fighting sequences. Not this. This was torture. Cruel and evil. Not just for me, but for Haleika, for her family, for all of Ka Grey. It was cruel to force them and all of Haleika’s friends in the academy to watch. It was a cruelty disguised once more as a lawful punishment by the Emperor.
I saw through the façade. This was nothing less than a direct assault and attack on Bamaria.
Someone shouted Haleika’s name. The last syllable hung in the air as there was another shout of “Haleika!” followed by a round of insults at my father. Curses aimed at Ka Batavia threaded their way through the verbal assault. They called us cruel, barbaric, and savage, as if this horrid display had been our idea. As if we were responsible, as if we’d killed her on purpose.
My heart sank. In the end, it was my fault she was forsaken, my fault she’d transform into an akadim—my fault she was about to die.
Unless she killed me first.
Gods. If it came down to that, I hoped that was all she did to me.
The sudden fear and possibility that she truly could kill me—and not just kill me but brutalize my body publicly and tear my soul away—left me shaking.
The roars and screams of anger and disapproval increased in volume. The fury in the stadium was unlike anything I’d heard before: pure unbridled hatred and disgust at my family, my Ka, along with fear over what they were about to bear witness to.
This was wrong on every level. We didn’t kill for sport. We killed for necessity. And the Emperor had just turned a tragedy and loss of Lumerian life into a game, into entertainment. Those present were rightfully angry. But the anger was misdirected. Just as the Imperator had planned.
“Shekar arkasva! Shekar arkasva!”The chant sounded once, then again, until within seconds the insults were being thrown back and forth across the stands. There was the sound of a punch, of flesh hitting flesh, and a scurry of movement, of soturi in brushed-gold armor moving through the stands to make an arrest. Another shout, another curse against my father, and a second brawl erupted on the other side of the arena.
“Shekar arkasva!”
My body was numb.
No. I couldn’t allow that. I couldn’t panic. Not here. Not now. I had to survive. First, I had to survive.
Survive an akadim. On my own. And not just survive, but kill. Kill the akadim that had once been my friend.
She still looked human as she stared up above the arena, her face turned to the blackened night sky before moving methodically as her attention returned to me. She was still Haleika. Haleika’s size with Haleika’s face. My friend I’d known my entire life.
Her Ka-Grey-brown eyes were gone. Black, empty orbs stared into the expanse of the field. Not even the whites of her eyes remained.
Across her heart, a black mark marred her skin—the signifier of her death, the place where the monster had sucked out her soul to eat it. Someone had changed her from her Valyati ballgown to what at first appeared to be a dress but was in fact a simple white tunic. The frock was extremely oversized and loose on her body, far too big for her lean frame. The collar hung low over her chest, showing the blackened mark across her heart.
In her current form, I could kill her. I should kill her now—this was when she was at her weakest. In the in-between, not living, not dead. Not human, not yet akadim. Forsaken. But I couldn’t. Just the thought made me ill.
I had never killed before. Not with my own hands.
Something that smelled of death and decay whispered past me—the dying breath of Haleika’s aura. It moved through my armor, my body, leaving me chilled to the bone.
“Lyr! LYR!” Rhyan called. I was too terrified to look at him, fear and guilt gnawing at me. My body tensed, and I found that some inner part of my mind attuned to survival would not allow me to turn away from the monster, but the urgency in Rhyan’s voice tore through me. Slowly, I backed up, one boot sliding through the snow, shifting me closer to the pole.
“Her transformation will complete in seconds,” he said quickly. “She’ll remember you. Akadim keep their memories. But she’ll be disoriented. Not used to her strength or her size. Use that to your advantage. You know how.”
