“Yourloyalty?” she choked out.
Her vision swam. Tyrrhenus’ face warped, morphing into Sinope’s patron, Saturius—arrogant, preening, cruel.
He puffed out his chest, flaunting himself like a damn peacock before his men—those damned Samnites at his every beck and call—and sneered, “I took it from the Amazon bitch myself.”
Don’t let them take her Gift.Nik’s plea echoed in her ears until it was all she could hear.Don’t let them take her Gift.
But it was too late. They had already stolen Sinope’seye.
Katell’s fury exploded. In a blink, the dagger was in her hand, her target the Rasennan noble who had turned Sinope’s life into a nightmare. Saturius had always coveted the Amazon’s eyes, and now he had taken one for himself.
She lunged. A Samnite guard intercepted her at the last second, knocking the dagger from her grip. It clattered across the sand, spinning out of reach.
Her magic flared in the suffocating heat of the arena, and Saturius paled.
Kill him.
“She almost cut my face!” he shrieked. “Seize her!”
The arena erupted into chaos. Samnites surged around her, blades drawn.
In the melee, she lost sight of Saturius. Her pulse roared. He couldn’t get away, not after what he’d taken.
A spear came for her heart. She twisted aside and seized the attacker by the throat. With a brutal jerk, she yanked the blade from his hip and drove her elbow into his ribs. He crumpled, colliding with two others, all of them crashing to the ground in a tangled heap.
Let us kill him.
She wielded the blade, striking at any who came near. Failure was not an option.
Let us out.
Magic spilled through her, anger pulling from a pool deep within she’d never touched before—not even with Laran’s Tears. It flooded her veins, raw and ravenous.
And it spoke to her.
Voices called her name, pressing at the edges of her mind, pushing through the cracks. The same voices she’d heard in the Freefolk lands when fighting the stragglers. Or in Bruna’s arena during the First Trial.
They’d barely been a whisper before, a soft caress, but now they were impossible to ignore.
They were here, and they wanted to be released.
Her blade cleaved through another opponent, the hilt slick with blood.
Not theirs. Yours. We need yours.
Saturius was only a few paces away. She lunged and tackled him to the ground. He hit the sand with a grunt, and she flipped him onto his back, one hand clamping around his throat. Her fingers tightened. The implanted eye—Sinope’s eye—gleamed up at her.
The voices howled even louder.Let us out!
The earth trembled beneath her knees. Black smoke rose in slow, sinuous coils from the blood-soaked sand, curling around her legs and spreading into a circle.
Saturius’ face twisted in panic. “No, not here!” he gasped. “Don’t summon them here!”
The voices weren’t whispering anymore. They were screaming.
Let us out! Let us out!
They latched onto her magic, begging to be summoned into the mortal world.
