An official rap on the door shatters the quiet.
“Champion Caelith! Time for departure. To the platform, now.”
The moment snaps. Zeriel’s face hardens, the cold, dangerous man I recognize returning. He grabs a pack from the corner, his movements economical and swift. I follow suit, my hands moving on instinct even as my thoughts churn.
I’d meant to ask how Selen’s ideas for the games will fit into his, but it’s clear even he doesn’t know yet. We don’t know what exactly Selen is planning. She said she’d communicate with us after we arrive. We’re all in the dark until we reach the location, until we have a better idea of what we’re facing.
The corridors hum with nervous energy as we move out, the fortress alive with hurried footsteps and clipped commands. Champions emerge from their quarters, trailed by retinues, faces flickering between bravado and quiet dread.
As we round a corner, we come face to face with Blaise. He’s flanked by two attendants, his crimson champion’s cloak draped perfectly over his shoulders. His eyes flick from Zeriel to me, a cold smile playing on hislips.
“Caelith,” he says quietly. “Enjoying your last moments of freedom with your… ward?”
Zeriel doesn't even slow down, keeping me in stride alongside him. “Save your breath, Blaise. You'll need it.”
Blaise’s smile tightens, but we’re already past him, swept up in the current of bodies moving toward the aerial platform.
Outside, instead of a line of dragons like last time, we’re met with the sleek, dark hull of a transport vessel, apparently reserved for champions. Two imperial dragons hover above it, attached to it with chains. It’s a hulking, windowless chunk of black iron, more akin to a movable prison than an airship.
Imperial soldiers in polished black armor line the ramp, their faces hidden behind helmets. One by one, the champions and their entourages are directed aboard. There are no fanfares this time, no speeches. Just the grim, methodical processing of assets being moved to a new location. I try not to dwell on what that change signifies.
As we near the ramp, Zeriel slows. His voice is low, pitched only for me. “Stay close. Whatever happens.”
My throat feels tight, but I nod.
We step onto the ramp, the cold of the iron bleeding through the soles of my boots. The air itself seems to prickle against my skin, and I notice others shifting uneasily, scratching at ghostly itches as though the iron’s nearness gnaws at them too.
The interior of the vessel is as stark as the outside: a long, narrow compartment lined with benches, the walls bare. The other champions are already taking their seats, a silent, grim-faced collection of the empire's deadliest weapons.
Zeriel and I take a space on a bench, deliberately on the same side as Blaise so we don’t have to meet his gaze head-on.
The iron groans as the ramp retracts, and then the heavy door grinds shut with a final, echoing boom that shudders through the floor, sealing us in. I hear the low roar of dragons, then feel a lurch as the vessel begins to move.
Chapter 41
The transport vessel vibrates as we hurtle toward our unknown destination. I shift uncomfortably on the bench, my back aching from the posture I've maintained for what feels like hours. The air inside is thick with the smell of metal and tension.
Across the narrow aisle, Elara sits beside her champion, Sorven Varrin of the Volcanic Belt, a powerfully built man with corded arms and the kind of steady, coal-dark gaze that sizes up both your worth and your weakness in the same breath. Elara’s and my eyes meet briefly, but she gives only the slightest nod before looking away. The other ward I spoke to at the emperor's banquet—the younger woman whose name I never caught—sits three spaces down, her gaze fixed on her hands. No one speaks. It’s almost as if everyone fears at this point that anything they do might be somehow utilized and turned against them.
Zeriel leans his head back against the wall, eyes closed, but I can tell from the tension in his jaw that he's far from relaxed. One hand rests on his thigh, fingers splayed, ready to move at the slightest provocation. Every so often, his eyelids flicker, tracking something in the darkness behind them.
With no windows and no indication of our trajectory, timebecomes fluid, stretching and contracting until I lose all sense of how long we've been traveling. Hours, certainly. Most of us have had to get up and use the small, adjoining lavatory chamber. Perhaps half a day. The not-knowing feels intentional. Another way to keep us guessing, off-balance.
Just as I'm beginning to wonder if we'll be trapped in this metal coffin forever, the vessel shudders. My stomach lurches as we begin to descend, the angle steep enough that I have to brace myself against the bench. Zeriel's eyes open, his posture immediately alert.
“We're landing,” Champion Maeve of the Coastal Reaches murmurs next to me, her voice barely audible.
The descent continues for several minutes, the vessel occasionally banking sharply left or right. Finally, with a bone-jarring thud, we touch down. The beating of wings winds down to silence, leaving only the faint pings of settling metal.
For a long moment, nothing happens. Then the heavy door at the end of the compartment begins to grind open. Pale, misty light spills in, carrying the scent of damp earth touched by something faintly acrid and strange, a note that prickles at the back of the throat.
“Champions,” a voice calls from outside. “Please exit.”
Zeriel rises smoothly, and I follow, my legs protesting after hours of stillness. Together, we move toward the exit, the first to disembark.
The sight that greets us takes the breath from my chest.
We’ve landed in a vast clearing ringed by a forest unlike anything I’ve ever seen. The trees soar skyward, their trunks as wide as small houses, but it’s their glow that stops me cold: a blue-green luminescence pulsing faintly beneath the bark, following the slow paths of their sap. The light drifts upward through the canopy, shifting and rippling as the breeze stirs the leaves, turning the whole forest into something unearthly and unsettling all at once.
