My mind is blessedly, terrifyingly blank. Numbness is a shield. Every time the image of Elara’s eyes, wide and unseeing, tries to surface, I shove it down, focusing only on the burn in my thighs,the sting of a branch whipping my cheek, the solid presence of Zeriel’s back ahead of me.
The terrain slopes sharply upward. Roots give way to stone, moss to bare rock. We break through a final curtain of glowing vines and stop dead.
Before us rises a sheer cliff face, a vertical wall of black, glistening rock that vanishes into the canopy at least a hundred feet above. It’s a dead end. But the needle on Zeriel’s compass, when he holds it up, points directly, impossibly, skyward.
There’s no other way,he sends, the thought as hard as the stone in front of us.
My fingers, still trembling, clench into fists. I stare at the wall, at the minuscule cracks and ledges that offer the only path. It’s not a climb; it’s a suicide mission.
He’s already starting, finding his first handhold with an economy of motion that seems to defy gravity. He moves with a climber’s instinct, testing each grip before committing his weight.
Either get on my back or climb. But don’t fall behind.It sounds tactical, but it lands more like insistence than instruction.
I press my scraped palms against the cold stone, the rough texture a grounding shock. But I’ve climbed things before. And the required focus is a welcome distraction.
The climb is a brutal agony. My muscles, already screaming from the run, protest with every pull. My shoulder throbs where the strange creature wounded me last night, a dull fire that intensifies with each stretch. The glowing moss that cakes the rock in patches is slick as oil, a beautiful, treacherous trap.
Higher.His voice pulls me onward.
I grit my teeth, my world narrowing to the next handhold, the next precarious foothold. The forest floor falls away beneath us, the glowing trees shrinking. Wind whips around us, tugging at my clothes, trying to peel me from the rock.
My foot slips on a patch of wet stone. My stomach plummets. My fingers scrabble against the rock, finding a desperate purchase just as my weight swings out. I hang there for a sickeningmoment, heart hammering against my ribs, the abyss yawning below.
Breathe.Zeriel’s thought cuts through the panic.Left foot. Two inches up. There’s a better hold.
I follow the command blindly, my body moving before my mind can argue. My boot finds the ledge. I press myself flat against the rock, shuddering, the ghost of Elara’s dead weight a sudden, crushing presence.
It’s as I’m forcing my limbs to move again that I see it. To our right, maybe fifty yards along the cliff face, another figure is climbing. A flash of crimson and gold against the black stone.
Blaise.
He moves with a fluid, serpentine grace, his pale hair a banner in the wind. He’s climbing alone, his pace steady, relentless. He glances over, and even from this distance, I can see the cold smirk on his face. He’s not just climbing; he’s performing, attempting to showcase an effortless ascent.
How is he so close?Given our delay, I thought it likely he’d be ahead of us. Something must have delayed him too.
Zeriel’s hatred answers, a hot, vicious surge through the link, though there’s a faint undercurrent of satisfaction.Something held him up. But not enough.
The sight of him injects a new, venomous energy into the climb. It’s no longer just about survival. It’s a race. I push myself harder, the burn in my muscles a reprieve from the cold knot of grief in my chest. We climb in a tense, silent parallel, three figures crawling up the face of a stone giant.
As we near the top, a sound begins to build—a low, distant but deep roar that seems to vibrate through the rock itself. The sound of thousands of voices.
Zeriel reaches the summit first. He hauls himself over the edge, then immediately turns, his hand reaching down for me. I take it, his grip powerful, and he pulls me the last few feet onto a wide, flat precipice.
The roar of the crowd washes over me. We’re inthe open again. The sky is a vast, indifferent blue above, but at the edge of the forest, the Umbral Arena’s upper tiers are packed with spectators. Highest of all, I see the imperial balcony, a splash of red and gold. And circling above it, their shadows sweeping across us, are the emperor’s war dragons. Where the emperor must actually sit.
We’re not alone on the rock. Other champions scramble up too, scattering across the wide ledge, catching their breath and observing us. Raine Selwyn, the Champion of the Twilight Forests, leans against an outcropping of rock as if she were born from it, her dark eyes missing nothing. Near her stands the formidable Damiar Korren of the Mountain Territories, his arms crossed over his massive chest. Further off, Rook Fenvale of the Western Wilds, a lean, scarred man with the watchful stillness of a hawk, begins to sharpen a wicked-looking knife. And perched on the very edge of the cliff, seemingly unconcerned by the drop, is Alestir Velthorn of the Sky Archipelago, a faint, arrogant smile on his face as he gazes up at the circling drakes. Each is flanked by a wary-eyed assistant.
I suspect more champions are on their way. We can’t be the only ones who survived this stretch.
Blaise brushes dust from his crimson tunic, his gaze sweeping over the other champions before daring to settle once more on Zeriel. The flowing hatred is a palpable thing now, a killing frost in the air between them. Like they both taste the inevitability of their clash, drawing ever closer.
I pivot on my heel to face away—in the opposite direction of the arena—toward the vast, unbroken wilderness. And my breath catches.
Across a chasm so deep and wide it seems to swallow the light, it stands.
The Rootbound Temple.
It looks like something far older than a fortress or a palace, something that looks like it grew from the rock as much as it was built upon it. Towers of weathered gray stone, carved with patterns of knotwork and flowing beasts, rise toward the sky, half-swallowed by the ancient trees that have woven their roots through the walls and ramparts. A single, magnificent archway forms the entrance, framed by the gnarled limbs of a petrified tree. It feels pre-empire, pre-Hollow Wars, a relic from an age when our magic was not a thing to be hidden but a force that shaped the world. It carries the suggestion of a quiet, dormant power, a sacredness that feels utterly alien to the blood-soaked games.
