I hurried down the hall, the roar of the crowd echoing as shifters bloodied one another for their entertainment.
A strange scent rose around me.
Something was burning.
I let out a shaky gasp, steadying myself with my hand against the rough stone wall. I looked over my shoulder toward the distant gate.Iwasn’t burning. I was fine.
Maybe there were bonfires to celebrate the victors or to warm the stands. Something logical.
But my heart raced in panic. The walls were narrowing in on me.
A flicker of movement brushed the edge of my vision. I turned sharply. Nothing. Just the shadows shifting along the walls, the torches guttering.
The air shimmered, and I blinked it away. But it shimmered again.
That was when the heat touched my skin, as if I were standing tooclose to a fire. The air was shimmering around me because it was growing hot, despite the natural cool of the tunnel.
The heat surged. My breath came in short, ragged gasps. I tore at the front of my tunic, desperate for relief, but it was like trying to breathe inside a furnace.
The corridor around me warped, walls rippling in waves of light. My knees gave out, and I sank to the floor.
The scent of smoke filled my nose. It was thick and sweet, cloying, like burning flowers.
Panic clawed up my throat. I looked down, expecting to see flames licking up my arms, but there was only my skin, slick with sweat, glowing faintly gold.
The fire wasn’t outside me. It wasin me.
The world narrowed to sound and heat and pain.
“So the curse is real.” The voice was cool, amused.
I forced my burning eyes open. Maura stood over me, framed in the flickering light.
“Ander and Fear think you’re so special.” Her tone dripped with disdain. “If only they could see you now—running from destiny, choking on it.”
I tried to push myself up. My hands trembled, slipping on the slick floor. “Will going to the trial make this stop?”
She tilted her head, studying me as though I were some pitiful thing. “Run and burn, stay and die. It’s quite the dilemma, isn’t it?”
I stumbled toward the arena, praying the fever would ease if I obeyed.
When she laughed behind me, I gritted my teeth and kept going.
But the smoke—the smoke that didn’t seem to exist for anyone else—choked me. I fell to one knee again, gasping for breath. I tried to gather my strength to thrust myself forward, but I fell again.
“Weak.” Maura was over me again.
Then she grabbed my arm. Her grip was merciless, her fingers digging bruises into my fever-hot skin.
But she dragged me forward.
I stumbled along with her—or she dragged me—and with every step, the smoke seemed to clear. I was still fever-hot and gasping forbreath, my throat ragged and burning, but I got my feet beneath me. I could stagger along under my own power, though Maura still held me tightly.
“Now we’re even.” She pushed me toward the gate; the sunlight outside stung my eyes, which were already sore from the smoke. “Tell Fear I saved your life, if you’re not too much of a coward.”
Thirty-Six
When I staggered into the arena, no one noticed me at first. Combat raged everywhere in a wild blur. The air reeked of blood and sweat and the tang of magic.
