In the center of the chamber was an enormous circle, defined by both the empty marble altar and by the burn marks.
“This is where we’ll come up one by one and place our sigils.” Kiegan ran one scarred hand over the marble top. “Then we’ll see if we burn or…”
He turned to look over his shoulder at the distant blue sea just visible through the doors. “Fly.”
“I can’t imagine Tay watching.” I swallowed, my throat working.
“You know everyone’s betting on us to die,” Kiegan said as cheerfully as he ever said anything, unwilling to entertain any emotion. “I’ll place some bets myself. Either I’ll be dead and win, or I’ll be a shifter. Either way, I am victorious.”
“I’ll place some bets too.”
“We’ll be rich,” he deadpanned.
“Now you promise to survive?”
“If it ruins some Fae’s day, absolutely.”
We threw our knives in silence, the swish of steel through air and the satisfying thunk against wood filling the space. We collected them in unison, falling into a rhythm that felt comfortable.
Kiegan turned to me, tossing his knife and catching it again—first by the hilt, then by the blade, then by the hilt again, with a finesse that seemed to defy his blocky hands. “Why are you so bothered about the dragons’ claiming? Either we burn or we don’t.”
I turned to him with a knife’s blade gripped carefully between my thumb and forefinger, ready to fling, and now I was considering him as the target. “Burning is definitely something to worry about.”
He threw another knife that struck with deadly accuracy. “Worrying about anything you can’t change is stupid. Do you have some way to talk a dragon into choosing you?”
I thought of the books of dragons. My Clan Amber dragon book hadn’t helped me much. But maybe another compendium would be the key to understanding this strange world. “Maybe. By studying the dragons, maybe we can shift the odds in our favor.”
He nodded slowly. “With two days until we face being chosen or charred?”
I shuddered atcharred. His speech as an orc usually sounded more blunt, less ornate than the Fae, but he certainly had a flair for word choice. Despite what the other shifters believed, he was intelligent. He just didn’t talk or think like they did.
“Yes,” I insisted. “What if we can make one last final moveor two for the dragons most likely to select us to show them we’ll make good pairings?”
He looked disappointed. Clearly, he’d like to spend the rest of his day in simulated—or real—violence, but he was a faithful friend. “Will this make you feel better?”
“Yes, absolutely!”
“Fine then. Save my life.” He sounded glum about it as he went to collect our knives.
But standing here in this scorched room, it felt essential to me to give ourselves our best chance to survive.
“Do you really think there have never been others marked like us?” I asked him as we went toward the archives.
“I don’t think I’m special.”
“Because if they didn’t turn themselves in, they would have burned as the curse caught up to them.”
“Do you really believe in that curse business?”
“Don’t you? Why else are you here?” I’d been pretty convinced by the sense I was about to burn alive.
“I’ve got nowhere else to go. Obviously I don’t carewhereI burn. But the food’s good here.”
“Does it make you feel better to keep saying that over and over?” It was grating on my nerves.
“Yes.”
“Then carry on.” I’d endure it. We all had different ways of reckoning with things, and I might not understand Kiegan, but I wanted to be a good friend.
