Kleioturned back to me with a frown.
“The Trials are an open spectacle for any of theGeistto watch at their leisure. Your tunnels lead you here, just outside ofPavos, where nine arenas have been constructed for our people to view each one as spectators. You cannot see us but we can see you. In fact, you and your partner’s journey through the gauntlet managed to draw a bigger crowd than any eventPavoshas held in millennia. So believe me, Dante, when I say that Deimos,Callidora, and each of the Eleven watched your ninth Trial. Do not lie.”
I just stared at him, lips parted in shock. They'd been watching. That whole time, our gods had been watching us pass through each and every one of their torturous Trials. What had they thought when they'd seen what we were capable of? Had they placed bets on our success the moment we'd been connected in the first? Did they watch indifferently while we were haunted by the voices of our past inadequacies in the second? Did they cheer when we stumbled to victory in the third? Or hold their breath with us in the fourth? Gasp at my severed arm in the fifth?
Had they seen Cyrus sink beneath the waves and Dahlia pull his limp form out of the pool, wailing as she dragged him out? Did they watch Olympia fail, see Milo give in? How many of us had they watched try and fail to pass their ancient tests?
“If you have no further questions, we really should begin our assessment,” Kleio said then, interrupting my thoughts. At a single tap on his device, the wall directly in front of us slid open. He stepped through to the other side without a word of instruction for me to follow. I did anyway. “Deimos is not known for his patience and he's been waiting some time to meet you, Dante of House Viper.”
I turned to look back at the pristine white room behind us. I stared at where he'd been a moment before, where he’d stood in front of me as I took up a defensive position against the wall.This god, the legendaryKleio, who’d come bearing the news that I had, in fact, joined the Geist. And now I was to meet Deimos himself and his Council of Eleven. Shaking my head at the wondrous absurdity of it all, I stumbled forward into a walk and followed him out of that strange room and intoPavos, the City of the Gods.
Chapter Two
Adrian
"We are the ignored. We are the forgotten. We are the masses they preach to from their pulpits. But it is not salvation they bring us. It is sorrow."
— Rebel Leader Marsh Ackley in his Speech of Unity during the Uprising of 1897
It had never occurred to me before how much the measurement of time depended on light. Sunrise to indicate it was morning, sunset to indicate dusk, moonlight to wane through the evening. But in this void, time was meaningless. I might have fallen for two hours or two days. There was no way of knowing. Even with my enhanced eyesight, assuming I still had that particular gift, and assumptions were hard to come by at this point, I could see nothing in that black abyss.
My body was weightless, my mind tormented, as I fell through empty space with nothing but the wind beneath me for company.
I was going to die, I knew that.
No one could possibly fall so far, gathering so much speed, and survive the landing. The torture was not knowing when. Itwas a fate worse than death to hurtle toward your own demise in empty darkness, waiting for your bones to shatter, your organs to explode, and everything to end. To hang suspended in thatfree fall, knowing there was no way out, knowing you would die and there was no one to even take what was left of you back to your family. No one who cared enough or knew enough to even give you a proper finality.
Even my emotions didn't know how to respond. Rage was absurd this close to the end but hopelessness felt wrong despite how fitting it truly was.
Betrayal.
That single word had played itself over and over again in my mind as if on a loop. Because that was what it had been, a betrayal. And not just in the end. Not just that final moment when my partner, the soul bonded to my own, had looked into my eyes and sent me spiraling into madness toward my own death. But before too. When he hadn’t told me what the tenth Trial would mean. When he'd deceived me into believing we could have a future together. When he'd allowed me to commit myself to that future knowing it would never occur.And when he'd told me he loved me. That was the worst betrayal of all.
I screamed out into the nothingness as I fell, the sound tearing from my lungs and echoing in this endless cavern around me.
He knew. All along, he knew and he'd never told me, never warned me that there were forces beyond our control, beyond even the Trials, which warred with one another behind the scenes. Those religious zealots in white robes the Tribunal had slaughtered without hesitation. The acolytes who stood in a line, poised to force me into the tenth tunnel if they had to,Briaamong them. This was never just about the Trials. It was never just about the gods. And Dante had known. He'd known what was coming and he hadn’t warned me because all I’d ever truly been to him was a ticket out of it all. And I’d fallen for it.Stupidly, irresponsibly, ridiculously, I'd fallen right into his trap. And right into his arms.
Maybe I was the problem.
And now I was going to die. Without one last hug from my mother, one more quip from Warren or sullen nod from Maurice. Without a broad smile and pushing up of glasses from Milo or a squeeze on the arm from Sophie. I would become another body for Dahlia to mourn, another roommate for Harrison to replace, another death for Graham to comfort Sophie through, and another prayer for Bria to mutter. I would never see any of them again. And that was what hurt the most.
Tears streamed out behind me as they rolled from my cheeks and were whipped away by the whistling wind. I accepted my fate and, for the second time in my life, gave up the fight. I stretched my arms out wide, letting the weightlessness take them, letting the fall claim me, and waited.
An eternity passed before I saw the first light of many. A mass of glowing orange below, flickering against the darkness as if fighting to push it back. I prepared myself, my heart racing as the end came ever nearer, and waited as that speck of light grew bigger and bigger.
I slammed to a halt. The air went out of my lungs in a whoosh as my body stopped, suspended in midair only a few feet above the light. I reclaimed my breath as quickly as I could, taking big, gasping gulps of air. Eyes wide, I looked down, fairly certain I'd broken at least a few ribs in that sudden stop. But I was close enough now to see what that light had been.
Candles. Hundreds of them. Piled upon a stone floor and lit.
I turned back, twisting my neck to look behind me, above me, and saw it; the tenth Trial. It was only forty, maybe fifty feet above me. Those shining white bridges, tile ceiling, and bright, illuminated rings were there. Dante was gone and it was clean and waiting, rings intact as though we'd never even been there.It wasright there.How was that possible? I only had a second to blink in confusion before I was falling again. I dropped directly onto the pile of burning candles.
I hissed as the flames licked up the sides of my skin, singeing my tight clothes before I was able to push myself up and pat out the blaze. I healed the burns quickly, not even realizing what I was doing before the skin knitted back together and the welts faded. Still, I winced at the movement of my broken ribs as I stumbled forward, kicking candles out of my way. They went rolling across the carved stone, flames guttering as they spun. I took a deep breath and grimaced against the agony of my ribs. Placing a hand against my side to steady myself and lessen the pain, I finally raised my gaze to the room around me.
It was made entirely of stone. A soft, beige variety that was rough and bumpy on the exterior. It composed the floor as well as the walls and the ceiling above me. More candles were lit in a chandelier fourteen feet above my head beside the hole in the ceiling I'd come crashing through. They cast flickering shadows against the cavernous walls. Before me were pews made of an ancient, gnarled wood, set up in rows facing a pulpit decorated plainly with a crudely made podium draped with one single bolt of white silk. Against the walls were books and relics from a time long ago, fraying and rusting in the stale space. In the back stood a single, wide-eyed priest.
I froze, one hand on my left side against my injured ribs, as our gazes met. My lips parted slightly even as his jaw dropped completely open. His gaze shot from me to the massive gaping hole in his ceiling through whence I'd come and back again. He took a shaky step back, and I raised a hand.
“Wait,” I said but my voice came out harsher than I'd intended, gravelly. Likely due to the pain. “Don’t—"
