“I’m glad to see that you’re alive, Nova. My brother Sotain was not so lucky.” She pauses, her hand fluttering near my arm as if she’ll make contact, but she drops it. “Don’t underestimate Arga. He can’t be trusted.” Her eyes glisten. “Not by any of us.”
I catch her hand, a potentially dangerous move. “What do you mean—not by any of you?”
She shudders so violently that she nearly upsets my balance. “We don’t know for sure, but Arga was dropped near Sotain in the jungle. Sotain’s power may have been sadness, but he was strong and fast. Second in line. He should have made it back. When they retrieved his body, they found he was beaten to a pulp. Jungle creatures don’t kill with blunt force like that. They don’t kill… with fists.”
“You’re saying Arga killed him.”
She takes a trembling breath. “Arga’s power was stronger when he returned. That only happens when he’s hurt someone.”
My anger rises. “So he’s taking out his rivals at every chance he gets.”
Esta wrings her hands. “I was lucky not to get dropped near him. So was Koda. Arga would have ended us without mercy. I can’t even begin to imagine the pain he caused Sotain to make himself stronger.”
She steps back, her footsteps unsteady as she shakes out her fingers, as if she’s trying to deal with her stress that way. “We’re all in the Elimination because we don’t have a choice. Not now that our father can’t be found. There’s no way out for any of us now that Arga has decided he’ll take every opportunity he gets to end us.”
When she spoke about the Elimination on the bridge, Esta was mostly at ease with the process, but now she’s far from relaxed.
I find myself trying to ease her mind. “The next trial won’t make it so easy for him to harm one of us.”
Esta pauses, half-turned, as if she’s undecided about something. Her face is shadowed when she says, “Crone will conjure opponents for us in the next trial,” she says. “If you want to survive your opponent, you’ll need to wear armor and carry a dagger dipped in demon’s blood.”
A quick glance at Roman’s narrowed eyes tells me this is news to him.
“What makes you say that?” I ask.
“I overheard Crone whispering with Arga,” Esta says. “She told him to bring a tainted blade to the fight. The armor is my guess.”
She steps away from me, but I call out softly, “Wait, why are you telling me this?”
“I’ve stayed too long already,” she replies. “Good luck, Nova. You might be the only one who can keep us alive.”
With that, she runs toward the beam of light, her bare feet slapping the ground. It whisks her away in the next second and then she’s gone.
I spin to Roman, only to find his arms already wrapping around me, the runes he was controlling spinning out from his wrist, widening in an emerald circle that encompasses us—as well as my wolves, who press in at my sides.
“These runes will create an illusion so that anyone who looks our way will see us standing apart and talking,” he says.
I bite my lip, a warm feeling spreading across my chest. “So it’s a secret hugging rune.”
His lips rise into a smile. “I guess it is.” He shakes himself. “We don’t have long. Most importantly, are your sisters safe?”
He seems genuinely concerned and, despite the dangerous exterior he puts on for the other demons, I’ve come to know that his real self is far more complex.
I exhale quietly, the anxiety I felt in the prison returning to me. “They’retoosafe. You were right about the prison controlling them with an illusion—Taniya believes she lives there with Dastian, that he’s coming home at any minute. Malia thinks she’s part of a coven. She’s trying to create a rune…” I peer up into Roman’s fathomless eyes. “She said it’s a message from my father.”
Roman stiffens. “Did you see this rune? What does it look like?”
“It’s like a royal rune, but with three slashes through it.” I brush my hand across his shoulder. “Just like this one.”
“A royal rune struck through with a death bond.” The shadows around his eyes that disappeared during our stay in the Wilds return now, darkening his face.
“Malia kept repeating that it was broken,” I say. “But I don’t know what she meant.”
“A broken rune,” Roman murmurs, deep in thought as he rubs my back with one hand, the other stroking down my arm, as if he senses the pain I felt when the royal rune burned my skin. “It’s not immediately clear to me what this message means.” He pulls back a little. “Right now, you need to prepare.”
Deep concentration fills his face as he strikes a rune on his wrist, another string of emerald script that he presses to my shoulder. I don’t even flinch—or ask him what it is. I’ve come to trust him that much.
The script molds to the shape of my body, changing color to onyx black as it extends outward across me. It feels like liquid spreading all the way up to the base of my neck and down to my toes, warming me as it conforms to every muscle.
