“Give up, Princess?” His grin widened, splitting the cut in his lip.
“Never,” I said, lunging for my discarded sword in the snow. I gripped it, rolling onto my back in time to block Riven’s sword. I kicked my leg out, connecting with his thigh, and he stumbled.
Seeing an opening, I dropped my sword and threw myself at him, pulling Orin’s dagger from my belt. His eyes widened as he crashed into the snow, his body underneath mine. My legs straddled his hips.
His pulse beat against the blade I pressed to his throat, steady and sure, and I hated how it drew my gaze to his mouth. The heat flooding through me felt nothing like victory. His eyes flicked to my mouth, before those storm-cloud eyes crashed into mine.
“Give up?” I asked breathlessly, though I wasn’t entirely sure if it was from the fight.
His hips bucked up, throwing me off balance. In aswirl of movement, I was suddenly on my back in the snow, my hands pinned over my head. Riven’s body pressed against me, pinning me against the ground.
“Never,” he said, his breath mingling with mine. He gave me a grin before pushing off me, standing and extending a hand towards me. My fingers clasped his, and he helped me stand.
Orin avoided looking at me, lips pressed into a hard line. “Back into formation,” he grunted. His coldness hit harder than the wind. I’d thought his anger last night was punishment enough, but this was worse. I didn’t know whether I wanted to scream at him or force him to look at me. I swallowed the feeling, forcing a mask of indifference to slip over my face.
After watching the others spar and eating dried meat around the fire barrels, Commander Kragthorne marched into the training yard.
“Good luck,” Bohdi said as he walked with Orin to the viewing platform. My mouth went dry as I noticed the other Iron Guards leaving their initiates behind, and the growing crowd gathering in the viewing platform.
“Welcome to the second war game!” Commander Kragthorne announced, the crowd cheering. My stomach sunk. Orin would have known, but he didn’t warn me. He hadn’t so much as looked at me since his lecture this morning. And after my fight with Riven, the frown line on his forehead hadn’t quite gone away. If I thought he was capable of caring about anything more than his role, I’d say he was jealous.
“Today, you will fight,” Commander Kragthorne boomed. “Each squad will be issued a single medallion. Your objective is simple: protect your own and steal from the other squads. When the game ends, the squad holdingthe most medallions wins. The winning squad will earn an exemption from the next game.”
Round golden medallions strung on a strip of worn leather were handed out to all fifteen squads. Dreya held ours and it gleamed in the dull light with the number one in its centre. The other initiates were either picking up extra weapons or making sure theirs were secured. Orin’s dagger was still in my belt, but that wasn’t the weapon I wanted. I wished I had the axe, but Riven had insisted on it staying hidden under my bed. Dreya had used her Sanctum to make it invisible while Orin had lectured us last night.
“May the Gods have mercy on your souls or find joy in feasting on your blood.” Behind Commander Kragthorne, five Iron Guards walked towards us. Their hands moved in sync with one another, causing threads of power to twirl in a delicate shimmer. The ground shuddered beneath our boots. I stumbled backwards and Riven grabbed me under my arm to stop me from falling. Stone exploded from the ground in front of us, cutting us off from the other squads. The fighting pit had been transformed into a maze of jagged stone around us.
I stared at the towering walls, fear settling deep in my bones. The dull winter light vanished behind a curling mist, swallowing everything in suffocating silence. A scream pierced the fog, the clash of steel close behind it.
The mist slithered across the stone, thick enough to hide a body. My fingers found the end of my braid, twisting it until it bit into my skin. “It’s a little barbaric, isn’t it?” I said, eyeing the narrow walkway ahead. “Making us kill each other and calling it a game.”
“Says the psycho who tried to strangle me.” Hadley glared at me, as though she were trying to burn holes through me.
I smiled sweetly and looked down my nose at Hadley. The bruising around her neck had faded to an ugly yellow. Pity. It had suited her, like a collar on a dog that barked too much.
Roman quirked an eyebrow, boots crunching against the iced over stone. “Focus on the game. You may not care if you die, Lyra. But the rest of us want to live.”
“We need to move,” Dreya snapped in a hushed voice. She levelled us with a warning look before walking further into the maze. The darkness was so complete I could only glimpse the outline of Riven following her. A crack echoed through the mist, too close.
Dreya signalled for us to halt from the front of the line, her hand a swift, urgent motion.
I pressed myself against the rough stone, its jagged edges biting through my clothes as we crouched. The silence pressed in, thick and suffocating. I pulled the dagger from my belt as Dreya peered around the corner, gesturing for us to follow.
Two bodies lay on the ground, fresh blood oozing across the snow-flecked stone.
My stomach churned as I forced myself to look away while Dreya and Riven searched the dead, their hands moving with grim efficiency. I knew the dangers of Ascension. Of standing on the front line in the war against the Fae. I had accepted all the ways I might die when I chose this. Welcomed them, even. But I didn’t think I could be killed in some stupid game.
“No medallion,” Dreya murmured.
“Obviously.” Riven chuckled. “The squad who killed them would have taken it.”
The others kept walking. But I hesitated, watchingblood run between the grooves in the ground, a gentle caress marking the wasted lives of those the Gods had chosen.
Another scream cut through the fog. I jumped, hurrying to catch up to my squad. We had made so many sharp turns that I was beginning to feel disorientated. We came to a slight opening and the maze branched off in four directions from where we stood. The perfect place for someone to be hiding?—
A large form lunged out of the shadows, slamming into Riven. He hit the ground with a grunt. An initiate loomed over him, the tip of his sword pressing against his throat so hard, a drop of blood began to ooze.
“Give me your medallion or I’ll slit his throat!” Riven’s attacker pressed the blade harder against him. Riven chuckled despite being in obvious danger and the steel scraped against his stubble.
