My heart stutters. He can’t mean—
Osrem disappears from view for a moment, then appears again, descending the stairs. In his hands he holds a pair of glass vials. The serum inside is thick, metallic orange, swirling sluggishly as though it were alive.
There’s no way he was coincidentally carrying the potion with him to the arena. Those vials were already prepared. This was the seer’s plan all along. And she means for Dante to consume one of them. Which means he will become what Torbin is.
“No,” I breathe. “No, no—don’t.”
The tsar gestures casually, as if he were suggesting a game, not sentencing a man to corruption. “Drink,” he commands. “Both of you.”
I twist in the guard’s grip. “You can’t! That serum—what it’s done to Torbin—Dante, it will change you!”
“If he doesn’t drink,” the tsar shouts, his hands planted on the balustrade, “then he forfeits the challenge.”
Oh, gods. Oh, gods!
Dante doesn’t speak. He only watches the vial handed to him, expression unreadable, but his movements are stiff and there’s a quick rise and fall of his chest.
Torbin, for his part, doesn’t hesitate. He takes his and downs it in one long, defiant swallow, then throws the vial to the ground. His muscles flex, his nostrils flare—and for a second, I swear his pupils narrow like a beast’s.
The carnoraxis release high-pitched whistles and screeches from their cages, as if they can feel what the serum is doing to Torbin. As ifthey feel he has their power.
Dante lifts his vial slowly, eyes meeting mine. The muscles in his jaw tighten for a heartbeat, until resolve slams down like an iron door.
After releasing a long breath, he swigs the potion.
I flinch as the serum disappears down his throat. For a moment, nothing happens. Then his shoulders twitch—once, twice—and he drops the vial. His breath hitches once before he emits a series of coughs. I feel like screaming, but I can’t find the breath to do it. Dante bends forward, one hand on his knee, as though grounding himself against the sudden tremor racing through his bones.
“Dante,” I whisper, tears threatening.
At first, he squeezes his eyes shut, his teeth gnashed together. Then he straightens slowly, his chest heaving, gaze locked on me. His throat bobs as he swallows. He looks as though he can’t speak, but he gives me one curt nod, as if to tell me he’s all right.
But I don’t believe it.
With a mocking flourish, Torbin unsheathes his sabre, raising it high, then points the tip at Dante. “You came all this way just to be sliced to ribbons.”
A guard marches out, carrying Dante’s falchion. I see my dagger strapped to the guard’s belt, the sapphire embedded in the weapon’s hilt catching my eyes.
The guard hands Torbin the falchion before retreating. I keep my eye on where he is because if I can find an opportunity to get my blade back, I’m going to take it.
Torbin paces, a weapon in each hand. For a moment, I think he’s going to keep them both, but then he tosses the falchion, hilt first, to Dante.
“Wouldn’t want you to accuse me of not being fair, Brother.” Torbin swings his sabre in a half-circle before adjusting his grip.
“We’re far beyond that.” Dante doesn’t flinch. He takes one slow step forward, dragging his falchion through the dirt before lifting it into ready position. “And you can stop calling me that. From this moment, you are no longer my brother. You are nothing to me.”
I can’t tell if he really means it, or if the serum has shifted something inside him. Is it clarity, or has the potion made him crueler?
Torbin moves to the center without hesitation, his boots leaving prints in the damp soil. “You think she holds your heart? I can’t wait to rip it out and hand it to her.”
Dante sneers at him. “You can fucking try.”
Torbin bares his teeth in something like a smile as they circle each other. His sabre glints as he moves, boots crunching over the blood-soaked earth. “I made them scrub her raw when she got here. Not that it helped much. I can still smell you all over her.”
It’s a lie—at least the scrubbing part. Though she did say Torbin wanted the ‘scents from before’ washed away, Staja left me to bathe on my own. Torbin is just trying to provoke Dante. Taunting him so he’ll make the first move.
Dante’s jaw ticks, but he doesn’t rise to the bait.
They strike at the same time. The sound of steel clashing against steel is deafening. Their movements are brutal and fast, each blow meant to injure, to weaken, to end.
