“That’s what they say.” Gigi shrugs. “But who knows … High Prince Hevio could’ve had a hand in your getting chosen for the tournament.”
Cyrus’s expression hardens.
“Stop it, Gigi,” says Gunther. “Didn’t you see how his family treated him at the banquet? His father doesn’t care enough to help him in that way.”
“Or maybe,” Gigi sing-songs as they lean forward, sharing Gunther’s grin, “your father entered you in the tournament hoping you’d finally make something of yourself.”
“Hoping that you’d either win or never return,” Gunther agrees.
I feel a flicker of sympathy for Cyrus. Not that he deserves it. But the memory of him at the banquet, surrounded by his perfect siblings, the weight of everything he’s expected to live up to – it strikes a chord within me.
I’ve never been good at meeting expectations myself. Half Emo, half nothing. I know all too well what it’s like to never be enough.
“Are you done?” Cyrus asks, and he sounds bored. The hazy coils of seething energy steaming off his skin say otherwise.
“Actually, if you’re inviting people to insult you—” Mei slurs, before choking on the words. She sways where she’s sitting, eyes narrowed as though she’s struggling to focus on our silhouettes around her.
“Mei, are you OK?” Rhius puts a hand to her sweat-smeared forehead. “By the grace of Ignis, you’re burning up.”
“Uh, I guess it’s a little hot out here…” Mei tries to clear her throat and it turns into a cough. Blood dribbles from her mouth. Then her nostrils. And her ears. The blood is hot, literally steaming. And as it cools, it turns a horrible, swampy green colour.
Kara claps her hand to her mouth. “Mei, your arm…”
Her wound is steaming, too. Popping. Sizzling. Streaking her sleeve with swampy green blood. I bite back the bile swimming in my throat.
“Hey, the stars are winking at me,” Mei whimpers. Then she giggles and her eyes roll back in delirium. “They’re waving. Look, Rhius … so pretty! Can you see them?”
She tries to stand, arm extended to the heavens, but she stumbles and falls. Mei convulses. Her body shakes uncontrollably, limbs pressed together like a rod.
“Mei!” Rhius cries. He reaches for her, but immediately recoils as though he were touching hot coals. “What’s happening to her?”
We all scream when, before our eyes, Mei bursts into flames. She doesn’t have time to yelp in pain. Thefire consumes her from the inside out, too quickly to comprehend.
When the flames subside moments later, only a black shell remains. Hollow features that droop. Bark-like skin that flakes with peppery ash.
“What the hell?” Gigi exclaims.
“It wasn’t us – I swear,” Gunther adds.
I gag at the stench. It’s smoky and rotten. The world spins and I tug at my collar. It feels like I’m glowing. Sweat pools around my neck and slides slowly, searing-hot, down my back.
“Her wound,” I mutter. A boiling sensation prickles at my temples. “The dragon scale must’ve been poisonous…”
My heart skips a beat.I was cut, too.
“Tar— Wren,” I try to say, but my voice is a whisper threaded with panic.
“Poisonous?” Rhius looks around where he’s hunched over Mei’s corpse, eyes welling with tears. “That means …hekilled her!”
He leaps to his feet and throws himself at Cyrus. Gideon intervenes. He elbows Rhius and drives him back with a heel to the chest.
Their figures begin to blur and I squint. I see snapshots of movement. Rhius gathering a storm of emotions, black and seething, in his palm. Cyrus snapping a sunblade leaf. A flash of light and a spear taking shape in his hand.
A low whistle in my ears means I only catch snatches of their argument.
“You murdered her!”
“I didn’t touch her.”
