I barely slept without Luca at my side last night. If he stops breathing, will my lungs decide to do the same? And what about my heart? Alistair, Ciprian, Malach. Could I survive if they don’t?
Get in the zone. Fear won’t help you save them.My thoughts are harsh, but I know I should listen to them. The veydra holds four lives in his hands—but they’re everything to me. Even without my magic, my truth is clear: I’d rather die than lose them.
I have to win.
“Once you’re in the arena, your magic will be unlocked,” the veydra says. His voice is brisk, with none of the flirty rasp he used during our conversation inside the birdcage.
That’s what I’ve decided to call my personal prison. The raised, circular cabin—balanced on one leg like a stork—is too on-the-nose to ignore. Add in my metaphorically clipped wings, and there’s no escaping the similarities.
There’s a narrow balcony beneath our feet. Tumor-like, it wraps around the outside of my jail cell. Not wide enough for sitting and sipping; it can’t be considered a porch. It has more in common with a lookout, useful for spies and snitches and nothing else.
The veydra stops in front of one of the posts supporting the railing. It’s taller than the rest.
He hums softly, then pokes at the wood in a random pattern. I squint, but I don’t see any buttons.Magic, idiot.I try to memorize the order and placement of his fingers, but with no physical frame of reference to orient the code, it’s impossible.
“Damned cold today,” he mutters, not sparing a single glance for his buddy that I knocked out.
I scoff. I’m not about to engage in small talk with my father’s pet assassin. And, from what I’ve seen, it’s cold here every day. This realm is the opposite of the Fringes, where I spend most of my time sweating under stage lights or blinding sunshine.
The wind kicks up around us, cutting through my ratty sweatshirt. I refuse to shiver. Not in front of him. As far as he’s concerned, I’m an angel made of stone and nothing else.
A metallic buzz cuts through the wind, and I blink as an elevated walkway materializes in front of us. The rope bridge is made of gods know what, and it stretches all the way from my birdcage to the massive arena.
I stare at it in silence. It reminds me of the transportation pathways in the celestial realm. More rudimentary, sure, like using the tip of a butcher’s knife to eat meat instead of a fork, but the energy is similar. It’s buzzing with magic.
The veydra looks at me, then pulls his cloak off. He walks to the edge of the bridge, holds the ragged hood up, and says, “In case you were thinking about jumping.” He thrusts what’s left of the white fur over the railing. It glows cherry red before dissolving into ash and fluttering toward the ground.
“What good would it do for me to jump alone?” I glare at him. “I won’t leave them behind.”
There’s no point pretending otherwise. The veydra already knows all four of my weaknesses, and he’s using them against mein the cruelest way possible, all because my father is lining his pockets.
I’m not standing in front of someone with a heart, soul, and brain of their own. He’s little more than a puppet, and no matter how much he bleeds, he won’t be real until he cuts the strings controlling him.
“So loyal,” he spits the word. I curl my upper lip. He speaks of loyalty the way I talk about dishonesty, as if it’s a contagious disease.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
He freezes in the middle of shrugging back into his mangled cloak and eyes me. “Why do you care?”
“I like to know the names of my enemies before I kill them.”
He smiles, but there’s something bitter in the expression. I see it, even with the amber barrier between us.
“You can call me Riven.”
I frown. “Your real name?—”
“Is lost,” he snarls, “to everyone but the gods.”
A horn blows in the distance, and Riven heads toward the sound, crossing the bridge in long, brittle strides, his limp from last night nothing but a fond memory.
I follow, but this bridge isn’t meant to be used by two people at once. It bounces, sways, and lurches with every step we take. I grip the rope railings with both hands, painfully aware of what will happen if I trip and fall.
Crossing the bridge requires such a high level of concentration that I don’t get a chance to study the arena properly. I replay Riven’s outburst as I walk.
The lost name is clearly a sore subject for him, but I’m not sure how to use it against him. Yet. I’m not interested in his past or his future. He’s a threat to everyone I care about, but as long as his actions impact me, I want to know everything about his present.
S’lach thinks he can use Riven to prove I’m as powerless as I used to be, but I can’t allow that. Not this time. I’m strong enough to fight and win, and I’ll prove it or die trying.
