And everyone is watching. Now they all know why they should fear me.
The crowd disperses. Slowly. Quietly.
I’m covered in sweat, blood, and the burn of every step that brought me here.
I walk off the platform slowly, limbs heavy. Bruised. Knuckles split. A pulse throbs behind my left eye, blood on my lip. I wipe it on my hand. Still warm. Still shaking.
Marco meets me first. His hand claps against my back, careful, but firm. “You did it,” he says, voice low, eyes sharp. “Fucking brutal. You look like … there’s no words for how you look.”
“Didn’t even crack a smile,” Milo adds, grinning.
I chuckle. It hurts. “I cracked something,” I mutter.
Rosa appears behind them, silent, observant as always. She doesn’t say anything, but there’s a flicker in her eyes, with a small smile.
Then I hear him.
My grandfather’s voice cuts through the air like a blade dipped in old blood. “And that is what we are made of.”
I turn, slow, and there he stands, tall, cold, dressed like power and war had a child.
My father beside him, arms crossed, eyes unreadable. They step forward, and I stand straighter, despite the pain burning through me.
“You made a statement,” my father says. “Not just to the crowd.”
“They saw it,” my grandfather adds. “How you moved. How you held the line. You did not win. You commanded.”
My chest heaves, still burning from the climb, from the holds, from the gauntlet. But something tightens in my chest, a different heat. One I know well.
Pride.
“You’re still reckless,” my father says. “Still too close to snapping.”
“Better than folding,” I reply, my jaw clenches.
He nods. Approves, even if he doesn’t say it out loud.
My grandfather studies me. “You’ve always had rage, Matteo. But rage without focus is chaos. Today, you focused on it.”
He steps forward, places one heavy hand on my shoulder, his fingers dig into my skin. “And now they’ll all be watching. Every faction. Every bloodline. They’ll wonder what the next trial brings.”
“Let them,” I say. “I’ll break them too.”
A grin breaks across Milo’s face. “Fuck. That’s our brother.”
Marco pulls out a flask and hands it to me. “You earned this.”
I drink. The liquor scalds on the way down. For the first time today, I smile, small and sharp. One trial down. Four to go.
Chapter 15
Aoife
It’s past midnight, the kind of hour where even the building seems to hold its breath. I’ll pay for it. Still, the rooftop is the only place I can think without their voices pressing against my skull.
I perch on the rooftop’s edge, Blackstone sprawled below like a sleeping beast. Far beneath, the sea swallows the cliffs in endless black. The blade rolls across my knuckles. I try to balance it the way Matteo showed me. It wobbles, slips. I snatch it before it cuts me.
My breath fogs out in little clouds. I’m not cold. Just unsettled.
