Fiona
I step out of our secret room for the second time on the tenth day. Ainslee, Rhion, and Darian stand around me. Even in this hallway set far from the main corridors, it feels like freedom.
“Come on, let’s get to the Great Hall before anyone catches us,” Ainslee says.
She jogs, and I follow behind her with Rhion and Darian taking the rear. All four of us are on the highest of alerts as our shoes pound a steady rhythm against the stone.
Then we turn a corner, and Ainslee stops so suddenly that I nearly run into her. In front of us stand the two Stormbringers that I’d seen when I’d gone down to meet my father. The pair doesn’t say a word before I feel the electricity in the air. I dive toward them in a roll and pray that my armor will protect me from the obvious lightning strike that’s coming.
A popping sound shakes the surrounding walls, and I expect to feel the sizzle of lightning hit me. Except I only see a bright white light that doesn’t seem to fade like lightning should. I don’t feel the shock of the blast, and I certainly don’t feel the bolt roll through me.
Instead, Ainslee is standing in front of me with a smile on her face. Golden light pours from her body as if she were the sun. “Now, now, little Stormbringers,” she says, as if she were a mother chiding her children. “Why would you try to hurt a champion off the battlefield?”
That’s when I see the bright white light held in her hands. She’sholdingtheir lightning as it races chaotically around her fingers. How in the thirteen hells is she capable of that? Adelyth doesn’t give power over lightning.
“Countess Ainslee,” the one on the right says. “We didn’t know it was you. Nyxthos gave us all permission to fight in the hallways of the castle.”
She smiles at them and throws her hands to the side, sending the lightning against the walls and leaving scorch marks as proof that what I just watched was real. “Yes, and you are more than welcome to fight me. I just don’t think that youwantto do that, do you?”
They look behind Ainslee at the rest of us, and the one on the left looks like he’s going to say something but thinks better of it. “No, Countess. We don’t. Have a wonderful evening.”
They literally run away from her in that strangely graceful way that all Stormbringers seem to move. When they’re gone from sight, she turns to the rest of us. It’s me that speaks first, though. “Why didn’t you kill them? They tried to kill us, so why not return the favor?”
“Because,” she hisses. “I’m not allowed to. None of the champions may fight within Castle Lachlan. If they’d attacked me, I would have had to flee, and it’s only by luck they didn’t know that.”
“But you can protect us?” I ask. “You can just walk around and be mine and Darian’s shield? Why were we stuck in a room this whole time?”
Ainslee rolls her eyes. I can’t remember anyone ever rolling their eyes at me. In Stormhaven, no one would have dared to be that rude to Rhaskar Thorne’s daughter, and I never imagined achampionwould.
Darian lets out a soft sigh, and I know he’s shaking his head.
“No, I cannot be your shield. Yes, I need you alive, but I am not your gods damned bodyguard. Plus, if it’d been nearly any other type of soldier, I couldn’t have moved fast enough to get in front of you. You’d be dead. I put myself in front of you, and that gave me an excuse to stop their attacks, but Burning Ones would have simply lit you on fire. Demons would have ripped into you. As soon as the attack was obviously against you, I couldn’t have interfered.”
“Oh,” I say softly. The possibility of what could have just happened is more than a little terrifying. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so hard on her for trying to keep me locked in that room.
She turns and says, “We need to get to the Great Hall. Now.” We break into a real run. It doesn’t take long to get to the landing overlooking the room, which is full of people, both competitors and nobility.
Once again, I walk down the stairs to the main room, and this time, I stay near Ainslee. She may treat me like a child, but I feel that if anyone might provide a little protection, it’s her.
She shakes her head and looks at Darian without saying a word. I pause for a moment, and she walks away from me. Darian comes up behind me, and I see that Rhion’s gone as well.
“She has to play her part of the game,” he says. “Rhion too. Remember that we’re all pieces playing our parts, and theirs is to mingle. You don’t know how many times we’ve saved innocents because those two are so damned good at convincing people to just… not murder random villagers. And right now, they’re turning our competitors against each other.”
I shake my head. “Better them than me,” I say. “Do you ever feel you’re in a room full of adults and you’re the only child?”
“That’s the way it was before all the changes. I’m from the House of Light, and at the time, it was considered a completely useless House. I spent all my time with Cole Cyrus, the Prince of Flames, one of the greatest warriors of the time. Everyone wanted Cole’s favor. He and his father were important. Ainslee and I were just the forgettable friends who tagged along.”
He looks around the room and sighs. “Those were the days. I miss being forgettable. Eighty years of constantly having to fight and focus and try to change things has been exhausting. It’d be nice to go back to being able to cause a little havoc and hide behind Cole.”
I don’t know what to say to that, and it looks like Darian’s lost in memories until a slightly familiar face breaks from a group nearby. “Well, there’s my winning horse,” he says. Finley Lamond, Nyxthos’s Chamberlain, has a wide smile on his face. “You weren’t kidding, Darian,” he says. “The odds were so far against our little Fiona that they laughed at me for betting on her. Asked me how I’d gotten into deep enough debt that I was this desperate. Well, joke’s on them. I’ve spent the last ten days with three new human girls each night, bought with the winnings from that one bet.”
Human girls? The thought of this man buying humans… to use for a night? What happens after that? Are they just whores? Or is it more than that? The thought makes me clench my fists, but I don’t say a word.No violence in the Great Hall.
Darian’s lip curls up. “Glad I could help you out. I’d put my money on her again. Like I said, she’s Veris-touched. In fact, maybe you could throw a few…”
He shakes his head. “Can’t help you there. You know no one accepts bets from competitors, and I won’t have word get out that I was trying to help you break the rules.”
Darian cocks his head. “Come on, Finley. After all the tips I’ve given you throughout the years, you have to help me out. Iknowshe’s going to pass the second trial, and it’d be nice if I could get at least a good bottle of wine after I make it through this one.”
