Chapter 11
Syneca
TO ACCEPT HARD TRUTHS: swallow them like bitter medicine—quickly, completely, without lingering on the taste.
They wanted everything, but had forgotten the oldest truth: a witch’s power lives in her bones, not her jewelry.
The guard at my cell door held out his hand. “Runes. All of them.”
He’d come to even the playing field between me and my fellow witches before we vied for the right to hunt our own kind. I’d already surrendered the obvious runes. The stones from my pockets. One of the emergency wards sewn into my cloak. Even the tiny protection charm I’d worn since childhood. But he waited, palm still extended, like he knew.
“The rest,” he said.
I pulled three more from the hem of my robe. Clay pieces, barely worth a crown. He pocketed them without looking.
“Boots.”
I unlaced them. Handed them over. The stone floor bit through my thin socks, cold and damp from last night’s rain, which had seeped through cracks as old as the walls.
I wondered if the Nexus fanatics knew how dilapidated the bones of their precious arena truly were. But why would they care? Most of their lives were mundane circumstances, haloed in tiny bouts of pleasure. They didn’t fear for their lives, didn’t worry about the genocide happening on their front step. As long as it didn’t butt into their day-to-day, as long as they believed the narrative that we were the problem, thatIwas the problem, the Magistrate could do whatever the hell he wanted. I could hardly imagine his freedom.
Puddles gathered in the corners where the centuries had worn down the floor unevenly.
Water. Everywhere.
The guard didn’t notice. Why would he? He saw a defanged witch, harmless without her carved stones. Because that’s wherehispower came from, but he’d clearly forgotten about mine. A witch with runes was more powerful than a witch on her own, sure. But there were few that needed them for survival. He feared us when he was told to. Condemned us as ordered. He’d probably never looked a witch in the face and seen anything but a lowly criminal. And he had no idea about the creature hiding in the shadows of my cell, holding himself back after glowering only hours ago, rubbing his obsidian beak against the walls as he scowled and refused to look at me. Silas was as angry as ever, but he was still here. Always.
The guard, a hunter, didn’t see the weapon soaking my socks, pooling in the hollows of old stone, singing against my skin with promise. Most hunters were daft. And it showed.
“Walk.”
The other witches were already waiting in the tunnel. Two women in identical gray robes that turned us into ghosts ofourselves. They’d taken our individuality along with our runes. Made us uniform. Controllable. Except?—
Katarina’s fingers twitched. Subtle. Practiced. The warning signs used in the Crook when sound meant danger.
The younger witch caught it and dipped her chin.I know.
Even beaten, even stripped, we knew. Whatever happened in that arena, it wasn’t justice. They weren’t seeking champions. It was theater. Theater before a hunt that would solidify the Magistrate’s place of power in the world.
Katarina finally looked at me. Her eyes held arctic fury, the kind that never melted. “Do you think you’re saving someone?” she whispered. “Or are you here to watch us burn?”
The words hit me hard. Because part of me wondered the same thing. They’d have to die in order for me to help Vitoria. So, in many ways, Ihadcome to kill them.
The tunnel stretched ahead, growing brighter with each step. The roar of the crowd built like thunder. My bare feet splashed through shallow water. Every drop became part of me, mapping the space, tasting the stone, remembering.
We emerged into impossible light, standing at the open mouth of the tunnel as we watched. The Nexus arena had been reborn overnight. Gone were the floating platforms where athletes had raced for Light Veils. Gone were the banners of team colors and the smell of too much liquor and wine. Gone were the moments when this was just a game and everyone went home at the end of it.
Instead, a giant crystal sphere, split into wedges, filled the center of the arena. Another bit of Tiberius’s show. Each section held its own slice of color. And beyond that giant, floating circle, gold wrapped around the elevated cage where Calder stood witness, knuckles white on the rail. Green bathed the next platform where the Magistrate presided like a king of murderers.
The Oracle sat beside him, that tattered blindfold hiding whatever she really saw, her raven perched on her shoulder. Her Guardian in dragon form was too large for the arena. And though I hadn’t seen him at first behind the clouds, he circled above, his belly of purple scales glinting against the scattered beams of light.
The Magistrate’s bare arm was on full display, showing off the twin blades crossed beneath a crescent moon, the mark of the hunter’s leader. And he wore it like other men wore wedding rings. With pride. With permanence.
“Citizens of Fuerlis,” Tiberius’s voice boomed through runes strategically placed around the arena. Runes I’d probably woven power through. “Bear witness to divine selection.”
Divine. I almost laughed. There was nothing fuckingdivineabout this carefully orchestrated slaughter. Five would walk, eight would die. One would be hunted and then she would likely die too. Yet the crowd roared. Begged for it. And somehow they still thought the monsters livedoutsidethe city walls.
I stared at Tiberius, lord of the Hunters, considering his motive. Ifhewere responsible for the capture of the Phoenix, he’d be legendary. The leaders from all over the world would fawn at his feet for the salvation he delivered, sure. But was that enough for him to try to kill the Oracle?
