A guard closed in, his spear raised, and Elora tried to focus on the fragile connection she still held over the elemental. The guard was almost on her when a dagger lodged in his skull, burying itself with a wet thud. He fell, lifeless, weapon clattering from his hand. In the stands Rell was already moving, another blade flashing in his grip before throwing it into the temple of another guard.
She reached for the fire, desperation clawing inside her as fierce as the roots outside. Her mind screamed, pulsed, pushed. Just a little closer. Just a little further. She needed to break through this time—she couldn’t fail—she—The flames answered. They burned hotter than her fear, striking the roots and splintering them with a crackling roar. Smoke and steam billowed, searing Elora and Tehvan’s skin as they ducked away on instinct. The sudden releasesent them sprawling, but the roots were gone. The heat was a slap to her senses, snapping them back into focus.
“Move, Tehvan!” she shouted. And they were running again. The gate closer now. Bodies falling behind them with tiny knives protruding from skulls. Hopefully one of them was Gerard.
Thorn’s voice erupted through the chaos like an unleashed beast. “Enough!”
The single word boomed through the arena, resonating with a dark, unnatural force that seemed to vibrate in Elora’s bones. She turned her head in time to see Thorn uncork a vial from his belt, its contents swirling with a malevolent darkness. As the liquid spilled out, it transformed into thick, black smoke, tendrils coiling around Thorn like a living entity.
The tendrils surged outward with a hungry speed, spiraling across the arena floor, reaching into the stands, and curling through the air like smoke with a mind of its own. The darkness seemed to breathe, expanding and contracting with each passing second, swallowing the arena in an oppressive, choking fog.
Elora felt the first touch of the smoke as it brushed against her arm—a cold, clammy sensation that instantly sent a jolt of fear through her veins. She could feel it pulling at her, a force that was both physical and magical, dragging her, inch by inch, closer to Thorn. She could hear others shouting, their cries cut short as the tendrils wrapped around them, pulling them toward the center like some monstrous, dark whirlpool.
She dug her heels into the sand, struggling to resist the pull, but it was like trying to fight against a current in a raging river. Tehvan stumbled beside her, his own strength no match for the power that was dragging them both toward Thorn.
The pull intensified, and Elora felt her feet slip forward, the ground beneath her seeming to give way. Her entire body trembled, a frantic tension building against the inevitability of the darkness swallowing them whole. She was running out of time, running out of options. They were getting closer, and Thorn’s magic was relentless, dragging them into the very center of his trap.
Light repelled darkness—that much she knew, even if this was dark magic unlike anything she’d ever seen before. Her fingers closed around the flash shard.
She hurled its contents into the air above them and a brilliant burst of white light exploded outward, filling the arena with a searing radiance. The shadows around them recoiled violently, creating a brief gap in Thorn’s magic. Elora seized the moment, pulling Tehvan forward.
Thorn’s laughter rang out, sharp and taunting.
Elora glanced back, just in time to see him toss another potion into the air. The bottle shattered against the ground, and all the shadows from his previous attack coalesced into a single, massive form—a beast of pure darkness.
It towered over the stage, easily three times its size, its body a chaotic fusion of animals that should never have existed together. It wasn’t solid—it flickered and warped, parts of it dissolving into wisps of dark smoke only to reform a moment later, as if it were composed of pure nightmare given shape.
It lunged toward them, faster than anything Elora had ever seen. Every step it took sent tremors through the ground, and as it roared, a sound like a thousand tortured voices erupted from its maw, shaking the walls of the arena and sending waves of fear rippling through the crowd.
They were so close, the gate only a few paces away, when the beast leaped into the air. Its massive paws crushed the ground, the impact knocking Elora forward. She scrambled to her feet, reaching back to grip Tehvan’s arm. But her fingers only raked through air.
She turned to see Tehvan beneath the beast’s massive paw.
“No!” she wailed. Tehvan’s face contorted in pain. His eyes met hers, and his mouth moved. Trying to speak. But Thorn didn’t care for last words. The beast's claws drove down, piercing through Tehvan’s back with a sickening crunch. His body jerked, and then went still, his eyes still on her, but the light within them fading.
Elora’s piercing cry echoed through the air, a gut-wrenching combination of pain and sorrow that reverberated like a sharp blade slicing through silence. It was a raw, primal sound that seemed to come from the depths of her soul. Her legs buckled beneath her, the strength draining from her body. Just as darkness threatened to close in around her, a thick cloud of smoke erupted at her feet.
“Tehvan!” she cried, reaching out, but a strong grip tightened on her arms, practically lifting her off her feet. “We have to go!” Someone shouted, their voice urgent, pulling her up with one strong motion. She barely had time to register Rell’s presence before he was dragging her toward the gate.
She couldn’t see anything, couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. The weight of the loss pressed down on her chest, and she felt herself slipping into a numb void, the world spinning out of her control. The noise of the crowd faded into the background, replaced by a deafening silence in her mind. Tehvan was dead.
Chapter 47
Thorn
Tehvan's body lay crumpled where the beast had left it, limbs twisted at unnatural angles, eyes still open and staring at nothing. Blood had pooled beneath him, dark and viscous in the arena's harsh light. Thorn stood motionless in the center of the bloodstained sand, his shadow elemental dissipating into wisps of darkness that curled around his boots before vanishing entirely. He felt no grief looking at the corpse—only a simmering fury that threatened to boil over at any moment.
She had escaped. Again. Made a fool of him in front of half the city, left him standing here among the wreckage of his carefully laid plans while she slipped through his fingers. His jaw clenched so hard his teeth ached.
Thorn's fingers found the ring on his hand, spinning it slowly as he felt the faint pulse within the enchanted metal. The heartbeat was shallow now, barely perceptible—grief, most likely. He had started to recognize the subtle variations in its rhythm over the past week. The frantic racing when Elora panicked in the arena. The way it had nearly stopped entirely when his shadow beast crushed Tehvan beneath its claws.
It wasn't Flora's heartbeat. It never had been.
As soon as they landed in Kilfaire, Tehvan attended the scholar summit—which made little sense to Thorn, it was meant to only be an excuse. While he was gone, Thorn found someone versed in such enchantments, and the truth had become clear. The magic was no more than a decade old—the ring itself showed none of the erosion that fourteen years of a strong enchantment would have caused. Thorn had extracted his own memories from before Elora's arrival at the Institute, viewing them with crystalline clarity. Tehvan wore no ring in those recollections. The enchanted band had appeared only after Elora came into their lives.
The calculated risk of accusing his brother of treason had paid off. Tehvan hadn't confessed, but he hadn't needed to. The evidence spoke loudly enough. Besides, Tehvan helping Flora run away—as he claimed that he did—had stolen Thorn's future. His prodigy. His life's work. That alone was treason of the highest order. But also lying about it. Whether her death was the lie or her survival, Thorn did not know, but it was clear Tehvan had only been playing him to secure Elora’s freedom.
A guard approached hesitantly from the arena's edge. "Master Thorn? Our men are pursuing, but—"
