What did that mean? Was that a compliment?
I swallowed hard, looking back at the queen’s lover just in time to hear him gasp and sit upright, his presence here fading away to nothing, and I knew he’d just rejoined his body.
Now for the reason I was really here. I recited the steps Emmeric had given me in my head before I spoke.
“Grim, I would like to speak to the Quorum regarding Ariyon. And I need to see Ariyon one last time beforehand,” I told him.
‘Yan, how do I switch our powers? You said you would handle it.’
‘Right. BRB.’Yanric poofed into black smoke.
The keeper of death peered at me with a stern expression, and my heart fluttered wildly in my chest. What if he said no? What if—
A smile broke out on his face, and he nodded as if he’d known I was going to do it. “As a Maven healer, your request for a meeting with the Quorum is granted. You have five minutes with Ariyon before the Quorum will be ready to meet you both.”
“Five—” I was jerked off my feet then and flying through the air. One second, I was standing before the Grim, and the next I was transported to…a giant room full of screaming fae. I frowned, trying to make sense of what was going on around me. The fae pushed against each other, chanting something as they crowded around a roped-off mat.
I spun, doing a full 360, and saw Ariyon enter the room with another fae beside him.
My mouth popped open at Ariyon’s chiseled, shirtless form. He was covered in yellowing bruises and small scars, and his hair was inches longer than I remembered and slicked back. The fae beside him was about our age, with inky-black hair and covered with tattoos. They were being paraded to the roped-off mat, which I now realized was a fighting ring. Both guys looked downcast at the floor.
‘Yan!’I called out to my familiar. According to Emmeric, I had to switch powers with Ariyon first, and only then could I offer to give my Nightling life away to the Quorum.
I had no idea what I was doing, but I was in a room full of some very questionable-looking fae, and I wasn’t about to just walk up to Ariyon until I knew exactly how to switch our powers.
Yanric didn’t answer, and so I slunk into the corner of the room and watched from afar. When my birth mother strode into the space, my knees went weak. She walked behind Ariyon with her head high as she spoke to another woman beside her. Seeing Marissa, with her black hair and pointy chin, always jarred me. We looked so much alike.
If I grabbed Ariyon right now, how would this work? Could they hurt me? But I couldn’t sit by and let Ariyon fight, not when I had a Quorum meeting in a few minutes to fix this whole mess.
Ariyon and the tatted-up guy dipped below the ropes and entered the fighting ring, and the amassed crowd of about a hundred fae went wild with whoops and cheers. I peered around looking for an exit, but this appeared to be some type of large jail with a network of hallways and cell doors.
The woman next to my birth mother clapped her hands once, and the crowd went silent. Marissa stood next to her, grinning, as she stared at Ariyon like he was her next meal.
What the fae was she looking at him like that for? It made sweat break out on my palms—even more than it already was. She’d already killed him once. What did she possibly have in store for him now? I hated her.
“The winner of this fight will be deemed one of the strongest among us and therefore will be granted rebirth!” the woman called out, and the crowd went wild again.
My stomach sank. This was it, the final fight.
Meanwhile, Ariyon was looking at the tattooed guy and shaking his head. Tattooed guy only nodded back in defiance.
Were they friends? What was going on here?
“The loser,” she went on, “will be tossed into the Bottomless Pit, vanishing forever.”
Bile rose up into my throat at that. We were nearly out of time. I jumped a little when Yanric appeared right in front of my face, first as a ball of shadows and then as my feathered friend.‘I got it!’he said, just as the fight bell rang.
“Ariyon!” I screamed at the top of my lungs and beelined for him.
Ariyon’s head snapped in my direction, and he grinned. “I forfeit!” he bellowed, as the crowd fell into shocked silence and then screamed a chorus of boos.
“You can’t forfeit!” the woman who had spoken previously announced, and she turned in my direction at the same time as Marissa.
“Fallon!” Marissa bellowed across the space.
Everything happened so fast then. Ariyon leaped from the ropes and hit the ground running toward me, just as Marissa and two big-looking dudes rushed at me as well.
‘Blood. It takes a blood transfer. Ariyon was bleeding the night you switched powers. Eden thinks you may have had a cut on your hand too. She said that the power to switch back always stays with the spell caster, so even without your other powers, you should still be able to.’
