Suddenly, Flint stops. He turns, panting, brandishing the fireball. His curls are stuck to his forehead with sweat. The snake is near enough now to run him through with one of those deadly fangs. I’m frozen with fear, unable to tear my eyes away from my brother.
Flint holds on to his flames until the voices reach a crescendo, until the beast opens its mouth wide enough to swallow him whole – and hurls the fireball down its throat.
There’s a sickening screeching sound, and I watch as the snake burns to death from the inside out, writhing and twisting until it flops to the ground, dead.
My brother waves the physicians away good-naturedly and disappears through the tunnel.
I let out a huff of laughter, light with relief, then wince. The pain is returning. If only that handsome boy would come back, I could send him for more painkiller. I’m just considering whether to ask the Keep for some medicine when my cousin struts into the arena.
Grudgingly, I’m forced to admit that Ember handles the first part of the trial well. Perhaps she’s just too arrogant to believe any of the cruel words thrown in her direction.
Failing to faze her as either Aunt Hester or Aunt Yvainne, Ember’s beast sheds its disguise and claims its true form – that of a towering dragon.
The Firelands were once home to a great number of dragons, but during the war, many of them fled Ostacre, never to return. The closest I’ve ever come to seeing one is in Renly’s picture books. It’s incredibly, horrifyingly beautiful.
My cousin runs straight at the dragon while expertly dodging billowing bursts of fire. She directs her own flames up towards its eyes, and in the time it takes for the dragon to jerk its head away, she’s climbing up its leg and swinging herself on to its back. The creature roars and arches, but Ember clings on tight, crawling up its neck until she’s gripping the dragon’s head between her hands. It’s not until the smoke begins to rise that I understand.
Ember is sizzling its brain.
The dragon barely has time to spew out a few tendrils of flame before it collapses to the ground. Ember slides delicately off its ridged back and skips away from thesmouldering body as though she’d just made a pot of tea rather than fry a fully grown beast.
I slump back in my chair, sickened.
Moments later I’m looking at an entirely different arena, a large meadow dotted with trees. I watch dazedly as the Terrathian Heirs complete their trials. One girl, Amaryllis, manages to ensnare her beast, a monstrous spider, in its own sticky web.
By the time the third Heir has been carried out on a stretcher, the pain from my injuries is unbearable. The completion of the trials must have put an end to whatever enchantment has been concealing the Crowned Council. I can hear them talking to one another as I drift in and out of consciousness.
Then something tugs at my attention, and I find myself gazing down into the arena just as the fourth Terrathian Heir emerges into the light.
I sit up, ignoring my aching limbs. ThefourthHeir? But there are only three, there have only been three since the very start of the Choosing. Everyone has long given up hope of the fourth Heir making an appearance.
Yet there he is, grinning lazily up at the Council.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ is all he says.
My brows shoot up in surprise. Because I know him. Only he’s no longer wearing a drab serf’s uniform, or his pair of thin leather gloves. He’s dressed just like the other Terrathian Heirs – in a green tunic that matches his eyes. I catch sight of his tree-shaped brandmark glowing brightly on the back of his right hand, which he rakes through his untidy dark hair.
The faces of the Crowned Council paint a picture of undiluted shock. Aunt Yvainne is shaking her head while Queen Aspen has both hands clapped over her mouth.
My surroundings seem to tilt as the boy turns his gaze on me, and slowly I begin to piece it all together. For there is only one person who could warrant such a reaction, only one person who is even more infamous, more feared, than I am myself.
The emperor’s illegitimate son. The bastard prince.
His name is Fox Calloway Castellion, but they call him the Earth Cleaver.
20
Iwas eleven years old when the earth was ripped in two.
I can still see it all so vividly, sitting by the window in Harglade Hall as the ground began to tremble and quake. Everybody was ordered to take refuge in the crypt. I detest it down there, surrounded by urns and towering stone statues of our ancestors. Still, it felt fitting to wait the whole thing out in a tomb, especially since the attendants were helpfully wailing that we were all going to die. And many did. Thousands upon thousands of them. More were swallowed by the Rift than were drowned by my storm.
Aside from Cor Caval, which is built upon a bedrock of enchanted gold, every central province was destroyed. Many obliterated. For some, no trace of them remains or, like the Cities of Buried Souls, their remains serve as a reminder of all that was lost. Ancient Houses. Entire bloodlines. Countless lives. Etheri and Fidra alike, all dead, all gone, never to return.
And the boy responsible for their deaths, the boy responsible for breaking the world, is looking right at me as though I am the only person in it.
Only when Fox’s gaze eventually drops do I find I can breathe again. His arrival has shattered through the haze, leaving me aching, reeling and painfully alert.
The Earth Cleaver. The Earth Cleaver ishere. And not only is he here, he’s an Heir to the Terrathian throne. Beast-Ember was right. The Gods must really have a sense of humour. Or some deeply questionable intentions.
