I WOKE IN DARKNESS, WITH NO IDEA HOW MUCH TIME had passed. It could have been hours or days. Cold and soreness crippled my body. When I shifted my weight, hard, lumpy objects dug into my thigh and arm.
The Fatestone was no longer on my finger.
Panic lanced through me and I struggled to keep my breathing even. Who had taken it? The darkness made me feel shut in. It was hard to stay calm or to think. I grasped at fragments of memory, but all I remembered was my lantern shattering. Everything was hazy after that. I felt around, trying to see if there was anything I could grab onto to help me stand up, and realized with horror that the smooth objects digging into me were bones. I raised my arms perpendicular to the ground and encountered a slab. To the sides, the same.
Someone had shut me in with Veric.
I screamed and clawed at the stone in futility, but nothing happened until the tips of my fingers grew raw enough to bleed. As soon as my blood made contact with the stone, the lid of the tomb slipped aside. I scrambled out as quickly as I could with only one useful hand.
The skeletons on the walls weren’t visible to me now, but somehow I still felt like they watched me, judging me for my failure. I’d had the Fatestone no more than five minutes before it had been stolen. My chance to rewrite the past was lost. I wished the skeletons with their wire-tied jaws could tell me who they’d seen come after me.
But really, who else could it be besides Nismae? Anger bubbled up through the pain. The only others who knew about the Fatestone were the Nightswifts. If Nismae had used Hal to get to me . . . the thought filled me with fury. But I didn’t believe he’d help her with something like that now. Not after how I’d seen him looking at Iman. Not with the way he looked at me.
By the time I exited the tomb, the sky had just begun to lighten east of the mountains. A biting wind gusted through the gardens, chilling me to the bone. I didn’t make it far beyond the maze before spotting a guard. I sneaked around him and several others until I got back into the castle. I kept the hood of my shadow cloak up to hide the filth on my face from pages and servants moving through the castle halls.
I didn’t so much stumble back into my and Zallie’s room as fall against the door, which Hal opened a few moments later.
“Asra! Gods, I’ve been looking everywhere for you!” He caught me in a hug so tight I could barely breathe. “Is this blood on your hands?” he asked, examining them with concern.
“I’ll call someone to draw you a bath,” Zallie said, her green eyes round as saucers.
“Iman?” I asked the moment Hal got me settled in a chair.
“He’s been fine,” Hal assured me. “He’s missed you. We all have. The king has had his soldiers scouring the city. Eywin’s been trying to enchant your blood to create a way to track you, but hasn’t been successful yet.”
“How long have I been gone?” I asked.
“You disappeared into that damn hedge maze the night before last. I couldn’t even find the middle of the maze when I went looking for you. I couldn’t hear you. I thought you were dead. I thought . . .” He trailed off, the worry on his face as plain as day.
The truth was that I would have been dead if I wasn’t half god and able to withstand things no mortal could—like a day and two nights sealed inside a tomb.
“I found the Fatestone,” I said. “Then it was taken from me.”
“What happened?” he asked.
“Your sister.” Rage burned in my chest again. I had to get the Fatestone back before she sold it or managed to find a way to use it for something more nefarious than its intended purpose.
His expression darkened. “Are you serious?”
“I had it on my finger no more than a few minutes before someone attacked. It had to be one of the Nightswifts. They blew peaceroot into my face, laced with some sort of powerful opiate. I woke up inside Veric’s tomb, sleeping on his bones.”
Zallie gasped so dramatically it was almost comical. Sometimes I forgot she hadn’t been through the kinds of things Hal and I had.
“Peaceroot isn’t easy to come by here,” Hal said, frowning.
“And there are even fewer who know how to process it,” I said. All the evidence pointed to Nismae.
A page arrived to take me to the bathing chambers. I scrubbed until not a speck of grave dirt remained, but I still felt dirty. Violated. By the time I went back to my room, I knew I had to confront Nismae about what she’d done. I was more powerful now, more confident than the last time I’d faced her. I still didn’t want to hurt anyone, but I would if I had to.
I pushed open the door to my room. “Hal, I need to go—”
I froze after crossing the threshold. Hal rushed over from the other side of the room with Iman in his arms. A small woman perhaps twice my age stood near Iman’s bassinet—I recognized her as one of the king’s guards. One of the maids who had often attended me stood by my bedside, looking nervous. A spill of red fabric lay across the bed—some garments I didn’t recognize. I scanned the room in confusion, trying to figure out what this was all about. Zallie had a grim expression on her face that quickly changed to concern as Nera gave a little cry.
“Asra, look outside.” Hal pointed to the window.
“Oh no,” I whispered, my heart plummeting.
In the pale morning light, snow had begun to fall.
The king’s guard crossed the room to my side with the athletic grace of a mountain cat. “My lady, the king has assigned me for your personal protection and to escort you to the coliseum for the battle,” she said.
I went hot and then cold. How could I fight like this? I hadn’t had any time to recover from my injuries—and more important, to confront Nismae about her theft of the Fatestone.
“These vestments were sent for you, my lady,” the maid said, holding up a simple dress in shades of crimson and a bloodred wool cloak lined with brown fur.
“As long as I can wear my own cloak as well,” I said. Red was the king’s color, not mine. I belonged dressed in shadows—in my mother’s legacy. I wanted her protection for the battle to come.
The maid put my hair into a braided crown, then helped me into the crimson dress and placed the red cloak over my shoulders. All the while, I shot Hal a series of desperate looks he seemed to understand. He regretfully gave Iman to Zallie and pulled on his boots, subtly stashing his weapons in the hidden places where he always carried them.
“Keep them safe,” I told Zallie. “If the unthinkable happens, run. Go as fast as you can. One or both of us will meet you where we agreed.”
She nodded her understanding, her face pinched with worry. It wasn’t far to the Switchback Inn, our rendezvous point, but it might seem that way with two babies and the chaos that would take over the streets after the battle regardless of who won.
I kissed Iman and Nera good-bye, and then Zallie’s cheek, too. She blushed.
Then the king’s guard led us away.
We met with the king’s procession and paraded through the streets surrounded by onlookers. The Nightswifts’ stream of white pennants made its way through the city on a lower street, flooding in the direction of the coliseum. Thick flakes of snow pelted our faces as we walked. The noise of the crowd was deafening. I gripped Hal’s hand like I was trying to crush the life out of it.
“What are we going to do about Nismae and the Fatestone?” I asked. It was the only way I could have stopped this day from unfolding as it had.
“I’ll enter the coliseum with you and then go to Nismae. She and Ina will be settled in the challenger’s quarters soon.” His voice was resolute.
Nervousness raced through me. As if crossing lines between the challengers wasn’t bad enough, I hated the idea of him leaving now. If something went wrong, we’d be separated during the battle. I’d be occupied managing the king’s enchantments, but it would have felt better doing it with Hal by my side. But what choice did we have?
“She isn’t going to give it to you,” I said. The chances of Nismae parting with it now seemed very small. I’d have to make a trade I wasn’t willing to, like giving up helping the king. Could I make that sacrifice? If he won, he’d surely kill or imprison me for treason. I shuddered. I couldn’t spend the rest of my life locked away in some dank cell. I couldn’t let Iman be abandoned a second time.
“As you once pointed out, I’m a thief. I’ll find a way to get it,” he said.
The coliseum loomed before us. Some of the Swifts had chosen not to walk, and instead swooped down from the sky to line up outside the gates. Gone were the subtle vestments of trained killers and thieves. Today they dressed in white to honor their champion for the crown.
“I don’t want you to go,” I whispered.
“I don’t either,” he said.
These might be our last moments together before the battle. I hadn’t expected them to come so soon.
“Go now, before I change my mind and decide I can’t do without you,” I said.
He smiled. “I’ll be thinking of you every moment,” he said.
His words sent a thrill through me—the only reprieve from my anxiety.
He kissed me, and I let myself get lost in it for just a few heartbeats until he reluctantly pulled away.
“Be swift and be safe,” I said.
He nodded, and then he split away from the group at the coliseum’s entrance.
Once inside the king’s quarters, I turned back to watch the end of the procession.
Ina was last to appear, and I shuddered when I saw her. She winged through the low clouds, white against white, until she finally burst free with a roar that seemed to shake the very foundations of the city. Onlookers pointed and screamed, some of them fleeing. How long had it been since anyone had seen a dragon in Corovja? Or anywhere?
Those who had come to Corovja in the past moon were finally going to get the show they’d been waiting for.
Ina landed in front of the escort that had preceded her, and they saluted her with their white flags. She roared again, then loosed a plume of flame. Steam rose from where she’d melted the snow, leaving the cobblestones scorched black.
The challenge had begun for the crown of Zumorda.