by K. A. Linde
“Come on, Fordham,” she whispered under her breath.
Another bell.
“Chelcie of Galanthea.”
Kerrigan shuddered. Great. Two warrior tribes in the top three.
“They’ll both go in after Audria,” Valia told her.
Another bell.
“Roake,” Kerrigan said softly. She certainly knew the competitor from Elsiande. The boy who harassed her in the halls and was likely in love with Audria.
“Surprised to see the tribes who don’t participate in magic doing well this year,” Valia mused.
“They still do magic,” Kerrigan said. “They just think it should be used for other means.”
“Like getting rid of it.”
Kerrigan shrugged. “Maybe less magic would be better for some people.”
Valia’s eyes flared wide in anger. “Are you one of those people who think that the Society should have less power? Because they are the only thing keeping this city in check.”
“I’ve lived my entire life in the mountain. I don’t think that I’m against the Society, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t have an opinion on their policies.”
She opened her mouth to argue, but Kerrigan gasped, cutting her off.
Darrid of Herasi, the competitor that Fordham had humiliated in the last task, was sneaking up on Fordham from behind as he dug through one of the boxes on the platform. Fordham stood, a look of triumph on his face as he slid the third piece of his medallion into place. Then Darrid was there. And just like in her vision, everything fell apart.
A shove, a scream, hands reaching out.
And then Fordham was free-falling toward the arena water below.
31
The Fall
Fordham fell.
His body moved past one, two, three platforms. His momentum carrying him faster and faster and faster toward that impending water. The water that would push him out of the tournament forever.
Kerrigan could hear cheers and boos from the stands. Some who were mad that Darrid had pushed Fordham. Others who were delighted to see the prince of the House of Shadows fall. But she was focused on him soaring through the air. He had no magic. He couldn’t buffer his fall. He couldn’t slow himself. He could do nothing but drop.
She put her hands over her eyes, peering out through a slit in her fingers. Her stomach was in knots. There wasn’t a single thing that she could do.
“Fordham!” she cried despite herself.
And then, with the dexterity only she had seen him move with, he reached out at the last second and grasped on to the final platform with one hand. There was a sickening snap as something broke or dislocated in his arm. An inhuman snarl ripped from him, reverberating throughout the arena.
He’d saved himself. He’d done it.
Then she saw the real horror. He wasn’t holding the medallion. He’d dropped it. It fell slower than him with less mass to carry it down. It drifted toward the water, as if calling itself home.
Fordham’s eyes were wide with pain, but still, he managed to reach out and pluck the medallion out of thin air. It dangled on a finger, the length of the ribbon just barely caught. He didn’t even dare breathe as he slowly slid it down his finger and clenched the thing in his fist. With a sigh of relief, he slid the medallion over his head and began the arduous process of climbing back up to the lowest platform.
By this time, it was clear that all competitors had found their medallion pieces and were now climbing the slippery platform to try to be one of the final eight competitors. Fordham was on the bottom rung. To make it through to the final task, he still had to beat two other competitors to the top of the platform.
With another disgusting pop, Fordham wrenched his shoulder back into place. The crowd seemed to make a collective gag at the brutality. But Kerrigan knew Fordham’s military training, and she saw in his face basic battlefield healing.
She didn’t know when everything had changed. Between the first task, when she’d been hoping he’d win because of the vision, and now, when she was a ball of anxiety over the fact that he might lose. And he couldn’t lose. Not because of her visions, but because of him.
“Fordham, come on!” she screamed over the roar of the crowd. “Get moving!”
As if he’d heard her, he began to climb up the soaked platforms.
A bell rang out.
“Darrid,” Valia whispered.
“Bastard,” Kerrigan grumbled. “Cheating bastard.”
“It’s not technically against the rules.”
Kerrigan huffed and went back to watching Fordham. He was flagging. His breathing was unsteady. His hand kept going to his ribs, as if all this exertion was only exacerbating the issue. His shoulder couldn’t be feeling great either. Not to mention, neither of them had slept a wink last night unless unconscious was considered sleep. She couldn’t believe he’d made it this far.
Another bell.
“Noda.”
Kerrigan bounced up and down on the balls of her feet. That just left four competitors, and only two more could go through. She was so fixated on Fordham’s relentless climb up a swaying rope ladder that she didn’t notice anything was wrong until the crowd gasped.
She turned and saw a girl—Kamari—sail through the air and land with a splash into the water. Kerrigan winced. That was a long fall. It had to have hurt, and now, she was out.
A bell rang.
“Posana. Only one more spot.”
Kerrigan worried on her lip as Fordham and Valero shot to the top of the structure. Two platforms down from the top, they met. Each sized the other up. Fordham looked like a brutalized mess. Valero looked more the image of a prince in that moment. More water rained down on them as they each lunged for a way up.
Valero got ahold of a ladder just as water rained down upon them. He slipped, falling to the last rung as the rope shredded his hands. He cried out but managed to hang on. Fordham had gone for a single rope. Not many of the competitors had climbed up the ropes, but Fordham scaled it like he’d been rope climbing his entire life.
Valero noticed Fordham’s efficiency and hastened back up the ladder. Fordham hit the platform top first with Valero a second behind him. There was only one more platform to reach and only one way to get there. A black wall about ten feet high.
Each competitor had to run up the face of the slick surface. Most had used their magic to ease their way to the top. Fordham had no magic left.
Valero took a running leap for the edge, but before he could hold on to the edge, Fordham lashed out, grasping Valero by the ankle. He yanked viciously with a pull that dropped Valero to the platform. The whole thing shook with the force of it… and then began to move in a tight circle. Valero tried to get up, but Fordham hovered over him now.
A ripple of unease passed through the crowd. Kerrigan could see the ferocity in Fordham’s expression. His need to win this. And for a second, looking at the cunning evil in his face, she wondered if she had made the right choice. If he could flip to this in an instant, what could he do to her?
Everyone waited on bated breath for Fordham to end it. For him to kick Valero off the platform or put his foot through his face. To do something to earn the nightmares he’d elicited in those assembled.
But it was the fear on Valero’s face that snapped Fordham out of it. He took a step away from him, shook his head once, and then ran up the side of the wall with such ease that he might as well have been using magic.
Another bell rang.
“Fordham,” Valia hissed.
Valero collapsed backward and brought his hands to his face in miserable defeat. Fordham had broken him with a look—a terrifying, menacing look—but that was all it had taken.
The master of ceremonies exclaimed and cheered for the competitors who were going through to the final task as the platform slowly drifted toward the arena lake. They fit together like puzzle pieces with perfect notches until they were one solid piece. A walkway was pushed out, connecting the competitors to th
e arena floor.
Fordham was somehow still on his feet, standing proud and a touch regal. But as soon as he made it inside the cover of the competitors’ box, he collapsed into a chair and promptly passed out.
“He will be fine,” Mistress Sinead said, patting Kerrigan’s arm a few hours later. “He needs to rest and recover. His injuries were quite severe.”
Kerrigan nodded mutely as Sinead exited the room. Kerrigan took the seat next to Fordham’s bed, where he had been carried after healing. She’d had her own healing, taken a strict power nap, and eaten enough food for a horse. Her magic had flickered back sometime while Fordham was still knocked out. Sinead had given him some kind of sedative to keep him under.
Kerrigan sighed heavily and leaned backward. What was she going to do now? They both probably needed to sleep it off for a few days. Not go rushing back out into danger. She should just leave him to it, but for some reason, she couldn’t move. She didn’t feel comfortable leaving his side.
Instead, she stood and began to slowly pace his room. His notebook was tucked away against his desk. Her fingers itched to open the book, so she could read what he had written, what had made him bleed on the pages. But it felt too private. Now that they were… friends, she wouldn’t intentionally break his trust.
Her eyes swept to the notebook one more time, and then she retreated. Her curiosity always got the best of her. She couldn’t expect him to trust her if she snooped through his things while he was unconscious. So, she plopped back down into the chair with a sigh.
She felt herself nodding off again when a knock sounded on the door. Kerrigan scrambled uneasily to her feet, ready to tell the person to leave, that he wasn’t ready for visitors. But it wasn’t another competitor, it was Clover.
“Clove, what are you doing here?” Kerrigan yanked her inside the room and promptly shut the door.
Clover was still wearing Dozan’s red button-up and vest uniform. She couldn’t have been more out of place.
“Kerrigan,” she gasped, throwing her arms around her. “You never came to see me last night. I thought you were dead.”
“Clove, I’m sorry.”
“What happened?”
Kerrigan sighed and sank back into her chair. She ran a shaky hand through her red hair and then told Clover nearly everything that had happened, leaving out the part about her explosion that had helped them escape. She wasn’t sure she wanted anyone else to know about that yet. By the end of it, Clover looked horrified.
“You were tortured,” Clover whispered.
“Yes,” Kerrigan said softly.
She had been tortured, and her magic had unleashed on the building. She didn’t know if they were all dead… if she had killed them all. What she did know was that this wasn’t the first time it had happened.
That night, five years ago, when she had been beaten in the alley and had her first vision, her magic had exploded like that as well. She had been the one to knock out the Fae who were going to kill her. And all along, Dozan had let her believe that he had saved her. That she’d been about to die and he’d killed everyone to keep them from hurting her. Dozan… who had never done anything magnanimous in his entire life. Now, she knew the truth. He’d done it because she had power… power that even she didn’t know what it was or how to control it. And then she had been stupid enough to tell him about her vision that night.
“What is it?” Clover asked, reading her face all too well.
“Nothing,” she said with a shake of her head. “But we have to go to Black House.”
Kerrigan cringed even saying the words. She knew what Clover’s response would be, but it was her only lead from the weapons deal. Her only chance to find out who the assassin was.
Clover paled. “You can’t go in there, Red.”
“Well, not until Fordham is well at least.”
Clover looked like she was going to argue further when a groan came from Fordham. Kerrigan rushed to his side. Fordham’s eyes opened, and his body went rigid.
“Hey, it’s okay. You’re okay.”
Then, her face appeared before him, and he scrunched up his brow. “What are you doing in here, halfling?”
Clover opened her mouth to protest the name, but Kerrigan didn’t even feel the bite in it anymore.
“Well, princeling,” she said, giving the sass right back, “you tried to die.”
“Sounds like me,” he grumbled.
“Sinead healed you, and you should be better. You just need rest. Not like you’re going to do that.”
“Probably not.”
“But you made it through to the final task.”
He lifted himself up and swung his legs off the bed.
Kerrigan made a yelp of protest. “What part of rest don’t you understand?”
“I’ve rested,” he simply said.
“Your magic.”
He blew her hair out of her face with a small puff of air. “Is back.” His eyes found Clover’s. “What are you doing here?”
“Hello to you too, sweetheart,” she said with a grin.
He looked back to Kerrigan. “Are all your friends like this?”
“Pretty much,” Kerrigan conceded. “And she’s here because we didn’t show up at the Wastes last night. Now, she’s trying to convince me not to go to Black House.”
He put his head in his hands. “What’s Black House?”
“It’s where Clare said they took the weapons last night. I think it must be their headquarters,” Kerrigan told him.
Clover shook her head. “It’s an old, haunted orphanage, where they experimented on children and then drowned them in bathtubs.”
Fordham looked up skeptically. “That sounds pleasant.”
“It’s all superstition.”
“For a reason,” Clover shot back.
“Are you saying there are ghosts?” Fordham asked. “Real ghosts?”
Clover shrugged. “No one goes inside, but the house makes weird noises, and on the Night of the Dead, anyone who walks in there… doesn’t come out.”
Kerrigan laughed. “We’ll be fine but only after you’re rested.”
Fordham rose to his considerable height. “I’m rested,” he repeated.
“Sinead said—”
“I’m rested,” he growled.
“All right,” she said with an arched eyebrow. Then, she stepped forward and kicked him in the shin.
He cursed sharply. “What the hell?”
“Don’t scare me like that,” she told him.
He just looked down at her, and something passed between them. Whatever joking anger had always been there was replaced by something she couldn’t explain. That same feeling she’d had in the thunderstorm last night and when she’d reached for him before the start of the tournament. Heat.
Her cheeks flushed, and she looked away.
Clover cleared her throat. “You two are actually going to go into Black House… at night?”
“You don’t have to come with us if you’re scared, Clove,” Kerrigan told her.
Clover crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m not scared.”
“Then we’ll go tonight,” Fordham said.
And neither of them disagreed with him. Though neither could keep from shivering at the prospect.
32
The Black House
Despite all her bluster about not being afraid, Kerrigan had never been reckless enough to go into Black House. Certainly not at night. Lyam had dared her on more than one occasion, but even Lyam hadn’t followed through with it. The farthest they’d made it was up the creaky stairs to touch the door. And even that felt impossible tonight with the clouds obscuring the moon and the stars. Darkness swept in, total and absolute.
“This feels like a big mistake,” Clover whispered from the front lawn of Black House.
It used to be a reputable area, somewhere between the Dregs and the Central, but since it had fallen into legend, the Dregs had swallowed it up.
“It’s going to be
fine,” Kerrigan bluffed.
“You two actually believe there are ghosts?” Fordham asked again in disbelief. Apparently, ghosts were too far-fetched for him. He hadn’t heard the entire house rattle on the Night of the Dead.
Clover and Kerrigan looked at each other. Then they both shrugged. It was as close to a yes as they’d get.
Fordham sighed. “It doesn’t look like anyone’s been here. There’s dust on the front steps.”
“Maybe we should go through the back?”
Clover squeaked.
“Why don’t you be the lookout?” Fordham suggested to Clover.
She visibly relaxed at the suggestion and nodded. “Yeah, I’ll be the lookout.”
Kerrigan followed Fordham to the back side of the enormous black house. The black paint was chipping, some of the windows were busted, and the house groaned loudly in anticipation of their arrival. Goose bumps erupted on her arms, and she tried to tamp down her mounting fear.
“Maybe this is a bad idea,” she whispered to Fordham as he took the first step up. She latched on to his arm to stop him. “Maybe I heard what they said wrong.”
“You didn’t hear wrong.” His eyes bored into hers. “Do I have to go in there alone?”
“No,” she said. “No, I’ll go. You just didn’t grow up with fear of this place.”
“Then aren’t you lucky I’m here to dispel your fears?”
“I guess,” she muttered as he tugged her up the stairs.
Once they reached the wobbly porch, she released him and tiptoed across the boards to the back door. This was as far as she had ever made it at Black House. She had touched the front door, not necessarily the back, where the shadows were darker and deeper.
“There’s no one inside,” Fordham whispered, peering into the window. “It looks empty.”
“Maybe they just house the weapons here?”
Fordham went to the door. “This is a new lock.”
“That’s promising. Need me to—”
Before she could ask him if he needed help with breaking in, the lock clicked in his hand, and he pressed the door open. Fordham entered first, igniting a small flame in his palm and stepping over the threshold.