I couldn’t hear what he was yelling about, but Reynar had his whip in his hand, and the boy was trembling.
“What’s going on?” I asked the demon in front of me. He was a tall man named Perrick. We’d only spoken a handful of times in passing, but he seemed to be honorable.
Perrick held up his hand to me and leaned forward as the prisoners in front of him whispered something in his ear.
“News just passed down from the front,” Perrick said. “They’re saying the young one was spreading rumors about a festival at the castle. Something to honor the return of the princess and her new engagement.”
The pickaxe fell from my hand, and my heart stopped beating.
She was engaged?
This couldn’t be happening. Not again.
Fear and anger warred within me. Part of me wanted to drop to my knees in tears, and the other part wanted to rip these chains from my body and kill every guard in sight.
“It’s a shame, really,” Perrick said. He’d been talking, but I hadn’t heard anything past the word engagement.
“What?”
“The boy,” he said. “He’s been in trouble for spreading rumors before, and Reynar warned him just last week that if he was caught talking about news of the castle or the outside world, he would beat him within an inch of his life unless he confessed where the information was coming from.”
“They think he has some kind of source?” I asked.
“He has to be getting information from somewhere,” he said. “Prisoners are forbidden to communicate with anyone outside of these dungeons, so either a guard is passing information or that boy has a dormant ability that isn’t controlled by these chains. Either way, unless he confesses, I’m afraid he won't survive another beating. The last one nearly killed him.”
Why would this boy risk talking out here if he knew his life was in danger? Why wouldn’t he whisper it to the others inside the darkness of the dungeons late at night? It didn’t make sense, except that he was young and didn’t know any better.
We all made foolish decisions when we were young.
Reynar tore the young demon’s shirt from his back and lashed his whip across the bare skin. I winced and took a step forward, but Perrick grabbed my arm.
“Don’t,” he said in a low voice. “Ezrah told me to look after you. There’s a plan in place, Aerden. The Resistance is working to get us both out of here. Lay low and be patient.”
I narrowed my eyes and stepped back. “You belong to the Resistance?”
“Quiet,” he said, glancing around. “You’ll get us both killed.”
“I don’t care what Andros is planning,” I said. “I can’t stand here and watch that young demon be tortured to death.”
“One boy is nothing compared to the suffering out there,” he said. “You of all demons should know that.”
I clenched my jaw and stepped back, my heart thundering in my chest as Reynar whipped the boy again. One more blow would end him.
“Let’s bring them all up to hear the news,” Reynar shouted. “If you’re so eager to share gossip like a pretty maiden, maybe you can tell them all what the king has in store for you.”
The guards moved quickly, drawing the entire group of prisoners into a tight circle around Reynar and the boy, who was bent over, blood dripping from the gashes on his back.
I tightened my hands into fists as I stood there in the front of the group.
“Tell them, boy—go on.”
The boy looked up at the menacing guard, his body trembling in fear.
Reynar raised his whip as a threat, and I took another step forward. Again, Perrick pushed his arm in front of mine to block my way.
“The king’s daughter, Princess Lazalea, has returned to the castle, and there is to be a great festival in her honor,” the boy said, his voice choked by sobs. “To celebrate her expected engagement to Kael, son of Reagan, there will be a tournament.”
The boy cowered, his body bent, and his head lowered toward the ground.
“And what kind of tournament will it be, since you’re dying to tell everyone who will listen?” Reynar asked, holding up the whip again.
“The return of the King’s Games,” the boy said.
A ripple went through the crowd of prisoners. The King’s Games had been outlawed generations ago. I knew of them from my history lessons as a shadowling, but where everyone around me saw this as a death sentence, I saw it as the first shimmering light of hope.
“The king wants volunteers,” Reynar said. “Five demons from every dungeon in the city to fight to the death in hopes of getting a chance to beg for their freedom. I think we’ll start choosing those volunteers right now. What do you think, boy?”
The young demon shook his head and collapsed onto the ground at Reynar’s feet. He’d taken a harsh beating, and it would take him a long time to recover from the lashings. I was amazed he’d stayed upright as long as he had.
“I’ll assume by your lack of response that you would happily volunteer your life in service to the king’s entertainment,” Reynar said. An evil smile spread across his lips, revealing yellowed teeth. “Karn, why don’t you choose the next volunteer.”
My head snapped toward the other side of the circle as Karn walked toward Trention. My friend’s eyes met mine as Karn unlocked the chains around his wrists and ankles and shoved him forward. Trention fell on his knees next to the boy.
I drew an angry breath. He wouldn’t dare put a young boy and the oldest, weakest demon in the dungeon on the battlefield of the arena. They’d be dead in seconds against a mediocre opponent. They were not fighters.
Historically, the first round of the King’s Games was a group round. Five on five. If the others in their group were good enough, these two might survive round one, but when the battles whittled down to smaller and smaller groups, they would surely lose their lives.
“Yes, I think these two will make a good start,” Reynar said, laughing. “Who else is willing to volunteer their life in exchange for an audience with the king? If we have five worthy volunteers, perhaps I will let these two weaklings live another day.”
I stepped forward, but Perrick gripped my arm tightly.
“This is not the way, friend,” he said. “You’re in no shape to fight, and even if you were to win, there’s no guarantee the king would set you free. Ezrah told me that Lea begged him to make sure you didn’t enter these games. It would destroy her if anything happened to you.”
His words knocked me back. Lea had begged him?
No one believed I could win on my own. And maybe they were right. I didn’t even have control over my magical powers. I was good with a weapon, but the demons in the arena would be strong in every way. They would be well-trained and determined to win their freedom.
In the history of the games, there were always surprises, too. Monsters brought in from the wilds to wow the crowds. Conjured abominations that appeared out of nowhere in the middle of a battle. Only a fool would volunteer when he couldn’t so much as cast the simplest spell.
If I was smart, I would wait here in the dungeons until the Resistance came to rescue me. Deviating from whatever plan Andros had so carefully laid out might put the entire operation in danger. But this was the chance I’d been waiting for. A real chance to prove myself in battle and face my darkest fears. A chance to show Lea that I was ready to fight for her.
Reynar lifted his whip. “No one will volunteer? Are you a bunch of cowards who would send your weakest off to die?” he asked. “Or perhaps you need some extra motivation?”
He brought the whip down hard against Trention’s back, and the old demon screamed in pain. Tears stung my eyes and my jaw tensed as I watched my friend be beaten.
Trention’s eyes met mine across the circle and he shook his head, warning me not to intervene. But I was done following anyone else’s orders. I was done waiting for someone else to rescue me while I stood by and watched the fight from the sidelines.
I brought my ha
nds together and drew what power I could find into my veins as Reynar’s whip hit my friend again. In one swift motion, I pulled my hands outward, snapping the iron chain between my shackles. I reached down and ripped the chains from my ankles, feeling the surge of power run through me as the spell that contained my magic broke free.
I shifted to smoke, ignoring the gasps of surprise that rippled through the prisoners. I swirled around Reynar’s body and grabbed his whip with one hand and the dagger at his belt with the other. Before he even realized what was happening, I had the dagger pressed against his throat.
“You are the only coward here,” I whispered in his ear. “Touch him again and die.”
The other guards raced forward, taking my arms and pulling them behind my back. They yanked me away and pushed me to my knees, and I dropped the dagger to the ground.
Reynar stretched his neck forward and readjusted the collar of his uniform. “Well, lads, it seems we have our first volunteer,” he said. He spit on the ground and then turned to face me. “Aerden, son of Walther, it will be a pleasure to watch you die.”
“Aerden?” someone shouted.
“It’s him.”
Voices joined in, questioning my identity.
“But you were dead,” someone else said. “Taken by the Order. How can it be?”
Reynar crouched in front of me and pulled my long hair back from my face. “Have you really not recognized him all this time? The son of the king’s top advisor shared a dungeon with you for months, and none of you realized?” He laughed. “You are all much bigger fools than I thought.”
But Reynar was the fool. Calling me out for who I really was did nothing but bring the entire crowd of prisoners to my side.
“Is the Order defeated?”
“Have our demons returned?”
“If you’re alive, there is hope.”
Everyone spoke at once, their eyes never leaving my face. I studied the crowd, recognizing hope and admiration in their eyes. I could see in them the desperate need to believe that the world was not over. To believe that if we fought together, we could defeat even the most impossible enemy.
“I volunteer,” a demon said, stepping forward. I didn’t know his name, but he looked me right in the eyes as he said it. “If Aerden fights, so do I.”
“I volunteer,” two others said, joining the first demon.
“I will fight with the one who returned,” another demon said, nodding at me as my eyes met his. “I volunteer to fight with this warrior.”
One by one, every demon along the line stepped forward, volunteering their life to fight at my side.
My heart opened in that moment, kneeling there beneath the pure demon sky. This was the Shadow World I remembered. Not the run-down villages or the war-torn cities. At its core, this was a place of great strength and beauty, where demons willingly gave their lives to protect their own. It was a place where honor and justice once meant something.
Despite their situation and all the wrongs that had been done to them, these demons still believed in something great. They refused to give up on hope and the idea that if we stood together, we could do impossible things.
There are few moments that change you. That make you who you are. That inspire you to be the person you always knew you could be. But this was one of those moments for me.
Kneeling there, I realized that everything I wanted was within my grasp. All I had to do was find the courage within myself to reach for it.
These demons believed in me because I had stood in the face of evil and survived. It didn’t matter that I’d been saved by the persistence and strength of my closest friends. What mattered was that I was here. I was proof that evil could be defeated, and that love was stronger than any other force in this world or the next.
I had no idea what the future would hold, but I did know this: I would fight with all of my soul and strength. I would stand until they forced me to my knees for the last time.
Sapphires gleamed in the sunlight, the pure blue color of the stones reminding me that I was once as hopeless and afraid as the demons in this ravaged land. I was as broken as the abandoned ships that lined the shore like wooden skeletons.
All it took was a handful of people who believed in the impossible and refused to give up. I had been resurrected by their love and their willingness to give themselves wholly to the fight.
Up until now, I’d carried my freedom like a burden. But as I knelt under the expansive sky with the suns warming my face, I saw it for the first time as the gift it truly was.
We would win this war, or we would die fighting.
And when the time came, I would stand in the arena of the King’s City, and I would honor those who had given me back my life. I would prove to everyone that as long as you believed in something so much you were willing to die for it, anything was possible.
The Key
After the guards brought us all back down to the dungeons, Reynar grabbed my new chains and led me to the solitary cell on the other side of the cave. He locked me inside and spit on the floor at my feet.
“You think you’re above me because of what you’ve overcome, but I know the truth,” he said. “You’re nothing but a deserter. You abandoned your king and your people when they needed you most, and you should have paid for that crime with your life. Maybe now you finally will.”
He left me to the darkness, but for the first time in ages, there was a light of hope in my heart. Yes, Lea was engaged, but I knew her well enough to know that she would not go through with a wedding to someone her father had chosen for her. She would fight before she agreed to marry Kael.
I finally had a way to prove to her that I was in this fight, too.
Hours later, when sleep had started to drag me down into its depths, a door opened at the end of the hall and light fell across the stone floor.
I stood, expecting to see Ezrah again. I expected to have to explain my decision and to stand up for what I’d done, but it wasn’t Ezrah who walked into the room. It was my mother.
I hadn’t seen her since my first nights in the castle’s holding cells when she had come to me and refused to set me free. I didn’t want to see her now, and I most certainly didn’t want to hear her beg me to step down from my decision to fight in the games.
“Oh, Aerden, look at you,” she said, running forward and clutching the steel bars between us. “What have they done to you in this place?”
“That’s a fine question to ask when you’re the one who left me here to rot in the name of my own safety,” I said.
“Don’t speak to me like that,” she said. “You have no idea how much it hurts me to know you’re here.”
“I’m sure,” I muttered. I had nothing nice to say to her. It was her fault I was still down here instead of up at the castle with Lea. And it was her fault my friend Trention, a great scholar, had been doomed to death down here with me. I wasn’t exactly in a forgiving mood.
“Aerden, you cannot fight in these games,” she said. “It’s too dangerous. You’re putting your entire life on the line, and for what? It’s madness.”
“Madness?” I asked, stepping closer to her. “Do you know what madness is? It’s having to live inside the body of a witch for an entire century, hearing her voice in your head and obeying her every command. Madness is not having any control over your own body or your own power for what felt like a lifetime. Madness is being abandoned by the parents you believed loved you more than anything. You know nothing of madness, Mother.”
She turned her head away, as if the sight of me sickened her.
“I told you, if we’d had any reason to believe that you could be saved, we would have moved heaven and hell to get you out of there,” she said. “How could we have known?”
“A sixteen-year-old human girl believed in me,” I said. “My brother believed in me. Why couldn’t you?”
“I tried to protect you,” she said.
The key. I suddenly remembered the diamond key she had given me
. Was that what she meant now? Was that how she’d meant to protect me?
A chill ran through my body, and I touched her hand to force her to look at me.
“How did you try to protect me, Mother?” I asked, my voice softer. I needed to know. “Is that why you gave me the key?”
When she looked at me, there were tears in her eyes. “If you’d had the key with you, they couldn’t have taken you through that portal, Aerden. I don’t understand.”
“I don’t either,” I said.
She shook her head. “What?”
“Where did you get the key, Mother? How could you have known it would protect me from the Order?” I asked.
“That’s not important,” she said, taking a deep breath and stepping back from the cell. “What’s important is that you’re safe now. You can’t put your life in jeopardy again just to...what? Prove something to yourself?”
“What kind of life is this?” I asked, motioning to the tiny cell that held me. “Being stuck in here is no better than living in the human world and serving the Order. I’m still not free, can’t you see that?”
She closed her eyes and ran a fingertip across her cheek. “I just want my children home with me and safe,” she said. “Once things have calmed down and your sister and brother have come home, I’ll make sure the king sets you free. I promise.”
In other words, she didn’t want me free now. She didn’t trust me.
And more importantly, she didn’t want me fighting against the Order. Any of us. She wanted us home where she could control us.
“Where did you get the key?” I asked again. “What are you hiding?”
Her eyes widened, and she stepped back until her shoe touched the stone wall across from my cell. I wanted her to tell me that she’d found the key somewhere on accident and had learned it would protect its wearer from the Order. I wanted her to tell me that she had no ulterior motives in keeping me locked away.
But when she didn’t speak, I knew. There was a reason my mother didn’t come looking for me when I disappeared. There was a reason she locked me away as soon as she had the opportunity. Something more was going on with her than I had ever realized.
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