Sabaa Tahir

But what choice is there? One of us has to kill the other, or the Trial won’t end.

Let her kill you. Let her win.

As if she senses my weakness, Helene grits her teeth and drives me back, her pale eyes glacial, daring me to challenge her. Let her, let her, let her. Her scim cuts into my neck, and I counter with a quick thrust just as she’s about to take my head off.

My battle rage rushes through me, shoving all other thoughts aside. Suddenly, she isn’t Helene. She is an enemy who wants me dead. An enemy I must survive.

I fling my scim to the sky, watching with mercenary satisfaction as Helene’s eyes flick up to follow the weapon’s path. Then I strike, coming down on her like an executioner. My knee drives into her chest, and even through the storm, I hear the crack of a rib and the surprised whoosh of her breath leaving her.

She is beneath me, her ocean eyes terrified as I pin her scim arm down. Our bodies are entangled, entwined, but Helene is foreign to me suddenly, unknowable as the heavens. I tear a dagger from my chest, and my blood roars as my fingers touch the cold hilt. She knees me and grabs her scim, determined to finish me before I can finish her. I’m too fast. I lift the dagger high, my rage peaking, holding like the highest note of a mountain storm.

And then I bring the blade down.

Elias. I whisper his name to myself. I think of his face without the mask and the low, thrilling timbre of his voice when he whispered in my ear at the Moon Festival. I think of how he moved when he fought with Aquilla, that sensual beauty that took my breath away. I think of his implacable anger when Marcus nearly killed me.

My limbs are too heavy, and a hand catches me easily about the waist.

“Door’s sealed by an Augur.” The hand releases me. “You’ll hurt yourself.”

My blindfold is pulled off, and a Mask stands before me. I know him instantly. Veturius. His fingers brush my wrists and neck as he unbinds my hands and pulls off my gag. For a second, I’m bewildered. He saved my life all those times so he could interrogate me now? I realize that some naïve sliver of me hoped that he was better than this. Not good, necessarily. Just not evil. You knew this, Laia, a voice chides me. You knew he was playing a sick game.

Veturius kneads his neck awkwardly, and that’s when I notice that his leather armor is covered in blood and muck. He has bruises and cuts all over, and his fatigues hang in dull, tattered strips. He looks down at me, and his eyes glint in brief, hot rage before cooling into something else—shock? Sadness?