Walking up to the victory dais in a Sept dungeon is nothing I would’ve ever expected, especially after receiving a dagger to the heart. But here I am, ascending a set of silver-plated steps aligned with a crystal bannister, until I’m beside the only other victor up here—Renesta Fowler.

  I’m eye level with her now. I guess Boeru didn’t only redefine my muscle structure, he made me taller too. I nod at her before turning shoulder to shoulder. It’s the second time I face the Dane dais from far away, only now, I’m not in awe.

  When I glance to my side, Renesta’s head is completely turned, staring at me like she did while she was being judged by the Danes.

  My heart does a somersault—not sure if it’s because I’m creeped out, or because up close she’s that much more beautiful. Full lips, angular nose, soft, tan skin. It feels good to be alive.

  As soon as I’d walked up beside her, I also notice a healing sensation wrap me and Renesta’s wounds clotting before my eyes. Must be some sort of aura.

  “He chose you before this event even begun,” Renesta says.

  My brow furrows. That’s true. Boeru told me as much. But how the hell does she know that?

  “Jurso did say you were special.” I glance at the top of his head peeking out of the pit of shame to our left. It’s weird to have a bunch of eyes on me peeping out of the ground. I want to laugh that one of the brutes is still unconscious with his head against the crack, but tonight isn’t very funny, even if I’m on cloud nine about bonding with a dragon spirit.

  One look down at my forearms and I can feel an invisible energy crisscrossing around them. If I clench hard enough, the warring dark will become visible again… I’m sure of it.

  “It seems we are both special,” she remarks.

  “I have seen her before in my ranks,” Boeru’s stormy voice thunders in my mind.

  “How? She’s flesh and blood.”

  He cackles in my ear. “Ask her yourself, shy mortal. I know you wish to court her.”

  My cheeks heat up. “Get the hell out of my head.”

  “It is too late for that.”

  The Danes’ whispers echo all around the chamber, and I can tell Layla still stares my way in disbelief from the far balcony. A warmth I hardly let myself feel swaddles me from her shed tears. Perhaps my pipe dream of ascending to a second house together can become a reality now.

  I’m on a high, but that doesn’t change the fact that the Danes are probably going to keep having us kill one another in the arena.

  “Boeru, will they stop now that I’ve awakened you?”

  I feel a hiss of smoke shoot at my neck. “Never. The Danes are greedy things. Once a gateway is opened, they will bleed it dry, literally.”

  “How about just tell them it’s closed for business since you’re the one who controls it?” I ask.

  “Silence. Their high magic can rip your body limb from limb at this pathetic level. Besides, I forfeited my rights to the gate when I bonded with you. Patience.”

  Renesta boldly walks in front of me, giving her backside to the Danes. Lucky them. “You converse with the spirit now, don’t you, Haledyn of House Kavoh?”

  I fight to hold her emerald gaze. “How do you know?”

  “Your eyes glow white.”

  That’s weird. So is that what her and that silky haired guy are doing when their eyes glow? Or even the Danes?

  She inspects me closely, her breath like minty leaves. It makes my heartrate jackhammer harder than when Grondus was after me.

  I snap out of my infatuation and let my curiosity win. “How did you know he chose me in advance?”

  She just stares for a long minute, saying nothing.

  “The Sept has agreed.” Center Dane clenches his fist, and all my brothers and sisters on the balcony stand straight, tethered by his wind webs. “Trials will speed ahead in hopes of activating another awakening before the close of this precious gateway. Mallory Stonefront.” An unassuming woman is flipped off her balcony and onto the crimson circle.

  The Danes whip their parchments into a single tornado at their backs and retain only one page—which flies right into the center Dane’s grasp.

  Tensions rise, making my fists clench. These new tightly wound muscles and clear lungs give me a chance to do something. Not to mention… the awakening gave me access to a third eye of power I’m sure I can tap into. That’s how I bested Grondus effortlessly. It has to be.

  I’m no longer forced to weasel my way out of situations. I can command them.

  “Hmm. Hmm. Hmm,” Boeru hoots deeply in my mind. “A dragon’s spirit can easily overwhelm a mortal’s. Tread carefully, little Haledyn.”

  Shit. The jerk’s right. This isn’t me.

  Taking a deep breath calms me.

  It’s a blessing to feel strong, don’t waste it on some naive high. Then you’d be no better than a brute.

  “Your blood is worthy. Choose your weapon, swiftly.” The Dane skips the formalities of house parent referrals. I’m wondering if they’ll skip questioning too.

  That would suck. Now that I’m not going to die, I need to know what the world is outside of the black skies.

  Once Mallory steps into the lit barracks, I turn my attention back to Renesta. Something’s tickling me… something ethereal. It feels invasive. As her eyes turn white, I realize she’s using her attunement and affecting me somehow.

  “Cut it out.” I flex my forearms and rid myself of the foreign magic. It’s the same as when I syphoned Grondus’ warring dark.

  “I am merely trying to understand you,” she says.

  “Yeah, well, let’s start with asking, huh? Trust is something we’re going to have to build here. I’m sure you wouldn’t react so well if I just walked up to you and kissed you, right?”

  I don’t know what the hell came over me, but heat swirls into my face.

  “Smooth,” Boeru cackles in my head.

  “I asked you a question before.” I avert my gaze as another sister is carried to the arena to duel Mallory. We both keep glancing at the fight that’s about to commence, at the stone cracks shining light between them.

  “Very well.” Her eyes flicker back to green. “It’s as I said to the Danes.” She folds her arms and faces the duel. “The souls beneath this world recognize me. At first I awakened amidst a wild war of dragons and high-magic users. Soon after, my visions were limited to the crypt cells, where prisoners riled anytime they’d see me roaming. One of these crypts is owned by the Torn Wing. Captives imprisoned by him still yet revere him, like he’s a god. A strange world, Haledyn. They called me a thief trying to steal magic and power from the warring dark. They said that Boeru will soon be taken from them—that the masterful gray dragon will embody a sickly boy of the Winbridge lineage. They told me that on the spiral stairwell.”

  I clench my jaw, thinking back to mythos. This is the power to become a manifested, invisible shadow—or a shade—and dive into the warring dark. The ability was never listed in the spectrum of dark magic mythos, neither in the basic sections or advanced. It’s more like… a trait.

  “Boeru?” I ask in my head.

  “What she says is true. I banish shades to my dungeons, as do many of the other commandants. There is enough noise from your world already.”

  Interesting. She said she was told on the stairwell… Rogoshel was also called off of me by the other attuned boy with silken hair on the way down. Could he be a shade too?

  Clang!

  The two petite women clash shortswords about forty paces in front of us. It makes me wince to watch. Neither of them are particularly hardened, yet both have good form. They must be from Jurso’s house… and Renesta’s.

  “How long have you been able to do this shade magic?” I ask.

  “If we are to build trust, Haledyn, I think it is my turn to ask a question.” Her lips tighten as she watches the taller of the two women slice the other’s leg.

  We both shy away from this madness.

  “What does an awakening feel like? How deep does your access to the dragon spirit go? Does he spill his secrets of the afterlife?”

  Stolen story; please report.

  I nudge Boeru floating around in my head. He doesn’t try to stop me, so I offer my end of the trust bargain. “We talk, yes.”

  “Fascinating. Do ask him, why must he be a dismissive sour-eye about my curiosity?”

  Boeru blows ethereal smoke through me, which I’m coming to learn is him scoffing.

  Renesta and I smirk at one another.

  “He laughed, I think.”

  “Good.” She lifts her chin. “We will need a sense of humor to distract us from darkness.”

  We stand in silence for a moment.

  “You’re well trained in combat,” I say.

  “Quite so—”

  “But not ready for war,” I finish. “You squirm at the sight of blood, and fold when you inflict it.”

  Her lips tighten into thin lines. “And you? Fearless now that you know death?”

  “No way. Just riled from a dragon’s spirit. I’m glad you’re soft about causing harm. Means you’re still a decent person.”

  “It’s not softness, Haldyn. It’s anger,” she says with not a hint of emotion.

  “Why?”

  We both grimace when the shorter woman pokes the other through the stomach. The squelch is harrowing and desperate, and surely by the looks of the dimming lights of the Seal, not evoking an awakening.

  “Because, I believe the Danes hold a healer’s touch in their high magic, and they refuse to use it for fear of discouraging the warring dark.”

  Hot blood splays through my insides, sharing her fury. “So… it’s as I thought. We’re dying merely for ceremony.” My gaze hones in on the Danes, thinking of how obsessed and evil they truly are. “When they know a soul won’t tempt the warring dark, they don’t find a need to save them.”

  “They wouldn’t save them even if tempted. I’ve heard the prisoners talk, Haledyn. In the afterlife, the Danes’ voices are only heard when angry, disparaged blood is spilt near gateways. They do it often.”

  “Well, this is the ‘twenty-eighth night of thirty, in the cellars of northern Froe.’” I echo some of the Danes’ first words to us.

  “Precisely. Don’t be shocked if they call for more batches now that they see potential. They merely want attuned and awakened soldiers to fight the others.”

  “Others?” My eyes narrow. This sounds like it has something to do with Boeru losing souls to Miria’s opposing faction, Lacor. “What else do you know?”

  Her upper lip twitches as the tall woman gasps her final breath in the arena, her body already being hoisted for cremation. The chamber is alive with the Sept’s unintelligible whispers—they’re frustrated the duel evoked nothing.

  “House Father—he wore a good mask,” Renesta replies.

  Thinking of what that could possibly mean, I remember the mythos Jurso got his hands on—the one about high magic. Eye of the Bridge Lords. It was an odd one to hold onto for a house father.

  “I watched him practice with a golden-hued blade that died to simple steel when he sensed my shade presence.”

  “So you can spy on us here in the living too?”

  She ignores me. “The way he moved, it evoked golden flakes from the air.”

  “A manifestation,” I surmise.

  “Yes… yet he would feign ignorance if we ever asked him about such magic. Warring dark can be the only focus, he would say. Through persistence, however, he has come to favor me.”

  “It’s probably your natural attunement.”

  “Mm.” She smiles wickedly, creeping me out for a second.

  We speak through another fight between two male brutes—one with an ornate spear, the other with a sharpened, fur-draped axe. Again, no awakening.

  I’m scared for Layla up on the balcony. The siblings beside her are dwindling, the pit of shame growing, and six more join Renesta and I on the victory dais. Our conversations die to a whisper, since we can’t trust anyone else around us. The brute who just won is from my house, and I know him as a servant rat. Wouldn’t be surprised if he’s working for the Danes.

  More men and women are flung from the balcony, some hurled directly into slots of shame, while others duel to the death. One thing is for sure—the Danes’ message was heard loud and clear, or maybe it was my awakening that riles them. But either way, the siblings are truly fighting for their lives now.

  “I can’t believe we have parents,” the tiny woman tells the row of victors. “All thanks to you, awakened one.”

  “Don’t kiss his ass,” the brute snarls. “All he did was die.”

  “He’s not wrong.” I smirk at the tiny woman, pissing off the brute a little more.

  “So tough with a little magic in you.” The brute shows his bright white teeth.

  “Hmph. And I would’ve bet my life you were a spicer,” I say.

  “Silence!” a Dane calls to us from afar. “Act as the regal soldiers you one day may be, not the witless creatures who slithered down these stairs.”

  Harsh, madam. Like we had a choice.

  A few minutes later, a brute is launched onto the arena. As soon as he touches down, he roars toward the victory dais with two terrifying flexed arms and matching axes to boot. Yet, that’s not what catches my eye. His contender hoisted to the crimson circle beyond him… he’s oddly hunched with a ragged scarf wrapped around his head. They announce him as Broggen Lor’fyre from House Valor.

  I’ve heard that lineage name before. One look at Jurso tells me he’s heard it too. What’s more, that’s not one of the houses that’s been announced up until this point. Who is this guy?

  “Lor-fyre,” the little woman repeats the name. “That’s a lineage stretching back to the old wars. High-magic riders of the southern kingdomonia.”

  Hm. This one knows her history.

  “You memorized the family lists? Your house must’ve been as barren as the fired-grass,” one of the medium-sized victors comments.

  “Can’t help that I don’t have the stilted memory of a fish, Sorvon Aeikenfield.”

  “Mm. Say my name again, little one, and I might have to teach you what happens to a smart-mouthed bitch.” Sorvon licks his lips.

  “I’ll teach you mine instead. Misteria Clause.” She whips out her dagger and points it to his nether region. “A lineage that might soon be known for taking souvenirs.”

  The brute cackles.

  Sorvon just killed a man, and this is what he’s thinking? If we’re all to be ascending to second houses together, I’ll have to watch out for him.

  As Broggen Lor’fyre is carried to the arena, I can’t help but notice his weapon of choice—a one-handed sword with a copper-gold guard and a ruby resting right beneath the blade. Ruby pairs well with warring dark, according to mythos.

  Is he… already attuned?

  As soon as Broggen touches down, he shrugs off his scarf and, apparently, his hunch.

  All eyes are on him as he straightens into a warrior’s posture. He’s not at all what I expected. Dark wavy hair twists around his ears and feathers near his shoulders. His right eye is cradled by a long black scar—which looks like it was given with an enchanted blade… at least according to mythos.

  He’s a lefty, holding his right fingerless-gloved hand out as if trying to frame his opponent in front of him. The spicer thirty paces to Broggen’s right can hardly wait for the fight to begin. But something irks me about this one. Broggen, that is. The energy crisscrossing my forearms ignites like I’m under attack.

  “What is it, Boeru?”

  I notice the dragon’s teeth bared in my mind’s eye.

  “Begin,” the Dane’s voice echoes all around us.

  As soon as the word is said, Broggen slides two fingers over the blade and ignites it in a cerulean glow to match the light seeping through the cracks.

  “He is attuned.” My eyes bulge.

  “Stronger than mine or yours,” Renesta whispers, looking at her own shivering hand.

  The brute doesn’t even flinch at the display. He shouts and rushes forward—metal rings tight around his biceps, fur axes of the old fjords flapping in his wind. The closer he gets to Broggen, the more my attunement riles inside me.

  Why is he just standing there? He has the confidence that Renesta displayed in battle. Like he’s been through it a thousand times before.

  “Hara!” The brute leaps with both axes crossed, ready to lop Broggen’s head off.

  Still, Broggen Lor’fyre is unmoved.

  At the peak of the brute’s leap, Broggen finally thaws. With an ostentatious twirl of his sword, he whips it to a stop in front of his face and bows seemingly in surrender. Black veins rapidly claw up his neck, making me grab onto the ledge in front of me.

  I’ve seen this before. That stance.

  The quote in mythos moves to the front of my brain: “An enchanted weapon can be forged with an entire arsenal hidden inside it. A needle can mask a legion of spears.”

  Broggen waves the cerulean glow of his sword up toward his attacker, where a mighty, ornate shield forms with a hiss, causing the brute to awkwardly crash—leaving him to lose all momentum and suffer a daze as he falls to the floor, barely finding his footing. I swear I heard a crack in his ankle, then can’t help but gasp when the black veins retreat from Broggen’s neck and he reawakens into a precise tri-slash attack.

  Sllt!

  Sllt!

  Clang!

  The brute hardly gets one of his axes up in time to block the third strike, two of which already sliced him bloody. Two long lines open his skin like torn stitches, wounds hissing with that same blueish-black essence. All the while, Broggen holds the clash with a straight face, the ruby on his blade pulsating between them.

  So much power hidden among us “orphans.”

  One look at Layla high on the balcony shares a demoralizing truth—our house was so far behind on everything. What was the point of studying falsities and beating each other senseless… while others can do this?

  One thing I know for sure though—Something deep inside me awakened and can never be pushed back. Not just the dragon spirit. A need. I have to advance. I must know the nature of the world.

  The arena ground pulses brighter than when I stood atop it. Blood flies out of the brute’s roaring mouth as desperate axes soar to cleave, but a calm Broggen shows a different kind of intensity. More black veins syphon all around his exposed skin—his wrists, his temples. He moves so fluidly it’s like a dance.

  Clang!

  He wills up that same shield with another hiss to block his left side, then swings it to defend his other. At first I wonder, why not just meet blade on blade? He’s surely fast enough to parry. But when he raises his sword hand while keeping the defender shivering in place, I get it now. The warring dark is all about deception.

  As the shield reduces from solid, enchanted steel to a storm cloud, he slices his sword wide through it, cleaving the brute’s chest.

  Fshht!

  Broggen reaches into the shadow of his fading cerulean shield and manifests a black sapphire blade to match his ruby one—both of which are tethered by that same dark essence. He spins into a disbelieving spicer, and decapitates him in one motion.

  I bite down hard, shutting my eyes, hearing the thump of a head rolling over the pulsing cracks.

  “Gods-damn I hate this.” A female victor grabs onto the man next to her and buries her face in his arm.

  Groans resound from the balcony, and some brutish cheers.

  “Mmm,” Boeru’s throaty voice comes to life in my head. “An enemy rider uses my gate.”

  My eyes spring open to a familiar flash of light—the one I experienced when I was sure I died. Shit. Another awakening, probably.

  “Is that rider going to stitch the brute’s head back on and choose him?”

  Boeru laughs at my naivety. “This man does not share my sentiment.”

  “Great.”

  Already I feel less special if someone as powerful as Broggen is about to be bonded to a spirit. The victors beside me shield their faces from the light, but my stinging eyes fight to glimpse what’s inside those cracks.

  The flash dims, and what remains is the silhouette of an armored spear-wielder with a dragon-head helmet standing beside Broggen, towering over him.

  “Noctus—the Storm Lance. An enemy of the Hellsbane.” Boeru bares his teeth in my mind. “Comes to the side of Miria?”

  It’s only then I’m reminded that we’re technically supposed to be on the same side—Broggen and I. Hard to believe when we’re killing one another. The thought is fleeting though, because Broggen’s shape changes in a less flattering way than mine did. As the silhouette folds into his body, there’s pain attached to it. His muscles become dehydrated and his face gaunt, all while the Danes rise with wide, white-glowing eyes.

  “Another awakening,” a deep-voiced Dane announces. “Though the bond is low quality.”

  Boeru snickers at that in my mind.

  “The hell does that mean?” I ask.

  “We are learning this world together, mortal,” Boeru says. “And I am enjoying watching his essence squirm with dismay.”

  “An awakening nonetheless.” Center Dane clenches his fist, ignoring the grunts of Broggen doubled over in pain.

  Noctus’ silhouette continuously emerges, struggling to take shape, seemingly stabbing at Broggen whenever he does.

  Misteria claps her hands over her mouth. “Glad I wasn’t awakened. Gods-damn.”

  It’s true. Even the winners suffer in this game.

  I count my blessings I’m alive and healthy, then look to Layla… hoping she stays the same.