Freek’s orcs won the toss, so they would get the ball first. A light sprinkle of snow covered the field but Gray hardly felt the cold as he stood out in the middle of the field with Crewel and future duke of Pity City.

  Freek nodded at him. “Accidents happen all the time. You don’t have to worry about the demons, asshole. You have to worry about me.”

  “Because I killed Sindara.”

  “So you admit it,” Freek said grimly. “I knew it.”

  Gray turned to the Magistrate. “You’re hearing this, right? He threatened to murder me.”

  Crewel shrugged. “All is the Testing and all is the Test.”

  Freek grinned. “Just have to make it look like an accident. He don’t care. That would put us on the map…me and my squad. We brought down Squad 23. Might even be better than winning. Maybe winning isn’t that fucking important, right? Maybe nothing matters at all. Maybe this whole week was just to kill us, and it did, and since we’re dead, we can do anything…anything we want. Anything.”

  It was clear the Freek was cracking.

  Gray only laughed. “Well, Mr. Crewel, if he tries to kill me, I will definitely kill him.”

  “Then you’ll die,” the Magistrate said. “And it would be my great pleasure to preside over your execution.”

  “Just have to make it look an accident.” Gray shrugged. “Don’t fuck with us, Freek. You saw what happened to Doralimb’s brothers. It’d be a shame if the same thing happened to you.”

  Freek charged him, grabbed him, and punched Gray in the face.

  Gray staggered back, his nose numb and bleeding. He was too full of mana to charge his meridians, and so he had to hope that Crewel put a stop to it.

  The crowd thundered.

  Crewel only have him a smile, showing lots of yellow teeth.

  Gray turned and jogged back, wondering how he could use Freek’s rage against him. He really did believe that Gray was the murderer. At the same time, Gray thought that the orc’s rant was some kind of message. Was it for him or was it for Crewel?

  Gray hurried toward the sidelines only to get another surprise.

  Pinch met him on the field, the hood of her coat back. “Be careful.”

  He stopped and gave her a long, withering look. “Why are you talking to me?”

  Pinch swallowed hard, snow covering her hair. “Freek is going to try and kill you or maybe someone on your squad. They have to pin the murders on someone, and it would benefit them if it were you.”

  “You’re not saying anything I don’t know.” Gray tried to push past her.

  She grabbed his arm.

  Rynn and Ames started jogging toward them.

  Pinch saw them. “It’s more serious than I thought. He’s…he’s not well. Be careful.”

  “Why do you care?” Gray asked.

  Pinch frowned, clearly trying to think of something to say…but failing.

  She let him go and he met back up with his squad.

  Pinch was back with the Winners when Squad 23 took the field.

  Gray couldn’t help but glance over at the fae, and there, Duskdrop had Pinch by the arm, and he was whispering something into her ear. It was clear he was full of rage, and the more he talked, the whiter Pinch became. Around them, the other fae stood, smiling and laughing, as if it was the funniest thing in the world that one of their own was getting yelled at.

  “What was that all about?” Rynn asked.

  Gray shrugged as he took his stick from her. “It doesn’t matter. We just need to be careful. Freek is going to be aiming for me. I think we use that to our advantage.”

  Ames touched his face, and he felt a sharp pain in his nose as she healed him. When she was done, he felt better. He topped off her core—he had the feeling they were going to need their healer at her best.

  She then trotted back to the kill strip.

  Gray and Rynn were at the midfield line with Tomi on their left and Midj on their right.

  Freek held the ball with the very big, very strong Kabe next to him. Another asshole with scars. Both of them had swords.

  Crewel floated above them. He raised his hands under the flaming timer above him—set to sixty, it was going to be a very long hour.

  “Players ready!” Crewel’s voice boomed across the field. “Repeat after me. “Take hold of your instincts and trust in the strength of your squad.”

  Gray pressed his stick against his chest and called out with the rest of his squad, “Take hold of your instincts and trust in the strength of your squad.”

  “Begin!” Crewel shouted.

  Rynn and Gray sprinted across the midfield line, and the minute the orcs tried to block her, Rynn vented her core. She then flung mana blasts at Freek, who was holding the ball, until a wall of fire erupted in front of her.

  She was sprang back, and Gray was there, filling her core with mana.

  Both of them fell back to their base field.

  Midj slammed down a mana hand. Freek tossed the ball to Kabe as they both went around the first giant magical hand, then the second, and as Midj attempted to try the third, an orc got in her face, obscuring her vision. That was fine—Gray got within teen feet and recharged her.

  Rynn blocked Freek while Gray went after the ball.

  He brought his stick down, charged with mana, and there was an explosion of energy that knocked Kabe off his feet. Gray scooped up the ball, refilling his stick, so he could burn off some mana before charging his meridians.

  Freek tripped Rynn, and the two other orcs stormed over, and Gray had no choice but to do a run with someone else.

  “Midj! You’re up!”

  “On it!” the goblin girl cried out.

  The two raced across the midfield line and into enemy territory. Three orcs were in front of them while four orcs pursued.

  Gray bashed away a fireball with his stick—it was made of wood, and yet, it was still remarkably fireproof. However, he wasn’t.

  Two walls of flame appeared in front of him. He could go through one but not two.

  He pitched the ball to Midj and then fell in behind her. Both were running on supercharged legs. Gray kept her mana up, so she could use hand after hand, cutting off their defenders. The two sped across the kill strip and into the end zone.

  A fireball struck him in the back. Luckily, the field was so full of slushy snow, he threw himself into the muck and rolled around. His coat had been burned through to his skin. It had been a cheap shot.

  He got up with Midj and they started back across the field having scored the first point.

  Freek smiled and Kabe joined them. All the orcs were laughing.

  “Gonna need a new coat, asshole,” Freek called after him.

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  “Gonna need new skin by the time we’re done,” Kabe snickered, his gold tooth flashing in the magical lights of the stadium.

  Midj elbowed his leg. “You don’t listen to them. It’s just trash talk.”

  “Oh, I listen,” Gray said. “I like how it makes you feel.”

  “Doesn’t it make you scared?” she asked.

  “Makes me strong. All that fear becomes anger and all that anger becomes mana. We’re going to win this, Midj, and we’re going to win out spite.”

  “Mother’s oven, Grayson Fade. We are complicated, aren’t we?”

  His back hurt from the burn, but Ames could fix that. Thank the gods of sea and sky they had healer or they might really be in trouble.

  *

  The orcs managed to tie up the score by the end of the first quarter.

  So when the demons were unleashed, the demons came running out of both doors near both end zones.

  It was more horses—not fire but cold. They were bigger than the wrath ponies but equally as spiked, on these spikes were made of ice, growing out of their skin. Both their eyes and their mouths glowed a bright blue color—the rest of their coats were a bluish white with spikes instead of manes. Their tails were equally spiked.

  Captain Settie called out, “They’re envy steeds! They’ll affect your mana, if they’re fully functional. But they might not be, since the manamancers at First Field have to be careful with what they cook up. Be fucking careful!”

  Gray didn’t have to be told twice, especially after he’d used the demonic horses to kill two recruits.

  “Midj!” Gray called out.

  She came forward, slamming mana hands down, one after another, as he fed her mana.

  The horses hit those shimmering golden hands and were corralled down the field.

  The orcs did the same thing with their walls of fire.

  All that did was fill the middle of the field with demonic horses. Freek, Kabe, and their two fastest runners had the ball and crossed into Gray’s base field. Except the horses were trying to run them down.

  “Hold up,” Gray said, but one of the horses charged Tomi, and she had no choice but to fight. She charged up her sword and cut the legs out from the demonic ice pony. It’s legs shattered, as did most of it’s torso, but not before it’s eyes glowed a bright blue.

  Tomi staggered back, shifting back into her human form. “Fuck! Gray! I need some help here!”

  He was more then ten feet away and there was a big envy steed in front of him. He charged it, filling his stick up with maximum mana. He smashed it into the chest of the thing, and the entire horse shattered, flinging ice like shrapnel. One cut him across the cheek.

  He channeled mana into Tomi, as much as he could, but one of the steeds came close, and he felt a terrible icy cold in his belly as the demon sucked his mana away from him. He fell to his knees, his core close to empty.

  Rynn tossed mana bursts, drawing the steeds attention away from Gray. She then cut the head off the thing in a spray of ice and blood. But then she staggered back as she lost mana.

  The orcs were throwing fireballs and using flaming walls to work their way past the horses. The entire field stank like rotten horse meat on fire.

  Freek ran past him and clipped him in the back of the head with his bloodless blade—it wasn’t lethal, but it hurt. The Fieldkeepers didn’t seem to notice, but it left Gray flat on his back, his head scrambled.

  He hated Freek, and that hate gave him mana.

  He was jealous of their team, how many players they had, how comfortable Freek’s life had been, and ow comfortable he’d be in his palace in Pity City. That envy gave him mana.

  He was up, filling Tomi and Rynn, but they were too late to stop the orcs from scoring.

  Ames went for the ball, but with four against one, she was beaten down into the snow as they marched into the end zone.

  On the very next run, however, Gray scored, again, tying up the game.

  That was how it went, back and forth, each team scoring and taking the lead only to lose that lead as the other team made their way down the field.

  The steeds were easy to kill, but their ability to suck away mana was brutal, especially for Gray, who was so used to already keeping his core relatively low on mana so he could power his meridians.

  That wasn’t his only problem. Freek targeted him, over and over, doing everything he could to hurt Gray without killing him.

  Gray kept his head, but he was losing patience. Even though the anger helped him gain mana, he was considering fighting back. However, he couldn’t. If Freek got thrown out of the game, his squad still had six recruits. They could attack with three runners. For Gray, if they lost someone, they would only have one runner.

  He had to stay in control, and he did, though he knew if Freek tried to kill him, Gray would defend himself.

  It was in the final minutes of the game—both squads were tried. The next point would win. One team would go on to play the fae the next day. That meant sleeping inside the barracks, a hot meal, and other benefits, or so Crewel promised. The other team would end up back in the crypts with nothing but cold stone and the dusty stink of the ancient dead.

  One last play. One last chance.

  *

  The envy steeds were all dead, the snow was blinding, and running was almost impossible. It was so slick, a mixture of snow, ice, and mud, that you couldn’t sprint, you had to trudge across the field.

  Freek and his orcs were nearly out of mana—they didn’t have the reserves that Gray had, and if they had wrath resonances, they seemed more scared of losing than angry that they were tied. It was a critical distinction.

  Freek roared. “We score! Kabe, to me! We’re going to fucking score and win this thing. Fire now!”

  A line of fire walls appeared down the center of the field.

  Midj paused, but Rynn and Tomi didn’t stop. They broke through the flames, even though it meant getting burned.

  Gray as back by the kill strip, and he found a way into the middle of the field around the walls. Midj came running at the four orcs from behind.

  Kabe threw an orc into Rynn, just as she vented her core, and both were thrown into the snow.

  Another orc blocked Tomi but ended up getting himself tangled up—his legs around hers, and they both tumbled.

  Gray was in front, stick ready, not fully charged, but enough to wipe out Kabe, who was blocking for Freek.

  Midj was charging from behind.

  Kabe threw a fireball into Gray, but he ducked it, and then he smacked the big muscled orc into his leg, not hard, but the blast of mana did the trick, ripping his legs out from under him.

  Gray was going for Freek, who was had a mask of fury on his face—mana filled the orc’s core.

  It was probably what drew the demon to him.

  From out of nowhere an envy steed charged in, running directly between Gray and Freek at the last minute.

  Gray felt the mana leave him—it was like icy fingers had ripped his heart out of him.

  “What the fuck!” Freek screamed.

  He charged up his bloodless blade, turning the sword from gold to red. It was now a lethal weapon, and Gray was right there, sinking to his knees. He was in the kill strip—underneath the snow and mud was red grass.

  Which meant Ames was there.

  With the ball under his left arm, Freek drove the sword through the horse, but at the last minute, he turned the blade, even as the stallion exploded, throwing icy debris.

  Then Ames was there, her hands charged with magic, and she leapt at him.

  Her hands touched Freek, and he screamed, and then he took the sword and drove it into her chest—to the hilt.

  Gray felt himself die. He’d lost most of his mana, and he needed to replenish his core, but he couldn’t angry, or envious, or feel any other emotion than disbelief and despair. And as far as he knew, there was no resonance for that.

  The crowd, who had been screaming at the sudden entrance of the demon, went silent.

  Ames slid off the orc’s blade and fell to the snow. It was through her heart. It was a lethal blow.

  Freek dropped the ball, a stunned look on his face. He clutched the sword, which was stained with drying blood, a rusty color compared to the red magic inside.

  He screamed, and then laughed and laughed. “Fucking bitch! She got in the way of my fucking sword!”

  Gray was crawling through the snow even as he heard Tomi gasp and start to cry.

  Midj just kept repeating, over and over, “No, no, no, no, no.”

  Rynn stood there, silent, no expression on her face.

  Freek screamed again, but it was a tortured sound. “I didn’t want to fucking kill anyone. You have to believe me! I didn’t mean to kill anyone!”

  “But you did,” Rynn said. “You killed Ames.”

  “Not her!” Freek roared. “Not fucking her. That fucking dwarf. He knew about the payments, and I couldn’t have that. We couldn’t have that because he knew it wasn’t just the fucking fae. It was—he needed to die. But Sindara…fucking Sindara…”

  He began to cry.

  Where was Crewel? Where was anyone? And yet, Freek’s voice carried across the field. The snow had let up, and now there was an eerie stillness as a few flakes floated to the ground.

  Gray reached Ames. She was still alive, her eyes open.

  When she saw him, she smiled. “My sunlight.”

  Freek continued to roar. “Sindara found out. I didn’t want to do it, but I knew if I didn’t, she wouldn’t go quick. I couldn’t…I had to give her…I had to end her…but I didn’t want to.”

  Kabe and the other two runners had come over.

  Kabe’s sword glowed red, even though there were no demons around.

  “I didn’t fucking want to!” Freek roared. “It’s not worth it. I thought it would be worth it. I thought, being a duke, rebuilding the Wrath Tower, I thought…what was Sindara compared to that? But it wasn’t. It’s not fucking worth it. I can’t—”

  Kabe roared at him. “Shut your fucking mouth, Fenrik!”

  Freek laughed, even as tears fell down his face. “All is the Testing and all is the Test. I don’t want to pass. I don’t want to be a duke. I don’t want to be anything. Not without Sindara.”

  He then sank to his knees, put the tip of his sword to his throat, and fell forward, impaling himself. Blood sprayed across the snow. He stayed there, sword through his throat, like a horrific statue.

  Gray hardly saw any of that. He was looking into Ames’s eyes.

  “It’ll be okay…just heal yourself,” Gray said in a thick voice.

  But she couldn’t. She had been too close to the envy steed, and her core was empty. As was Gray’s.

  Rynn picked up the ball and sprinted back toward the midfield line, alone. By the gods of sea and sky she ran fast.

  Ames touched his face. “It doesn’t hurt, Gray. Nothing hurts anymore. The pain is all gone, and do you know what I have instead?”

  “What?” He asked, tears streaming down his face, a horrible lump in his throat, a terrible emptiness inside of him.

  “I have you,” she said, smiling. “The rain is all gone, and it won’t ever rain again. Not for me. Not for us. You are my sunshine, Grayson Fade. You are my everything. Kiss me and let me go, and I’ll fall into the ocean in the place of water and stars and visit you every night…and we’ll kiss, and laugh, and dance and you will be my sunshine, and I will be your girl. Kiss me.”

  He kissed her, thinking maybe, maybe there would be mana, but there wasn’t. There was just her soft lips, her sweet smell made even sweeter by the cold, and then, her last breath.

  He held her as Crewel announced that Squad 23 had won. Rynn had given them their last point.

  It would be their last game of Chaotica because they couldn’t play with four players.

  But that didn’t matter. Ames was dead.

  And Gray was done with the cruelty of First Field. Let the Malcon Crewel find other fools to dance to his murderous tunes. The only dancing that Gray would be doing was with the dead Quelling girl in his arms in some other place beyond the reach of the world and its villains.

  Gray then found his wrath resonance, and the anger filing him gave him more mana than he could use in a lifetime.