Gavin, on the other hand, had no choice but to care. He was the champion, mostly by default—Callista was too old, and Fergus was his mother’s favorite because he wasn’t embarrassed to be a Grieve. Nobody loved Gavin enough to protect him from the impending slaughter. So he’d learned long ago to rely on himself. He earned top marks in his classes and spent his weekends at the gym, training for the strength and endurance he’d need in the tournament.
He was capable of greatness. But only he could see it.
Outside the banquet hall, the weather was dreary, clouds pressing down at the edges of the horizon. After exiting with the other guests, Gavin narrowed his eyes, the muddy green of a cheap glass bottle, and gazed at the massive stone pillar that stood in the center of the square, at least three meters tall. Jagged crystals jutted out from it like teeth, with hundreds of names carved up and down its face. Every competitor in Ilvernath’s history had etched their name into the Champions Pillar on the night their tournament began. Upon their death, a strike appeared through their carving.
Every single Grieve name was struck out.
That was his family’s legacy: centuries of forgotten children buried facedown, as was customary with dead champions. A legacy the entire world was now intimately familiar with, thanks to A Tradition of Tragedy.
Gavin eyed the reporters and cursechasers who gawped at the edge of the square. They’d grown bolder each day since the arrival of the Blood Moon. At first they’d flocked to the Grieves, because the anonymous author of the book had identified themself as someone from Gavin’s family. But soon the media had moved on to flashier champions, more salacious stories. Gavin, however, remained focused on the book, the details in its pages that only a member of the tournament families could’ve known. He’d spent the past year reading and rereading it, trying to figure out who in his family was resentful enough to put them all at risk. He still wasn’t sure, but he had his suspicions, and she happened to be beaming beside her brand-new husband.
High magick wasn’t just a curiosity for tourists. Common magick might’ve been formidable in the right hands, but high magick was the purest essence of power, the resource that had shaped so much of the world’s history. Gavin had learned about it in school—the king who’d wielded it to completely annihilate a rebel army; the brave spellcasters who’d used it to quell an earthquake.
And the world had thought it was used up, gone.
Until now.
The morning after the book’s publication, the Kendalle Parliament had summoned Gavin’s parents and grandparents for questioning. They’d returned from their interrogations visibly shaken. All Gavin had managed to pry out of them was that the Prime Minister had decided against executing every member of the tournament families in order to break the curse. Not only was it already too public for such brutality, but it would mean Ilvernath’s high magick could be used by anyone. And though the government didn’t relish letting a bunch of child-murderers keep this power, seven families were far easier to control than the whole world.
Across the square, Elionor, the Payne champion, posed for a throng of reporters and photographers who clamored for her attention. She was a study in contrasts, with her dyed-black hair against paper-white skin and deep blue eyes.
“Elionor!” called a man on her left. “Is it true you can craft class six curses?”
“Of course I can,” she said. “As can any true competitor in the tournament.”
Resentment built in Gavin’s throat. He could only manage class five.
“Elionor! Elionor—over here!”
The girl turned, her spellstone ear gauges glimmering in the light of a camera flash. It was a wholly unnecessary way of carrying enchantments around, although the reporters seemed to eat up Elionor’s choice in edgy accessories. She was clearly making a play for Isobel Macaslan’s crown as the media’s favorite champion—as if public opinion would matter once the Blood Veil fell. Perhaps she thought it would help her with spellmaker sponsorships.
Nobody cared enough about Gavin to take any pictures of him. His announcement had gone public that morning, a profile in the Ilvernath Eclipse that had been embarrassingly sparse—declaring him as the fourth member of what the tabloids had dubbed the “Slaughter Seven.” It didn’t matter that he was acing his classes or that he could deadlift 140 kilos. He was still a Grieve.
He was storming down the sidewalk away from the reporters when a voice rang out from behind him.
“You,” someone said brusquely. “Young Grieve.”