For a moment, Briony didn’t register the words at all. They sank in one by one, through a lifetime of armor she’d built for herself, the affirmation that there would never be anyone better suited to this position than she was. That she was important, and everyone around her knew it.
Her body went cold and stiff; her lips moved soundlessly, her ears foggy. She couldn’t bear to look at Innes’s face. Instead she turned to the elders, silently pleading for intervention. For a moment, she saw her own shock and disappointment reflected in Elder Malvina’s eyes. But then the old woman raised her hands and began to clap. The others joined in a moment later, if a little hesitantly.
They weren’t going to protest. The shock in Briony’s chest crystallized into panic. That applause belonged to her.
“Wait!” Briony barely recognized the sound of her own voice. It was raw, almost ugly.
“The choice is made,” Elder Malvina said, her voice gentle but firm.
Briony swallowed hard as the rest of the elders turned to stare. She normally enjoyed having eyes on her, but not like this.
The elders’ judgment was as absolute and impartial as the mirror that sat before them. Briony had never in her life disrespected them, and yet she had no other choice. They couldn’t name Innes champion, not yet. Not when they hadn’t even given her a chance to prove herself.
“But … the final trial,” she protested. “It could’ve named someone else—”
“This was the final trial,” Elder Malvina said flatly. “We agreed upon it, and we will all respect its result.”
Briony wouldn’t be remembered as a hero. She wouldn’t be remembered at all.
“Bri.” Innes’s hand closed around her wrist. She knew how much Briony had wanted this. Surely she would give it to her. Surely she would say something. But all she said was, “Please. You’re embarrassing yourself.”
“Well then.” Agent Yoo rose to her feet. “That’s settled. Go and present her, as planned.” As suddenly as Agent Yoo had appeared, she was gone—like she’d manifested in this place specifically to ruin Briony’s life.
In the Thorburns’ fairy tales, the hero’s story began with a call to action. They were chosen, by fate or by circumstance, to protect those who were good and to vanquish evil.
But Briony had not been chosen at all. And now all that was left were stares and shaking heads, with faces she’d known all her life now seeming like strangers.
The greatest stranger of all was the one standing beside her, clutching her wrist. Because Innes had stolen this from her.
“Congratulations,” Briony told her sister flatly. And as the others filed out of the gazebo to present their new champion, Briony stayed still as a stone, staring blankly at the mirror. A mirror that she knew, she knew, would’ve made the right choice.
ALISTAIR LOWE
Most associate high magick with other distant brutalities of the past: pillaging, plague, and lawlessness. But in Ilvernath, a piece of that history lingers, every bit as threatening as it once was.
A Tradition of Tragedy
Beneath the Lowe estate, there was a vault.
Its walls measured one meter thick of industry-grade steel surrounded by three meters of coarse earth, to ensure not even the smallest speck of high magick escaped. Its door was warded against spells and curses of all kinds. No one could enter who wasn’t a Lowe, and even then, no one could enter without their grandmother’s express permission.
Alistair had never set foot in the vault. Around sunrise that morning, he’d taken his usual seat in the family library, memorizing the map of the wilderness surrounding Ilvernath’s city proper—where most of the tournament would take place. It was early in his daily study that his grandmother Marianne Lowe had appeared in the doorway with her request that he make a withdrawal.
Now he crept down the spiral staircase that descended below his home, his fingers trailing across the damp, uneven walls, nails scratching against stone. One of his spellrings glowed red to light his path until he reached the bottommost level, a small cave-like room—the sort any run-of-the-mill family might use to store treasure.
Alistair examined his reflection, cloudy and distorted in the vault’s metal doors. The scarlet light of the high magick lanterns around him made his skin look smeared with blood.
The vault had no crank or keycode. Nothing but a spellstone jutting out from the steel, faintly red and pulsing like a heart. He pressed his palm against it and waited.
Nothing happened.
He hadn’t expected it to. His grandmother had provided him no instructions on how to enter, and since it wasn’t immediately obvious from looking at it, this meant the errand was some kind of test—his grandmother loved tests. The fall of the Blood Veil and the start of the tournament would occur in one week’s time. Five families had now publicly named their champions, but still the Lowes remained silent. A thrill stirred in Alistair’s chest.