A surge of pressure pressed at the back of Isobel’s throat, and she didn’t know if it was the urge to scream or cry.
“F-fine,” she blubbered, very much settling on crying. She squeezed a faux fur pillow to her chest. “Say w-whatever you want! But you can’t change anything. I’m already—”
“You aren’t champion until you carve your name into the Pillar. You still have a week. You can march right back to your father’s and tell him and all those bloody reporters you’ve changed your mind. That you don’t want to do this anymore.”
Isobel imagined such a scene playing out in her mind. She hated when her mother yelled at her, but her father’s fury was worse.
“You think I’ll d-die.” Isobel’s chest heaved as she tried to keep her voice steady. “You think Alistair Lowe will kill me. But he won’t. I’m stronger than him.”
“Let’s say you are,” her mother said, in the sort of hypothetical tone that made it clear she didn’t believe it. “Do you really want to be a murderer? Just because it’s technically legal doesn’t mean—”
“No, of course not! But—”
“Then how will you do it? You’d kill Innes, Briony’s little sister?”
Hot tears streamed down Isobel’s face. She hated crying. She hated feeling so out of control. “Yes, I will,” Isobel said. Because if there was anything the last year had taught her, it was that she was a survivor.
Her mother stood up and grabbed Isobel by the wrist. “Fine. Then we’re leaving.”
“What?” Isobel croaked.
“We’re going to Keraktos, to stay with my sister. We’ll catch a flight tonight. You’ll be too far away for them to fetch you before the tournament starts.”
A part of Isobel blossomed with relief. She could leave Ilvernath forever. She could start over.
But then the Macaslans would choose one of her cousins. Could she really do that to them? Doom Peter or Anita or someone else to death? She knew how gifted she was. She gave the Macaslans a true chance at winning, of attaining the power and wealth that would change their reputation, change their lives. Even if Isobel had always had her mother to retreat to, she knew as well as any of them how it felt to be treated like a stain, a disgrace.
“I’m not leaving,” Isobel choked out.
“Yes, you are.”
At first, when she started to yank Isobel out of bed, Isobel tried to squirm out of her grasp. But when her mother’s sharp, manicured nails dug into her skin, Isobel summoned every ounce of concentration she had and cast the curse from the quartz ring on her pinky.
White magick leaked from the stone, seeping like an oil spill across the carpet. The power bubbled and rose, splattering against everything it could reach. At its touch, the polished chestnut wood of Isobel’s nightstand began to bend and rot. The tapestries on the walls yellowed, the wallpaper around them flaking off like dried skin. With a loud, screeching groan, the floorboards warped and peeled back one by one like brittle fingernails, exposing mud and maggots below.
Her mother screamed and let go just as the Bog’s Innards touched her skin. It stuck to her flesh like tar. By the time she could cast a shield spell, it had singed the ends of her hair. The smell made Isobel want to vomit.
Instead, she hugged her knees to her chest and sobbed, her bed the only untouched island in a sea of rot and filth. The class nine curse, meant to corrode defensive enchantments, had been a gift from her father when she agreed to become champion. She’d meant to save it for the tournament, but instead she’d ruined the one place the other Macaslans had never touched.
“You can’t make me do anything,” Isobel snapped at her mother, who’d fled into the hallway. Both of them were sobbing now. “And none of the other champions are strong enough to defeat me.”
GAVIN GRIEVE
A Grieve has never benefited from the tournament. For us, and perhaps us alone, it truly is a curse.
A Tradition of Tragedy
While a storm raged outside, Gavin stole away to his room and hastily shut the door behind him. Thunder reverberated in his chest as he knelt at his desk, examining the quartz spellstone embedded in the bottom drawer. The spell inside—Keep Out, class five—warded the drawer from prying eyes. It was the highest-class spell he’d ever been able to craft on his own.
Thinking about crafting spellstones reminded Gavin of his disastrous conversation with Osmand Walsh and his failure to secure any spellmaker alliances. Maybe he didn’t have the connections or the resources of the other tournament families. But he’d known he was going to be champion for most of his life. And that had given him one valuable commodity, at least: time.