Alistair’s voice was surprisingly gentle when he asked, “So you didn’t want to be champion?”
“No,” Isobel answered, even though it felt like admitting something terrible. “I didn’t. I … still don’t. Sometimes, when I close my eyes, I can pretend that it isn’t real. That I’m still in my bed at home.” In the room that Isobel had wasted a spell to ruin, just because she’d been angry and scared.
Suddenly, the candles in the room snuffed out all at once, pitching them from the already dim candlelight into total blackness. It took her a second to realize that he’d extinguished them with a spell, for her. So she couldn’t see where she truly was. But she could still smell it—the rot, the mold, the damp, earthy odor of the cave walls.
“You want to know something funny?” he asked. “In a choice between staying here or going home, I’d still choose here. With you.”
Isobel didn’t think that was funny, and a dozen questions about the Lowes itched on her tongue, if the truth did justice to the wicked rumors whispered around Ilvernath.
But rather than pry, she said, “You don’t have to sleep on the floor. I know it’s uncomfortable.”
“I think I owe you more than a night on the floor.”
“You broke your arm tonight. It’ll be stiff, even if you healed it. I don’t want my ally wounded.”
She knew, after all the ways she’d flirted with him before, that any invitation could be misconstrued. Especially in a bed with little space between them, entirely in the dark.
But there was no misconstruing the way her stomach somersaulted when she felt the mattress shift as he sat down. When he lay beside her and a warmth like fire spread through her from her head to her toes.
Nothing good would come of this.
This was Alistair Lowe, she reminded herself. The one everyone had declared her greatest rival. The boy her mother had warned her about.
After they’d slain all the other champions—her ex-best friend among them—it would only be the two of them left. Maybe that would be months from now. Maybe it would be days. But that was what this alliance led up to. Not a kiss stolen in the dark, or a priceless gift given without being asked.
A duel.
Sobered, Isobel turned so her back was to him. Several minutes had passed, and Alistair hadn’t moved. She wasn’t even sure if he was still awake.
“Tell me a monster story,” she whispered.
He stirred, then drowsily, he murmured, “Have you ever heard of a nightcreeper?”
“I haven’t.”
“They’re drawn to places with complete darkness because their bodies are made of shadow.” Isobel noted the complete darkness around them and slid deeper beneath the blankets. “They can see in the darkness no better than you can, but their eyes are burned away by the faintest of light. That’s what they search for—eyes. New ones that don’t scorch in the daylight, that they can pluck out and use to replace their own. So they can finally feast outside.”
Isobel’s dread receded, her real fears replaced by make-believe ones. When she did fall asleep, she didn’t dream of Briony’s demise. She didn’t dream of how it would feel to kiss Alistair or to curse him. She dreamed of fears that, for once, felt surmountable.
GAVIN GRIEVE
One of my earliest memories is of watching my family put money on our own champion dying first. They were correct.
A Tradition of Tragedy
It took a week for the wounds Gavin had sustained at the Monastery to heal. His body no longer felt like his own, did not behave in ways he recognized. He hid all his spellrings in a dresser drawer and slept for days, feverishly sweating through his T-shirts, until he became lucid enough to feel paranoid.
When he finally felt well enough, he left the protection of the Castle and set off across the moorlands. It would take him ages to reach his destination without a Here to There spell, but he wouldn’t waste more magick than was absolutely necessary. Not until he could find some way to stop his spellrings from automatically draining his life force.
It made no sense, marching toward Ilvernath proper. No champion could enter it during the tournament. The Blood Veil had an eye at its center, above the Champions Pillar, that blocked them off from the city—and blocked the city off from them. Nobody could leave or enter for the few months the tournament was in place, a reality that the winning family used to wipe away from the townsfolk’s memories once it was all finished.
But after Gavin had used Shrouded from Sight to pass through the Monastery wards, he realized his new power didn’t behave by the regular rules of magick. So maybe this was a rule he could break, too.