I stared blankly at him while the world shifted, spinning an entirely different direction than it had before. “Teller,” I finally managed to get out. I held a hand out to my brother, and he rushed to my side as we began to descend the steep staircase to the arena floor.
“You kissed Luther,” he hissed in my ear.
“You kissed Lily,” I shot back.
“Wait—who told you?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You’ve been a little busy today, if you haven’t noticed.”
“That’s no excuse. You kissed Lily!”
“You kissed Luther!”
“Luther kissed me.”
“You sure didn’t push him away.”
“Stop changing the subject. You kissed Lily!”
“Does this mean you’re finally going to wake up and end things with Henri?”
My mouth popped open. “I thought you supported me and Henri.”
“Before everything changed, maybe, but now…” He wrinkled his nose.
“By the Flames, are you really giving me a hard time about a mortal-Descended relationship? May I remind you that you kissed Lil—”
“It’s not about that.” Teller yanked me to a stop and pointed to a large section of spectators in the upper level. “Look.”
As I studied the group, familiar faces began to appear. Maura first, along with the other healers. Then friends of my parents. Neighbors, old classmates, patients—so many of my patients.
Strangers, too. Faces I’d never seen, names I didn’t know—scores of them, filling row after row, a mass of brown eyes huddled together for warmth against the chilly winter air.
There must have been hundreds of them. Thousands, perhaps.
“Where is he?” Teller prodded.
“He… he had to make a delivery. He—”
“Where has he been since you took the Crown? Since Father died?”
“I told him to stay away from the palace for his own safety.”
“If it was the other way around, you would be there.”
I silently clenched my jaw.
“If anyone you loved was going through this, you would be there for every step of it, no matter how dangerous it was. You deserve someone who’s willing to do the same for you.”
I sighed and tugged his arm. “Come on. I’d rather lose the Challenging and die than hear the rest of this lecture.”
We reached the final step and emerged onto the sandy arena floor. Suddenly the walls loomed higher, the crowd so much larger. I felt minuscule. Insignificant.
“You’re going to be fine,” Teller said, sounding more like a question than a statement. “The last five Corbois Crowns weren’t Challenged.”
I nodded silently.
“Maybe no one will step forward, and we can all just go back to the palace.”
“Maybe,” I murmured.
“Even if they do, you can use your shield to wear them down, and then when they’re tired…”
He trailed off. It was the one wrinkle in our plans that no one could solve.
I had never used my magic to harm another person. And I wasn’t sure I wanted to.
Though I had walked away from my career, some part of me would always be a healer. Behind all my swagger and threats, it was the drive to repair harm, not create it, that filled my heart with purpose.
But this was a fight to the death. If I could not find it in myself to cross that line…
“Diem Corbois.”
Remis’s voice reverberated across the arena, magnified by the Sophos invention he’d used at the funeral.
Teller’s hand tightened on mine. I squeezed his back, then dropped it and strode several paces forward until I stood alone.
I turned to face the royal box, my posture going rigid. I steeled my face into the mask of a warrior, letting all trace of emotion boil away under the unforgiving sun. The time had come to show all of Lumnos that I was not afraid to fight.
Remis spoke again.
“The traditions of our great realm demand you be judged by your peers before you take the throne. The rules are simple: Each of the Houses will have an opportunity to raise a Challenge. If one or more Challengers steps forward, you must fight the strongest among them using only your magic until one of you is dead. If you are truly worthy to wear the Crown, may Blessed Mother Lumnos make her will known to us all.”
Taran’s snort carried to my ears. I bit my cheek to hold back my smile.
“And if you are tested and found wanting… may she have mercy on your soul.”
A thunderous rumble rolled through the stands as thousands of Descended beat their fists against their chests in a slowly building cadence.
But this gesture was no salute.
This was a Descended battle cry.
This was a call for blood.
The beat grew louder and faster, carrying my pulse along with it. When the roar reached its crescendo and faded, my heart stayed pounding in my ears.
“Houses of Lumnos,” Remis boomed, “the time has come. I call on each of you to make your decision. Will you Challenge your Queen—or will you kneel to her?”
The murmur ceased. Lips pressed closed, bodies went still—even the wind seemed to hold its breath. Absolute silence seized the arena as my life teetered on the cliff.
I did not dare look at the Houses and risk provoking them to act, nor did I look at Remis, unwilling to give him the satisfaction of seeing my fear. And I could not bear to see the fragile hope in my brother’s eyes.
Instead, I looked up.
I had never prayed to the Kindred before—at least not by name. In my lowest moments, I had thrown desperate pleas out to any divine being that might be listening, but not once had I sought out the patron goddess who had plucked me from mortal obscurity and tossed me straight into the boiling cauldron.
I squinted at the radiance of the sun’s rays, then closed my eyes and faced the darkness of my mind.
Light and dark. The two sides of Lumnos’s magic.
Both misunderstood, for although we often ran from the shadowy unknown toward the clarity of day, the light could blister and burn just as the dark could shield and soothe. It was in the meeting of the two, the dusk and the dawn, where peace was truly at its height.
Lumnos, I said without speaking, let’s be honest, we’ve never been great friends, you and I. I’m pretty sure you and your siblings are sitting up there laughing your heads off at my expense.
But I do believe in Luther, and he believes in you. He thinks you want me to bring peace between the mortals and the Descended. I don’t know if you’ve got the right girl, but I’m willing to give it my best shot. If that’s truly your will, then give me a sign. Let me leave here without a Ch—
“I will Challenge her.”
Shit.
I opened my eyes and turned toward the voice.
“On behalf of House Ghislaine, I, Rhon Ghislaine, wish to Challenge Diem Corbois as unworthy to wear the Crown.”
For a long beat, I couldn’t process anything but the group clustered around him, the comparatively tiny family that sat behind their golden emblem.
House Ghislaine?
The weakest of the Twenty Houses—the House for whom a Challenge meant gaining nothing and risking everything, the one House everyone had been certain I didn’t need to fear?