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Frost coated my lungs as I ran through the Winter trails.

The entire estate would be used for the Trial of Malice, but we could not use our enigma to fly, and not that I wanted Naraic in this bloody mess, but even my flame would not spark in this dry cold.

“Severyn,” Knox yelled from the woods, and I hid lower behind the frosted bushes as he thrusted his sword—fresh blood coating the tip. “I know you’re here. You can’t hide from me.”

I gripped my bloodied arm where he’d swiped me an hour before. Thankfully, the falling snow concealed my trail of blood.

A hand clutched my mouth. I turned to face Antonia as her dagger was tight against my throat. “Scream, and you’re dead,” she whispered.

I nodded silently, eyes attuned to the caked blood on her chin.

I saw Alaric in her eyes; his last words clung to my breaths, yet I knew this wasn’t the time.

She got to her feet, kicking frozen dirt at me as she yelled after Knox, “She went over there.” Her finger pointed further down the trail.

Antonia saved me when I did not deserve any kindness from her.

I gripped two daggers in my fists as they ran through the forest. The headmaster had referred to this as the Trial of Malice.

But my brothers called it prey and predator, a childhood game I’d played growing up.

The students were split in half, each marked as prey or predator.

Each predator was to hunt and kill a student from another realm.

But prey, we were told anyone was free game, including our own house.

We were told the longer we survived without wounds, the greater our chances of being bid on was.

I never believed Father prepared me for this—but he’d planted the seeds of succession even when our vocabulary was limited. We’d played games as children, not knowing our sticks and stones would turn into daggers and swords.

Knox wanted to kill me. Perhaps I read power so differently in everyone that nothing surprised me.

Even Knox needed to prove himself, and his stunt with the headmaster nearly cost me my life…

but I’d seen his eyes and knew no light shone through them, and whatever held him was darker than Archer’s shadow.

This wasn’t a trial but a game—Knox had no idea whose blood ran through his veins.

They hoped we’d kill each other before the Serpent Bid, and every secret that was starved down was too weak to fend, to crawl up from whatever silent cave it was buried under.

Knox was a pawn in someone else’s game, and I wondered what was promised to him if he’d asked Monty to take the light of his soul to endure the pain of killing me. Priceless seemed feeble right now—priceless was whatever Knox was fed to believe killing me was worth it.

I’d gotten flashbacks of us playing as children in the woods. But instead, victory was doing the other’s chores for the week.

Knox always won .

The cold wind wholly swept through and into my bones.

I took off through the woods as my joints began to numb.

Left would take me to Spring, but right would lead me toward darkness and into the Night realm.

My quell would be useless if I got near that hot spring.

I was running, not into the light of Spring shining through the trees, but into the darkness and to where I believed sanctuary was many weeks before as I went through this same trail.

The night crawled with me, consuming the trail with every heave of my breath. Soon, I became shrouded in that familiar blanket of cool shadow.

I caught my breath as I leaned against a cave, knowing the darkness was deceptive. My head jerked forward. Knox wasn’t the only predator, as howls and hisses sounded from the forest. I gripped my daggers as yellow eyes stalked me from the trails.

I had to keep going. I struck my flame as I went through the slicked trails. Those beastly eyes walked with me, waiting for me to take one step over and kill me.

I took it back. I didn’t care to see the Night realm, not when my heart was in my throat, and I could barely see my next step.

A figure approached, and I could barely make out Damien’s features.

“Severyn,” he called. A slick of sweat dripped from his brow as he caught his breath. “Are you prey or predator?”

“Prey.” I took a step back as he drew closer.

“I won’t hurt you.”

“Are you prey?” I gripped the dagger harder .

“I am. I heard your mind, and I followed you here. I waited by your room this morning, but Malachi said you never came home.”

I shuddered. “Well, I’m sure you have an idea as to why. I don’t quite have a large circle I can trust right now.”

I didn’t have the energy to throw a shield up. Damien was in my mind, clawing over my visit with Estella… and probably where I had slept the night before.

He looked up at the night sky. “Listen, I’m not your enemy. You can trust me, Severyn. We need to survive this trial and claim what is rightfully yours.”

I shook my head. Then, one of those beasts’ paws slashed across the barrier. Damien grabbed my wrist and pulled me deeper into the Night realm as a seven-foot-long black creature with jutted grey horns stepped over the border, leathery wings extended from its hunched spine.

“We aren’t safe here. Run!” yelled Damien.

The wards of Night had fallen.

Damien unsheathed his sword, and we ran as fast as our legs would take us. The creature was gaining speed. Jaws snapping. Two more came from the other side, pinning Damien and I back-to-back. Those yellow eyes stalked around us in a circle, drool dripping from their engorged canines.

“Damien—” I swung the dagger as one of the creatures lunged for my chest, and I sliced it across the jugular. “We can’t kill them all!”

We were trapped.

Damien slashed his sword. “Hell no, will I allow a beast to kill me.” He held his palm toward the sky, and a thousand glass shards formed like floating crystals in the air. He twirled his fist and sent them flying at the beasts, striking them each in the chest.

They roared—but gained us enough time to take off .

I reached for the red-handled sword I’d won from Callum. I swung hard, clipping the broad shoulder of one.

“We’re going to die here, Damien!” I yelled over thrashing claws. Liquid night drowned me in a pool of midnight sky, searching for any safe place to run.

I flung my simmered palm out, barely scorching the second beast to my left.

Damien pressed his spine into mine, and we walked a slow circle. “Do you trust me, Severyn?”

I panted, “Not exactly.” There was no point in lying to him, not when my mind was screaming the truth. “I want to trust you.”

He scoffed and grabbed my shoulders to face him. A million shards of glass whirled around us until we were portaled through the fury. A few cut me, slicing my knuckles and cheeks in a prismatic kaleidoscope of fragments.

Speckled light surrounded us, shattering off the mirrors of glass in every direction until we were both standing on the sands of Summer. It took me a moment to adjust to the sunset above. I skimmed my palms down my entire body, expecting glass to be lodged into my skin.

He touched my bleeding cheek, and a ripple of pain shot through his flared eyes. “Are you okay, Sev?”

“I thought you said portaling someone else was dangerous with your quell?” I snarked. “We just traveled through glass!”

Damien looked almost as surprised that I was in one piece. “I said I’ve never tried it with anyone else. It was either that or us getting mauled to death.”

I gaped. “Next time, we travel through a flame, and we’ll see if you survive,” I hissed.

“My apologies, your majesty .” He shot a smug look at me, even daring to bow. I smacked him across the shoulder.

“I have a hundred reasons to be pissed at you, don’t make it a hundred and one. ”

We began to make our way down the trails. Blades at the ready.

“I don’t believe I’ve done anything wrong, Severyn.”

I scoffed. “I know what you did to Everett during training. I know you only sought me out because of my neval hair. And that pendant you gave me was only to spy on me, Damien.”

“Point taken—the Everett thing was wrong. And your neval hair only piqued my interest because they were hunted down when I lived in Basilyne during boarding school. You were this mystery to me. No offense, but a fragile female from the north didn’t strike me as terrorizing.

I gave you that pendant to ensure no one tried to hunt you down. I took it too far, Severyn.”

“Well—” I cut my words short as Malachi stared across the trail. Blood dripped from her chin, her sword. She slumped her shoulders back, nearly collapsing into a pile of leather.

Predator. Predator. Predator.

She dropped the sword with a loud clang at her feet, face paled with one look at me. “He came after me. I had no choice, Sev.” Tears clung to her, and I saw that gash down her arm. She’d been attacked. “ I killed him .”

“Who came after you?” I asked, already feeling the sting in my eyes. I knew. I knew whose name she’d cry next.

“Knox—he isn’t right. Knox is dead. He’s dead, Severyn.”

Knox was dead.

My body numbed. “Where is he?” I screamed, blinded by instant hot tears. I grabbed her arm. “Where is Knox?”

“Spring.”

I turned so quickly to face Damien that the wind slashed my cheeks. “Portal me there, Damien. Now.”

“Severyn, it’s too dangerous. Our quells are weakened there. I hardly know how to portal myself without slicing my own skin up. ”

“I don’t care. Portal me. Now.” I swore I saw the shadow Knox lay in calling to me.

Damien nodded, gripping my shoulder as that same glass whirlpool spiraled around us.

Shards of light and shadow sliced my skin like thorns this time.

It was a ravenous pull, dragging me in, and for a moment, I saw myself in the shattered mirrors—the bloody, bruised girl in the bath, her wrist broken. An eagle-eye view of despair.

My sobs echoed through the fragments, a haunting chorus trapped in the void.

“You knew I was safe,” Archer called, his hands pinning my body to the wall.

Clipped glass mirrored a wall of daggers, seizing moments from time—moments I didn’t recognize, captured through another’s eyes.

“Is this where Monty touched you?” Archer’s voice was distant, pitched within the void of stolen time.

Damien had seen every moment of my life when he gave me that pendant.

Damien shielded my face against his chest. I flung back, crimson streaking my vision, metallic and heavy.

Blood was everywhere, dripping down my cheeks, my arms. I screamed, prying a slivered shard from my hand, swinging left and right.

My leathers were unscathed, but Damien… he’d taken most of the damage.

A large gouge ran from his brow toward his eye.

I didn’t have time to ask if he was okay. I spun in a full circle. “Knox?” I screamed, my plea desperate, the sound echoing among the roots and vines. Only two hearts beat within their grasp.

Damien held his bloody eye, pointing to the bushes. A body lay curled there, a hand limp on his chest. Knox’s face was pale, lifeless. I ran, my steps frantic.

“Knox, I’m here! ”

There are sounds capable of waking sleeping griffins. When feathered cries pierced the wards, I felt like I had died a little.

“Severyn, everyone is watching you. Do not save him.” Archer’s voice rang in my mind, distant yet resolute.

“I don’t have a choice.”

Our bond went cold the moment my foot sank into Spring’s mulch.

Delicate florals waved in the breeze, scattered sunlight spilling through wispy leaves above.

It was a trap—I knew it. The king wanted me to save him, to let the Serpents watch the live-action unveiling of my forbidden quell.

I was the finale, the spectacle. The student who rose from the shallow grave of bramble and vines.

I’d wake more than griffins. I’d wake death itself.

“You’re too close to the hot spring, Severyn. Your quell won’t work here,” Damien yelled, stumbling after me.

My life or Knox’s. Either way, the Serpents would learn the truth. I gripped Knox’s face between my palms, whispering, “A Herring’s blood will not be spilled today.”

Damien hoisted Knox over his shoulder, carrying him far enough for the fire to return to my veins. The molten heat surged, forbidden and uncontrollable. I swallowed the shadows on my tongue, the metallic taste clinging as I yelled, “Drop him. Drop him now.”

Damien obeyed, lowering Knox to the ground. “Sev, you’ve already saved him once. We don’t know what will happen a second time. Everett gained a Winter quell doing this. It could be bad.”

I looked to the sky, knowing Father was watching his son die before his eyes. “I can’t let him die, Damien,” I said, my voice cracking.

Blisters burned my cheeks as I wiped the tears away, placing both hands on Knox’s face. Darkness swarmed the Spring realm, the sun and moon seemingly colliding in the sky. Knox gasped, his first breath shattering the silence.

I reached for Archer’s bond, but all I felt was static, a cold hum rattling between us. He’d cut the unwoven cord the moment he saw me touch my brother. He’d done it to save Ciaran and himself.

For a moment, I considered pounding on Naraic’s bond, daring to demand, “Release me.” But I knew the cost—my death, days or moments away. Naraic deserved better than to be tethered to a death sentence.

I cried into my palms, forcing myself to stay grounded. Perhaps it wasn’t my life on the line, but Archer’s—he’d interfered with a Serpent trial.

The darkness faded to gray, melting into clouds before the light broke through again. Knox stirred, his face contorting as he sat up, shaking his head.

“What… what happened?” he asked, his voice weak.

Damien held his bleeding eye. “Your sister sacrificed her life for you after you nearly killed her and Malachi,” he said, his words sharp and pointed. “The trial’s almost over. It’s nearing dusk.”

Knox’s face twisted in confusion and pain. “I don’t remember anything. I would never hurt Severyn. Malachi is my friend.”

Damien plucked a glass shard from his knuckles, glaring. “Then shield better next time. Someone compelled you today.”

I pressed against the torn leather on Knox’s chest, putting pressure on the wound Malachi’s blade had left. “You need to act as if you’re writhing in pain. I don’t care if they keep you in the infirmary until the Serpent Bid.”

I shoved him hard into the dirt, slicing a shallow cut against his skin with my dagger. “Do you understand? ”

Knox nodded, clutching his gut with a loud, exaggerated groan. There was enough blood for his wounds to look convincing.