Page 39

CYRUS

Sickness sloshes around Cyrus’s stomach. His words were pure bravado. He doesn’t want to prove himself. He’s sick to death of proving himself.

He’s never challenged anyone. To kill someone, to send their soul into the void—even in the tournament of souls, when his very existence depended on it, he couldn’t bring himself to kill. He survived by hiding, sneaking, watching.

The coward’s way.

Even now, could he kill to save himself? Fight for his very life, slice open someone’s neck and let their ichor pour onto the stone?

No, the voice of doubt whispers. Please, no.

They reach the mid-levels. The grand doors to the training yard open, and Cyrus’s stomach drops. On the far side of the yard, bound and furious, is Magnus himself.

“Time to get your revenge,” says the demon on his right, the one who wanted to give him a chance.

He marches Cyrus into the middle of the yard. Grey daylight suffuses everything, flattening the scene like the veil of a dream. Cyrus’s ichor slows to a sluggish crawl in his veins. Demons from the Grey Company step into the yard, a lot more than there seemed to be on the trip here.

Claudius and another demon drag Magnus forward. Claudius’s expression is grim.

“Weapons are your choice,” he says to Cyrus, curt.

“But I’m the challenger,” Cyrus says dumbly, his mouth working before his brain can catch up.

Claudius gives him a pitying look. “I said they’re your choice, Lieutenant Cyrianus.”

What can he choose? A sword will only give Magnus an advantage—Cyrus has never held a sword in his life. A mace is heavier than a hunk of rock—he’d barely be able to lift it. A pike will leave him lethally unbalanced.

“Bow,” he says at last, and Claudius scowls.

“Bow and arrow?”

“Yes.” Cyrus straightens. “And a shirt. I won’t fight bare-chested like an animal.”

In reality, he refuses to let Magnus see the extent of the wounds he inflicted.

“Fine. Get him a breastplate!” Claudius waves at one of the company.

Three demons strap Cyrus into full leather armor. He bites his tongue against the agony of it as the leather pulls and presses on his back, but it’s the unfamiliar feeling of the edges digging into his muscles that brings it home. Makes him lightheaded. I’ve never so much as worn a breastplate before.

The demon strapping him in gives him a final smack on the shoulder. “At least get in one good shot. Right in his other eye, if you can manage it.”

He obviously doesn’t expect Cyrus to survive.

Maybe he’s right, and this is the end.

Cyrus stumbles into the center of the circle. Someone presses a bow and a quiver into his hands. The quiver only holds four arrow. Four chances. He straps it on. He’s not experienced enough. The bow is made for someone half again as tall as him, and his draw isn’t powerful. He nocks an arrow anyway.

Across the circle Magnus sways on his feet. A demon cuts his bonds from behind. He’s already injured, ichor dripping from his right arm. The hated whip is gone from its holster. Claudius holds out a second bow and quiver of arrows to him.

“If I had my way he’d shoot you from twenty paces away and you still bound,” Claudius spits. “But that’s not a real challenge, is it? I reckon we need a new quartermaster. If he kills you, we’re in luck. If not, I’ll get the pleasure of beheading you myself.”

Magnus throws aside the bow and arrows with a sneer. “I’ll finish off the little traitor with my claws.”

There’s no preamble, no breath to prepare. Magnus charges at him. Cyrus looses his arrow. His shaking hands send it wide.

Magnus lunges. Cyrus scrambles to avoid his claws and takes off like a Hellbeast is on his tail. Magnus’s boots pound the stone.

“Coward!” he snarls.

The Grey Company jeer, feet stamping. Cyrus stumbles. Just as Magnus is almost on him, he grabs a second arrow in his fist. Magnus is too slow to evade. His body slams into Cyrus’s fist as the tip pierces flesh. He roars and swipes at Cyrus, catching him across the face. Bright, hot pain erupts along his cheek. He lets go of the arrow and scrambles backward as Magnus staggers.

He draws and shoots the third arrow with speed born of terror. The bowstring snaps his arm. Somehow, impossibly, the arrow is suddenly embedded in Magnus’s shoulder.

I hit him.

Magnus bares ichor-blackened teeth and roars. “I should have killed you on your first day!”

“I bet you’re sorry,” Cyrus gasps out, backing away. He takes another arrow from the quiver. “All those years I snuck around under your nose—I made you look like the fool you are.”

His ichor rises hot and angry. He doesn’t want to fight. He only wants to be free. But there’s always a price to pay in the Court. To the King, to the Quartermaster, to whatever new master takes their place. It doesn’t matter who. There’s no peace. Only pain, and more pain, and scratching out a life in the dirt under someone else’s boot.

“The eye!” someone yells. “Don’t forget.”

Cyrus draws his last arrow.

Magnus charges.

Cyrus lets the arrow fly. Instead of hitting Magnus’s one good eye, it pierces the base of his horn with a crack.

Magnus lets out a howl that raises every hair on his body. His eye turns from yellow to black. He’s on Cyrus before Cyrus can turn tail again, before he can run, before he can even brace himself. He hits the ground with a horrible jarring blow. Magnus’s claws tear at the leather breastplate and his snarl looms, his hot, stinking breath sweeping over Cyrus’s face. Cyrus swipes at his face with his claws, but Magnus grabs his hand and twists it cruelly, dragging it above his head, pinning it to the stone. The fingers of his other hand squeeze Cyrus’s neck. Claws sink into his jaw like hot blades. His cry is strangled into silence as his airway closes. In panic, he kicks and twists, but the ichor pouring out of Magnus’s shoulder wound makes everything slippery and he can’t find purchase.

He thrashes desperately. Someone—anyone!

Mezor—

Help me ? —

“The rok!” The yell cuts across his fading senses. “Don’t let it—ahh!”

Shouts rise. Cyrus fades.

The snarling vision above him sinks into blackness. Cold beckons at the edge of his consciousness, alluring. Peaceful.

What would it mean to enter that dark, empty place? Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. His whole body is heavy—his soul is heavy.

Everything goes dark. Until the only light left is deep inside, in the most primal part of his soul—the place that glows with the rich, golden warmth of the bond. Cyrus sinks toward it, falling fast. Maybe I can spend my last moments here.

Memory and sweetness enfold him, threads of Mezor’s touch, his gentle words, the fierceness of his gaze. The secrets he shared with Cyrus. The things he made Cyrus feel. The moments of happiness. The days of longing. The fire and floods of pleasure, of perfect agony. He wraps the bond around himself and curls inside.

But even as he does it, the bond begins to fade. Gold turns silver, and silver turns grey. Frantic, he tries to pull it closer. The warmth leeches away and leaves him with brittle, dry threads of nothing that crumble away into the void, and the void opens to him, and his soul drifts free from his body, and he sees his body as if he’s above it all, watching himself die.

A shadow passes over his vision.

With a screech, the shadow arcs across the sky. Its eyes blaze—two golden flames as bright as stars. In Cyrus’s half-dead vision, light seems to pour from those eyes, melting and dripping until the shadow is transformed into something brilliant and burning. The fiery creature dives. The pressure on Cyrus’s neck disappears, and the cruel figure above him howls. Light pierces his enemy and rips him open.

Darkness pours forth.

Cyrus gasps, choking on nothing as his breath returns to him.

He sits up to see Ekko toss his head back and swallow Magnus’s remaining eye. The Quartermaster’s chest is torn open. Ekko’s claws are stained with gore. He swivels his head and looks at Cyrus with his golden eye. He’s no longer a vision in fire, but triumph is clear in his intelligent gaze.

Across the training yard the door slams open, and the bond blazes to life.