Page 4 of I Dream of Dragons

Except that the king’s words last night have upended my world, and I’m still reeling.

He didn’t explain. Didn’t say more. He sent me to my room, delivered into the care of Daria who fussed and coddled me while casting me furtive, frightened looks. I didn’t see Jai or his friends outside my door.

His friends who were keeping guard in the sacred garden as the king told me all about Jai’s wickedness and showed me how deceived I was. How little I knew. As the king told me who he really is and put his mark on me.

Of course I didn’t spend the long, dark hours before a deadly trial grinding my teeth and digging my palms into my eyes, trying to understand what happened, only… that’s exactly what Idid. His words haunted me through the night, and still haunt me today.

“You are a thorn, not a flower.”And then,“Opening a gate means he can bring back the dead.”

Jai could bring back the dead… Could he bring my brother back if I convinced him? My parents? Why would he refuse such a power?

“We are gathered here today,” the telchin booms, lifting one hand, drawing my reluctant attention back to him, “to celebrate the second trial, the second game in honor of the divine World Pillar. We celebrate the Sleeping Gods. All hail Anafia, Goddess of Silence, Aides, God of Death, Eos, Goddess of Light, and Tethys, Goddess of the Sea. All hail the God in the Pillar, Hyperion, the resurrected god, the mighty Winged Serpent, the Hinge of the World over which the spirit hovers, the sacred vulture of rebirth.”

I’ve never heard of the Pillar referred to that way.

“Shake thesistrums,” he roars, “bang the drums, raise your amulets of protection! This is the raising of the Pillar, of the Djaid, our triumph over death. The gate let us through, and it will open again one day.”

Djaid?For a moment, I thought he’d saidJai, and an image lodges itself inside my head, of Jai in his black armor with the symbol of the world tree engraved in the breastplate, his nightgold swords strapped to his back, wreathed in shadows. The armor and swords he couldn’t use in the games. The shadows he was barely able to summon.

“You know why I entered the games. Why I’m here.”

I shake my head, hoping to clear it.

“In honor of the Djaid Pillar,” the telchin intones, “we offer a mighty fight and a sumptuous sacrifice, here, near the spine of the Hollow Worlds. These humans, born of this world, of this soil, bonded to the finnfolk inhabiting the tricky seas, shallperform in this trial that we call the Trial of the Air, the second element conquered by His Majesty, King Masren Eriwen Ridan of the fae as he led his people here.”

Masren has to be King Rouen’s father, and…perform?As if this is a circus, and we’re trained animals. As if we chose to participate in this show, this spectacle the fae are putting up, as paid actors.

Only we are the ones paying—with our blood and tears.

With our deaths.

“Now there are ten of you left, and…” The telchin’s dark gaze narrows under his bushy brows. “Guards! I only see nine. Where is the tenth contestant?”

“Athdara,” the murmur goes around our group, echoed by the fae gathered on the higher terraces. They are leaning over the rail so that their high, elaborate conical hats throw a jagged shadow over us. “Where is Athdara?”

“He ran away,” one of the contestants says. “Got scared and ran.”

“He volunteered,” another man says, and I recognize Axwick. “That’s not the act of a coward. Rather the opposite.”

“Maybe now he realized his mistake,” the other man insists, “and turned tail.”

“You don’t know him enough to pass such judgment,” I say, before I remember that I don’t know how I feel about Jai right now. “He saved many of you in the last trial. You don’t get to criticize his delay.”

“And who do you thinkyouare?” The man fixes me with a beady eye. “Athdara’s favorite, aren’t you? And in league with the fae king.”

Heat rushes up my face, and I open my mouth to put him in his place, only… am I? I hide my hand behind my back, hiding my wrist where the fae king put his mark last night. Where do Istand now? Everything had been so clear when I’d arrived, cast in black and white.

Now it’s all smoke and shadows.

“Leave her alone,” Mera says, quite unexpectedly. “She’s one of us.”

Who went and made her my savior? Another thing I don’t know how to feel about. After all, twice she shunned me and mocked me publicly, only to turn around today and pretend to be my friend.

I spot Amaryll among the humans, the one potential ally I have, and she’s not saying anything.

Then again, she’s busy staring at something behind us, obviously not paying attention to our little back-and-forth, and I turn to see what has caught her eye.

Shit.