Page 37

brEAKING THE VICTOR

SERYN

F rantically, my attention snapped to each concerned expression. Breena’s mouth puckered to the side as she looked up, studying Kaden’s prison.

“Bloody void,” Gavrel snarled, stalking in a wide semi-circle, looking for a way to free his brother. Rhaegar moved the other way, studying the angles opposite the commander.

The shadows churned not far off. The reapers were getting curious.

Studying Kaden, Marek blinked several times, his deep blue irises looked almost black. His nostrils flared and, without a word, he backed away several paces, his brawny form slipping into the shadows.

“Wanker.” Breena scoffed at my cousin’s retreat.

Desperation scraped up my spine as I focused above. Kaden’s nightmare had moved along as every muscle in his body stiffened, the veins in his neck bulging. All at once, his body went lax, and he was standing, leaning against the curve of the glass with anguish hanging off his gaunt features.

I’d seen that look before.

When we were thirteen turns old.

The day Hestia was culled.

Was he reliving his mother’s death? This place was draining him alive. The sickening realization that Kaden had been suffering for so long tunneled through the marrow of my bones.

Two dream reapers emerged, their skeletal fingers scratching at Kaden’s pen.

The slapping of boots sounded behind me, and in a blur, Marek leaped, digging his staff into the floor and vaulting his body on top of a nearby sphere. It wobbled as he steadied himself.

“Not a wanker,” Breena muttered, taking back her earlier insult. Her eyes were wide as we watched my cousin leap onto another bobbing globe.

And another. Until he was near enough to Kaden that his quarterstaff could touch the glass.

The creatures were already imbibing, greedy to feed on my friend’s pain. A few more began drifting toward their brethren.

Marek’s ebony flames flickered around him, and he held one palm out. His ember seeped over his arm in a rolling black fire, shooting forward and over the orb.

His energy wrapped and clung to the bubble like it had over Helos’ illusion barrier. Marek bared his clenched teeth, shoulders tensing.

Lurching back, the specters’ veils dispersed from their faces like a gust of wind clearing away smoke. Crimson flames flared behind the cavities of their skull-like faces as they hissed.

My pulse skittered, and my iridescent aura twirled around me restlessly.

Marek’s dark power throbbed around the sphere, and the silver streams that had been drinking in Kaden’s nightmare recoiled. Their slinking tentacles lashed over my cousin’s flames, trying to reattach themselves to the glass .

“Incredible. His illusion ember is confusing it,” Rhaegar murmured in awe. “Well done. Bloody brilliant!”

Breena narrowed eyes fixed on Marek. “It’s all right, I guess.”

And as the lambent edges of his gift neared Kaden’s head, my friend’s clouded irises brightened into a clear green. He bobbed his head from side to side, and his brows rose as his attention snapped to my cousin. To the reapers scratching furiously at Marek’s barrier.

Then, his frantic gaze locked with mine, and my scar throbbed in time with the illuminated branches pulsing and creeping over my arms as I reached for him once more. “Kaden!”

Next to his temple, he slammed his fist repeatedly against the glass, but then Marek’s ember enveloped the orb entirely. “Seryn, now would be the time to help!” he bellowed, his scowl digging into his mouth.

I blinked a few times and then focused on the ball of dancing black fire and called upon my ability. It happily obliged as it pumped over me, through my arms, and exited my outstretched fingers.

As it rammed into Marek’s flames, a chorus of screeches pierced the air. The reapers tried to scurry into the shadows, become one with them, but my ember latched onto them. Light contracted within each one and then burst like a star. Shadowy ribbons and ash fluttered about.

I pulled a deep inhale into my lungs, coaxing my gift to ignore my cousin’s energy and to dig through to the amber light within the glass.

The prismatic glow beneath the boughs covering my arms swelled as if disgruntled. Then heat zipped along my spine, and a rush of coiling light tore through the air, nudging aside the ebony blaze before slipping underneath, where it clung to the orb from below.

Immediately, my ember siphoned the swirling amber, overtaking the bottom half of the orb so the top was a flickering black blaze upon a curling, multicolored cloud of fractured hues.

As the saffron mist seeped out of the globe, Kaden bashed his boot into the glass floor to no avail. I wrenched my ember back, its glow still clinging to the amber energy. It sank into my hands, the burnished light churning through the pattern along my arms .

While it distilled what it had consumed, my aura buzzed against every inch of me. I felt the transformation deep within and breathed in and out several times.

I am you, and you are me.

Sated, my ember purred along my nape, and I took that as my cue to channel the purified energy back to my palms as my fingers weaved a churning ball of light between them.

Glancing at Marek, he nodded, retracting his flames and leaping down the way he’d come. I thrust my hands above me, and my twisting power slammed into the prison with a sharp crack. The glass splintered, fractures rushing over the surface like jagged spiderwebs.

With one last stomp, Kaden’s boot broke through the weakened orb. Gavrel jumped toward me as my body slumped, gathered me close, and shielded me from the sprinkle of shards raining down. Kaden dropped and rolled as his feet met the ground in front of us.

“Let’s not do that again,” Kaden huffed as he stood unsteadily, swatting his hands over his tunic.

On shaky legs, I left Gavrel’s embrace and crashed into my best friend, throwing my arms around him.

A whoosh of air barged from him as he balanced himself against my assault, and then he squeezed me back.

I held him at arm’s length and then cupped his jaw.

“Kaden,” I whispered. “Are you … are you okay?”

He tucked his lips between his teeth, and his brows fell. He looked down for a moment before his gaze slowly met mine, and the skin at the corners crinkled as he pasted a smirk on his face. “Just fine, Ser. Just fine.”

I didn’t believe him.

He left my hold, greeted the others, and slapped his hand on Gavrel’s back as they hugged. Kaden’s brows lifted when he noticed the blood smeared across his palm. His eyes shot to his brother.

“What happened?” Gavrel demanded, stepping away and sheathing his sword with the slightest of winces.

“Well, honestly … it’s all a blur. Were those … were those dream reapers?” Kaden’s aura flickered around him, and he reached for Gavr el’s shoulder, pushing his healing clover-hued energy over his brother’s injury without a word.

“Unfortunately. Use care while we move.” Gavrel rolled his healed shoulder, nodding at his brother with concern and pride etched into his countenance.

I put my hand on Kaden’s biceps. “What do you remember, Kade?”

His mouth pinched as he looked up, and then all around us with wide eyes. “Well, one moment I was in the arena, and Gav ran off with you. I was going to play my part as the ‘victor,’ and then Melina was in front of me, congratulating me on my win. Needless to say, I didn’t reap the rewards.”

Kaden sighed. “She gave me that rabid smile of hers. Had her Akridais drag me to a dungeon—did you know there was a fucking dungeon under the palace?—and then, I’m not sure.

Think she said, ‘enjoy your nightmares.’ My body was being torn apart, and then I was trapped in that fucking fishbowl.

Reliving my worst nightmare over and over.

” His face sagged for a second and then settled into a mask of indifference.

His fingers flexed before he rubbed the base of his head.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t get to you sooner,” I said, sucking in a breath. I couldn’t get enough air. “We?—”

“You’re here now, and that’s all that matters. Let’s get the void out of here. Wherever here is.” His brows lifted as he took in our surroundings.

Gavrel thumped his hand on his brother’s shoulder, his eyes squeezing closed for a moment. A relieved breath flared from his nostrils. “Stygian Murk.”

“Course we are,” Kaden muttered, moving away from the group. “I suppose that’s better than being trapped in these things.” He frowned, touching a nearby globe. A look of pained sympathy washed over him as he observed the trembling man within curl into a ball.

“We can’t stay long, and we … we don’t have enough power left to save the others right now and try to escape.

” I placed my palm on Kaden’s wrist, and he focused on where we touched.

“Kaden, you should know. You’re most likely in your physical body.

Yours wasn’t in a pod when we returned. They must have pulled it here when you we re imprisoned.

I … I was in my physical form during the last Dormancy. We all are now.”

His brow furrowed as he looked at me and then the others. “I suspected as much when you didn’t burst into ash during the Winnowing.”

“How abso-fecking-lutely spectacular we all are. Can we move it along?” Breena groused. “Unless we want to be sucked off by these nightmare beasties?”

Kaden rolled his eyes. “Yeah, Breena. That’s what we all want.”

Breena stabbed her middle finger into the air, aiming it squarely at him.

Rhaegar cleared his throat and shifted his battle axe to his other hand. “The longer we stay, the greater the risk of being trapped.” He scanned our surroundings, squinting. Quite a few reapers lingered nearby. “I say we head back whence we came.”

“Agree,” Marek said.

Kaden studied him as if finally noticing him. “Who the void is this?”

“The guy who saved your dreamy ass,” Marek retorted, his sardonic voice a stone dropping to the ground.

“This is Marek Sc—Nightshade.” A heavy sigh left me. “My cousin.”