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Chapter One

T he Dragon must have finally decided he wanted to kill me.

That was the only explanation for why my combat trial involved a gladiator-style ring, where I had to fight members of the Athenian royal guard in front of a packed stadium. Surely, he intended for me to die on this battlefield.

A blade slashed toward me—I barely dodged in time, my breath sharp as I twisted away.

My heart pounded, but my mind stayed detached, calculating.

It had been two months since the last time I fought for my life—since the night I stood across from a friend-turned-traitor and watched her summon an army of shadows against me.

But there was no time to dwell on the past. Not when the present demanded so much.

It had been a surprise when I even took down the first guard, a blade pressed to his carotid artery, but my victory had been short-lived. Before the crowd even stopped cheering, a door had opened on the other side of the arena, and another guard strode forward.

He ran at a furious pace, intent on tackling me.

I moved to my left and watched as he spun on his heels to face me.

By the gods, he was fast, wasting no time recovering and launching a quick jab toward me.

In my haze to deflect it, I didn’t even notice his arm reaching for my wrist until it was too late.

He pressed down on the tendons there, and I unwillingly released the blade, grunting as it fell to the sand at our feet.

I heard Rankor’s voice in my head as I watched it fall. He’s bigger than you. You have to be faster.

My friend and trainer had given me that advice so many times in our preparations for this trial that I swore I heard him reciting it while I brushed my teeth in the morning.

As the guard released my wrist, I went for speed… and surprise.

I ducked to the ground, crawling between his widespread legs.

The crowd gasped at the childish maneuver, and even the guard himself seemed surprised. That moment of hesitation was all I needed, though. I threw my leg back into his rear end, sending him stumbling forward. Rolling, I launched myself back to my feet and set my sights on him once more.

This would be so much easier with my magic.

As a Descendant of Hyrax, I had the unique ability of telepathy.

To our knowledge, I was the only person to have that ability…

ever. I desperately wanted to use my telepathy to blast the guard across the arena, but the rules strictly prohibited using magic during the hand-to-hand combat trial.

They had even dosed me with Mortal blood to prevent me from accessing my powers.

Little did anyone know that the Mortal blood had no effect on me or my powers, and it was only my sheer will that stopped me from tapping into them.

It was just another thing that made me different.

Like the fact that I was a Descendant who had lived through a power-stripping and still had my magic.

Or that I was a Descendant who didn’t bear the Mark of her ancestor like a permanent tattoo across the skin.

These days, it seemed like there was more and more that set me apart from those around me .

A crushing punch to my stomach broke me free of my thoughts and had me gasping for air. I stumbled away from the guard, desperate to catch my breath. I could almost feel Rankor’s eyes on me from the audience, criticizing me for not staying focused.

As the guard unsheathed the sword across his back, I reached for the dagger I’d strapped to my thigh.

They’d given me the option between a sword or knives, and while I didn’t hate using swords, the weight of knives was easier to manage, and I could maneuver them more quickly.

And as Rankor liked to remind me, most people were bigger than me, so I needed to be faster.

The guard stalked toward me, and I again opted for surprise.

Might as well give the citizens in the stands a show.

Turning on my heels, I sprinted. To the audience, it might look like I was fleeing from him as I launched myself at full speed toward the opposite end of the arena.

I heard him following, his heavy steps picking up speed behind me.

I just needed to make it a little farther.

I threw myself toward the wall, kicking off it and spinning, throwing the blade as I hovered momentarily in the air.

It was a bit of a shot in the dark, not allowing me time to aim, but Rankor had made me practice this move a million times.

We’d done it over and over until he was confident that I could use the sound of footsteps behind me as a judge of distance.

And the practice paid off. The blade bounced off the center of his forehead.

I was glad they gave us toy weapons for this. I would have chosen not to carry anything into battle if they had insisted I use real steel.

I landed in a heavy crouch that sent pain radiating up my arms and legs, but I had successfully bested him. The roar of the crowd was deafening as the guard bowed and exited the arena… only for yet another one to take his place .

How many are they going to make me fight? I wondered as I pulled the next blade out of the sheath on my wrist and launched myself toward my new target.

I fought as hard as I could, ignoring both the protest in my fatiguing muscles and the noise from the crowd that threatened to distract me.

Truthfully, the crowd had been another surprising aspect of this trial.

The Royal Council hadn’t given me much information regarding what to expect, but my first trial had been so private that I had expected this one to be the same.

I beat the third guard with a blade pressed against his kidney and the fourth by unarming him and using his own sword against him. Exhaustion and rage filled me by the time the fifth guard entered the arena.

The Dragon, our king, had once told me these trials would be more of a formality than anything else in my case—since I was the only person who could serve as the Hyraxian Council member.

The Dragon didn’t much like me, but he wanted a complete Council more than anything—a governing body filled with representatives from the Houses descended from the High Gods.

Even so, this felt like more than a formality. This felt like the Dragon wanted to see me bleed.

By the end of my fight with the fifth guard, I was in fact bleeding from a broken nose, but I had won with a blade pressed directly above his heart.

There was a pause.

No more doors opened.

Turning on my heels, I looked up to the crowd, and the perched box where the Dragon and the other members of the Council sat watching the show. Carefully, I avoided the gaze of Clayton Vail, our Crown Prince.

The Dragon met my gaze without flinching. With careful slowness, he raised a bushy eyebrow at me and smiled. And that’s when I knew this wasn’t over .

Both doors on either side of the arena opened. From the left came a guard I hadn’t met before. From the right came Dimitri, the head of my personal guard team.

Oh, come on now.

I glared at the Dragon while I pulled a second blade from my left thigh.

“I am sorry for this, my lady,” Dimitri said as he approached.

Groaning, I wiped away the blood from my broken nose with my forearm and took my fighting stance.

“Let’s just get this over with.”

The last fight was a blur of flying arms and weapons.

My muscles screamed in protest and my head swam as the exhaustion threatened to take me under.

Still, I carried on. Dimitri grabbed my wrist and twisted, pulling the muscles there so tightly that I couldn’t help but scream out.

He flinched as I did, but still I carried on.

I couldn’t care about pulled muscles or broken bones right now.

The palace healers would take care of all of that once this was over. I just needed to finish it.

I defeated the sixth guard with a blade across the throat and took down Dimitri with a blade to the back. Dirty fighting for sure, but successful.

Music filled my ears as the band began playing the Athenian anthem and the crowd erupted around me, chanting my name. Slowly, the Dragon raised his hands and clapped. I had done it. I had passed the combat trial. I was officially two-thirds of the way to taking my place on the Council.

“You fucking did it!” Rankor cried, sweeping me into a bear hug that lifted me from the ground and knocked the breath from my lungs.

“Did you doubt me?”

I struggled to laugh while he squeezed.Rankor was a brawn from House Arto, making his strength magically fueled. He suddenly seemed to remember this, and that he could literally kill me from hugging me too tightly, and sat me on my feet in a rush.

“No!” he replied in a rush, before sighing when I raised my brows at him in disbelief. “I believe in you, of course. I’ve always known that when you’re at your best, you can handle anything that’s thrown at you.”

“But?”

“But you haven’t been at your best.”

His hand cupped my face affectionately, his thumb stroking the skin under my eyes that was hollow and dark from lack of sleep. “You’ve been so exhausted. I’ve been worried.”

Yes, well, I had felt exhausted lately. Exhaustion was the unhappy consequence of refusing to sleep.

For weeks, I’d barely been sleeping. Ever since I’d discovered that I’d somehow been communicating with my ancestor, Hyrax, in my dreams, I’d been terrified to return to that place - the Underworld.

Hyrax had lied to me. He hadn’t pretended to be someone else, but he also hadn’t openly admitted who he was.

For months, he had taught me how to use my magic and counseled me on how to navigate politics and relationships in the Mortal Realm, all while hiding his true identity. And a lie by omission was still a lie.

And if the God of the Dead was lying to me, then I had to question why.

What did he want from me?

“You care to tell me what’s been going on with you?” Rankor pressed, pulling my focus once more .