Page 135 of The Darkening (The Darkening)

Yes. He’s a portrait of a man resigned. He should feel at home, charming people with his presence and a dramatic speech. But he’s playacting. His voice sounds dead, as if that raging fire swept through him and left only ash in its wake.

“This girl stands accused of engineering the death of the late Regia.” Dalca pauses, and some semblance of fire returns to him. “In her veins runs the blood of traitors.”

Thousands of eyes turn to look at me, seeing not me but a specter crafted by Dalca’s words, someone worthy of their hatred. I’m the focus of his rage and all the pent-up darkness within him. The Storm told me this would happen, in far fewer words, when Dalca let his child self be eaten. If he couldn’t face himself then, how can he now? He’s left the wounds on his soul to fester. And unable to ease the pain, he turns his misery outward; he inflicts himself on me.

Dalca’s gaze bores into me, and I meet it with equal fury. “Today both father and daughter stand Trial, with all of us bearing witness.”

Stone grinds against stone, and another hidden door opens in the arena wall beside me. Pa staggers out, squinting up at the light.

“Pa!” I run to him. The chain between my hands catches once, drawing taut, then a link snaps—my hands are free. I’ll owe Cas my thanks, if I ever see him again.

“Vesper.” Pa gives me a choked little laugh. “Don’t fear. We can do this. After all, I suppose this is the family business.”

That startles a laugh from me. “What’s that, being enemies of the Regia? Getting sentenced to death?”

“The business of changing things. It’s always worth being the enemy of a diseased state. I had forgotten that.” Despite the dark circles under his eyes, the gauntness in his cheeks, the unkempt beard shadowing his face, he looksalivein a way I’ve never seen him look before.

“The Second Trial,” Dalca continues, “is the Trial of Beasts. In ancient times, the accused would have fought monstrous beasts—raptors as tall as three men, serpents as large as houses, great felines with sharp claws and sharper teeth. Fear not, for the ikonomancers have prepared something just as special.”

I glance at Pa, who is trying to work his hands free of his shackles. “Vesp, do you remember the ikon?”

I nod. There’s a slicing ikon he taught me, one that will cut through metal. I only need something to write with.

“Blood,” Pa says.

“I have something better.” I pat my shawl, finding the sticks Cas gave me. Pa’s eyes light up as he sees them.

“Mancer’s charcoal. Where did you—”

“Shh.” I focus on drawing the ikon on the widest part of his chains, careful to get it right. I close the loop and wait, holding my breath.

The chain parts in two. All the sounds of the audience die out, and even Dalca pauses.

“Well done,” Pa says.

Dalca continues. “If the Beast is destroyed, the accused will stand for the Third Trial. If the accused are killed, the Trials conclude.”

He says it so easily.Killed.

On the other side of the arena, circular stone doors begin to grind open, as if pulled by unseen hands. Dalca’s voice echoes. “May the fates show no mercy. Now...” Dalca waits until I raise my gaze to meet his. “Let the Second Trial begin.”

He says it to me—not the crowd, not Pa. Eyes fixed on me, he lowers himself onto his throne.

The grinding stops as the circular doors stand open. Whatever the beast is, it’s hidden in the darkness.

“Vesper. Remember, follow my lead.” Pa runs toward the center and begins laying out ikons on the floor, drawing quickly with Cas’s charcoal.

I follow on his heels, drawing out the ikons he taught me. He’s done three, linking them with a series of lines and arcs, by the time I’ve finished my first.

A gasp rises from the crowd. Someone screams. I keep my focus on the ground, on the ikon.

It’s only when Pa sucks in a sharp breath that I look up.

A stormbeast.

A four-legged creature the size of Amma’s living room, so tall I don’t come to its chin. Its body bulges with roiling stormcloud, and its face rapidly melts from a lion’s to a horned elk’s, to a crocodile’s. Every horrible beast out of a fairy book come to life in one body. Its tailswishes back and forth—with each swish going from bushy to scaled to coiled and on and on.

I’ve never seen a stormbeast struggle like this, as if it’s too angry to keep its shape.