He murmurs a brief prayer to Moritas, the goddess of Death, for safe passage, and I follow his example. When we finish, he closes a hand over one of the doors’ embedded gems.
The gems start to glow. As they do, an elaborate series of clicks sound out inside the wood, as if unlocking from within. I watch in wonder. An ingenious lock. Raffaele looks at me, and a spark of sympathy seems to light his eyes. “Be brave,” he whispers. Then he throws his weight against the doors. They open.
An enormous cavern the size of a ballroom looms before us. Lanterns on the walls illuminate pools of water that have collected along the floor. The walls are lined with stone archways and pillars that look like they were carved centuries ago, most standing tall, some collapsed and scattered on the ground. Glowing reflections of pale light on the water float, webbed and shifting, against the stone. Everything takes on a greenish cast in here. I can hear the drip of water coming from somewhere far away. Illuminated frescos of the gods decorate the walls, worn down from ancient receding water despite the artists’ best efforts. I can tell immediately that the art is centuries old, a style from a different era. Along the walls are niches filled with dusty urns, holding the ashes of forgotten generations.
But what really catches my attention is the small half circle of people waiting down here for us. Aside from Enzo, there are four of them. Each is turned in our direction, wearing a dark blue cloak of the Dagger Society. Their expressions are hard to read, eerie in the dim light. I try to gauge their ages. They must be about my age; those who survived the blood fever were children, after all. One Dagger is enormous, his robes barely masking thick, muscular arms that seem like they could rip a man to pieces. Beside him is a girl who looks small and slight, with a hand resting easily on her hip. She’s the only one who nods at me in greeting. An enormous golden eagle perches on her shoulder. I smile back hesitantly, my stare fixed nervously on the eagle. Beside her stands a lean boy, and last is a broad-shouldered girl with long copper curls, her skin too pale to be Kenettran. A girl from the Skylands, perhaps? She crosses her arms and regards me with a slight tilt to her head, and her eyes seem cold and curious. My smile fades.
Front and center before them stands Enzo, his hair the color of blood, his hands folded behind his back, and his gaze fixed unwaveringly on me. Gone is the hint of mischief in him that I saw when we first talked in my chamber. Today, his expression is hard and unforgiving, the young prince replaced with a cold-blooded assassin. The cavern’s strange lighting casts a shadow over his eyes.
We stop a few feet away from them. Raffaele addresses the group first. “This is Adelina Amouteru,” he says, his voice clear and beautiful. “Our newest potential recruit. She has the power of illusion, the ability to trick one’s perception of reality.”
I feel I should speak, but I’m not sure what to say. So I simply face them with as much courage as I can muster.
Enzo looks at me. I don’t know why, but I can feel myself drawn to him just like the first day we met. It is the straightness of his shoulders, the regal lift of his head. My alignment to ambition stirs at the sight. “Tell me, Adelina,” he begins. His words echo in the cavern. “Have you ever heard the rhyme ‘A newborn babe takes its first breath / and creates a storm that rains down death’?”
“Yes,” I reply.
“Nothing is isolated. Do one thing, however small, and it will affect something else on the other side of the world. In a way, you are already connected to each of us.”
He takes a step closer to me. The others remain still. “You are the first Elite to align so strongly with nightstone. There is a darkness in you, something that gives you immense strength.” He narrows his eyes. “Today, I want to bring that to the surface and find a way for you to call upon it as you wish. Learn how to bend it to your will. Do you accept?”
Do I have a choice? After a moment’s silence, I lift my chin. “Yes, Your Highness.”
Enzo gives me an approving nod. “Then we shall use everything within our power to evoke yours.”
Raffaele steps away from me. The fact that I’m now standing alone sends a spike of uncertainty through my chest, and I find myself wishing that he, the only person in here who doesn’t frighten me, would stay by my side. The others talk in low voices among themselves. I look around the half circle of their faces, searching for help, but the only kindness I get comes from the girl with the eagle on her shoulder. She sees my anxiety and gives me a subtle, encouraging nod. I try to latch on to that.
Enzo raises one hand in the air. “Let’s begin.” Then he snaps his fingers—and every torchlight in the cavern flickers out at once.
The room goes dark.
For a second, I panic. I’m completely blind. The dizziness that I felt yesterday with the nightstone now floods my senses. This is one of my worst fears, that I might someday lose my only good eye, and that I will then live in eternal darkness for the rest of my life. I look wildly around, blinking. Nothing but silence. Then, occasionally, a gust of cold wind—a murmur of breath—an echoing footstep. My heart pounds. Please, let there be a little light. I squint hard into the darkness, trying to force my sight to adjust.
Right as I’m able to make out the faint outlines of the cavern floor, I notice that all of the Daggers are gone.
Suddenly, Enzo’s voice comes from somewhere in the darkness. “Spider. Star Thief.” Its deepness now frightens me.
I tense. Nothing happens.
Then, out of nowhere, rushes of wind. The beating of wings. Suddenly there are thousands—millions—of them, squealing little creatures with fleshy wings beating against me, whirling around me in invisible circles in the blackness. I scream, then fall into a crouch as they swarm. My arms cover my head. Bats. They’re bats. Their tiny claws cut at my skin. I squeeze my eye shut.
Someone large shoves me violently backward. I go flying, then fall hard to the ground. The blow knocks all the wind out of me. I gasp for air. A sharp metal edge slices across my upper arm—I cry out, my arms flying up in defense, but another cut slits open the skin of my other arm. Warm blood trickles out. I turn my head frantically from side to side. Where is my attacker? I can’t see a thing. Someone kicks me in the back. I arch at the sharp pain. Another kick—and then the feeling of rough hands grabbing me by my robe, hauling me up in the air. I grasp desperately for my power, wishing I could pull it from deep within. But nothing happens. As I struggle, a low growl of a voice comes from somewhere in front of my face.
“What wolf?” Spider snaps. “She’s a little lamb.”
I clench my teeth and struggle, kicking out with my legs. I strike only air, and collapse to the floor.
“She has a bite,” someone says elsewhere in the cavern. It sounds like Raffaele.
One lantern flickers on in the cavern—its glow catches me off guard—and I squint in its direction. The millions of bats flutter fiercely in the new light, screaming, then they swarm into a cloud and disappear down one of the cavern’s dark tunnels. As if they’d never been here in the first place. I glance around. A short distance away is the hulking boy, who must be Spider, and the girl with the eagle. Elsewhere, standing by pillars and walls in the shadows, I notice others. One of them snickers. Thin trickles of blood drip down my arms. The cuts look smaller than I expect, considering how much they sting. They’re not even trying, I think feverishly. They’re toying with me. How had Spider even been able to see me in the darkness?
The light vanishes. My vision adjusts faster this time—and in the darkness, I can see the faint silhouette of the Spider crouching. He attacks again. This time, he rushes at me with terrifying speed and disappears from view right before he can reach me. I look around for him, cursing my missing eye and poor peripheral vision.
He materializes on my weak side. Then he catches me around the neck before I can stop him. His arm tightens, choking me. I struggle. Sight. I realize abruptly that his powers must give him the ability
to see where others cannot. “I’ll have a sheepskin decorating my floor tonight,” he says.
I throw an elbow as hard as I can. He must not have expected me to fight back, because I hit him hard in his throat. He gags, releasing me again. I fall to my knees, gasping. Spider whirls around, his eyes narrowed at me in rage, and I brace myself for another attack.
“Enough,” Enzo says quietly. The word is a low, disapproving command that emerges from the shadows.
Spider steps away from me. I crumple in relief, sucking up air in the darkness. The torchlights all flicker on again. We stare at each other—the young Dagger’s eyes green and gruff, mine wide and stricken. I don’t feel anything in my chest except for the pounding of my heart.
Then Spider straightens and sheathes his blade. He doesn’t bother helping me up. “One-eyed weakling,” he says, his voice full of disdain. “Should’ve left you to the Inquisition and saved us all the trouble.” He turns away from me.
A spark of anger shoots through me. I imagine what it would be like if I strangled him in return, my dark illusions flowing down his throat and blocking his air. Can my powers do that? The whispers hiding in my mind nod, hungry and eager. Yes, yes. “Coward,” I whisper to his back. He doesn’t hear me, but the girl with the eagle—Star Thief, I suppose—does. She blinks.
Enzo studies me with interest as Raffaele whispers something in his ear. Do they approve?
A moment later, Enzo raises his voice. “Windwalker.”
Windwalker? I look around the cavern, searching for my next opponent. Finally, I catch a glimpse of her. She’s the tall, pale girl, the one who doesn’t look Kenettran. She chuckles as she steps toward me, sleek and menacing, and I take a step back. “With pleasure, Your Highness,” she says to Enzo.
My breathing is too rapid. Calm down. Focus. But the force of the last attack has left me trembling, and the anticipation of what might come next sends prickles of terror down my skin. Spider has the power to see in complete darkness. What can the Windwalker do? Fly, perhaps?
Then—a piercing scream shatters my senses. I flinch. My hands fly to my ears in a vain attempt to shut out the sound, but it only grows worse. The sound destroys everything around me, turning the world into blinding streaks of red and piercing every corner of my mind. I can’t see. I can’t think. It goes on and on, a razor-sharp knife digging into my ears. I must be bleeding. I feel the dull sensation of cold stone against my skin. Tears stream down my cheeks. I’ve fallen, I realize dully.
Something stirs faintly in the depths of my body, but I reach out for it and miss. What kind of power is this? How do I fight it? How do you shut out a scream that comes from inside your mind? I try to struggle to my feet, but the scream overwhelms me. It ripples through the air again and again, threatening to drown me.
Somehow, through the chaos, I hear Windwalker’s voice against my ear. It sounds like she’s right beside me. When I jerk my head to the side, I see her.
She laughs. “Watch your step, little wolf,” she taunts.
Suddenly I feel myself lifted off the ground by an invisible curtain of wind. Windwalker’s arms are stretched out in my direction. She lifts me higher, then makes a cutting gesture with one hand. Wind rushes past my ears—I fly across the chamber. My back hits the wall hard. I crumple to the ground like a broken doll. All around me, the screaming continues.
I can’t do this. I curl into a ball as Windwalker comes closer. She kneels before me—all I can make out of her now is her sly smile. The scream in my mind is shattering my soul, and the pain of being thrown makes my breath short. The scream sounds like my own. I see myself being dragged through the rain by my hair, my father’s face staring straight into mine. Behind us, Violetta screams at him to stop. He ignores her.
I can’t take it anymore. My anger rises—I reach for the energy just out of my grasp. My father’s ghost hovers before me, and my sister’s shrieks surround us. Disoriented, I let out a strangled cry and claw at the open air.
My hand strikes something. Suddenly the shrieks around me stop, and my father and sister vanish. This time, I don’t hear any more snickers. To my shock, Windwalker is hunched several feet away, holding her neck. A thin trickle of blood runs down her hand where I’d raked her with my fingernails. With a start, I realize that I must have struck her when I thought I was striking at my father. The rage inside me still churns, a black, seething fury, almost within my reach.
I grit my teeth at her. “Is that it?” I suddenly snap. “Attacking me while I’m defenseless?”
Windwalker stares at me in silence. Then she removes her hand to show me the gash I’ve caused. “You’re far from defenseless.” Several thin lines are scored into the skin of her throat. Without a word, she walks over and helps me onto my trembling feet. “Not too bad,” she says, without a hint of malice in her voice. “You like being provoked. I can tell.”
Gradually, my anger fades into bewilderment. Did she just compliment me? “What,” I manage to say, “is your power, exactly?”
She laughs at my expression. She seems completely unconcerned about her scratched neck and is, somehow, friendlier to me. “Whatever the wind can do—whistle, scream, howl, uproot you from the earth—I can do too.”
She leaves me. All around the cavern, the others whisper among themselves, their voices echoing in the empty space. Finally, Enzo steps forward, his hands folded calmly behind his back.
“Better.” He tightens his lips. “But not enough.”
I wait there, swaying on my feet, regaining my breath. His eyes sear me to the bone, bringing with them a wave of terror and excitement.
“The problem, Adelina,” he says as he approaches me, “is that you simply aren’t afraid.”
My heartbeat quickens. “I am afraid,” I whisper. But my words sound unconvincing. What is he going to do to me?
“You know your life is not at risk,” he continues. “You don’t embrace your darkness unless you are staring straight at death. Therefore, you cannot connect with your fear and your fury.” He unfolds his hands from behind his back. “Let me see if we can correct that.”
A ring of fire bursts to life around us, turning the dark cavern into an illuminated space. The flames stretch to the ceiling. I jump away in terror at the heat against my skin. A scream threatens to bubble up from my throat. No. No, no. Not fire. Anything but that. All I can see are Enzo’s eyes locked on mine, dark and determined. So much fire.
I’m not tied to the stake. I’m okay. I’m okay. But I don’t believe myself. We are back at my burning—the Inquisition is going to kill me in front of everyone, happy to watch fire consume me in punishment for my father’s death. The gods save me. Suddenly, the attacks from the other Elites pale in comparison. The flames feel like they’re closing in. They are closing in. I can’t breathe.
He is forcing me to relive the feeling of staring straight at death.
Enzo reaches me. As flames roar all around us, he leans close enough for me to feel the heat of his body through his robes, the sheer power hidden underneath. The fear that has been building in my chest since Spider first attacked me now rushes through me in an unstoppable current, turning my limbs numb. One of his hands touches the small of my back. A violent, irresistible wave of heat emanates from his touch and pulses through my body, scalding me. The flames around us lick at the edges of my sleeves—I watch in terror as the fabric curls, blackening. Everything about Enzo whispers of danger, of murder in the name of righteousness. I’m desperate to pull away. I ache for more. I tremble uncontrollably, caught in the middle.
“I know you crave the fear.” His breath scorches the skin of my exposed neck. “Let it build. Nurture it, and it will give back all of your care tenfold.”
I try to concentrate, but all I can feel is the heat. The stake, the pile of wood at my feet. The eyes of my dead father, forever haunting my dreams. You are a killer, his ghost whispers. But how many h
ave the Inquisition killed? How many more will they kill? Wouldn’t I have been one of the Inquisition’s victims, had the Daggers not come to my rescue?
With the fire all around us, with Enzo’s hand hot against my silks, with his words in my ears and my body still trembling from the others’ attacks, the combination of my fear, hatred, anger, and desire finally fuse into one. I can feel the uncontrollable darkness growing inside me, millions of threads that connect everything in the world to everything else, the badness inside Enzo, the wickedness inside everyone around us, growing until I’m able to reach down and close my mind around a handful of those threads and pull on them. The darkness bows to me, eager for my embrace. I close my eye, open my heart to the feeling, and soak in the delight of vengeance.
Show me what you can do, my father’s ghost whispers.
Black silhouettes rise up out of the ground, their shapes demonic and their eyes scarlet red, their fangs dripping blood. They gather around us, growing taller and taller, until they reach the cavern’s ceiling. They wait patiently for my command. I’m swept away, both giddy with joy at the feeling of power and terrified that I am completely helpless to it.
Enzo removes his hand.
The sudden lack of contact distracts me, and in a flash, my silhouettes disappear. The demons shrink into the ground. Enzo’s columns of fire vanish. We’re back in the heavy silence of the cavern, as if nothing had happened. My shoulders droop from the effort. Without the fire, the space has returned to its eerie green glow. The others aren’t laughing anymore. I glance at Raffaele. He looks stricken, his brows furrowed in a tragic line.
Enzo steps away from me. I sway on weak legs. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he seems surprised himself.
All I know is that I want to do it again. I want Enzo to touch me. I want to feel that flow of power, and I want to see the other Daggers’ intimidation.