Four men in red robes appeared at the edge of the arena, standing at intervals to cover the entire circle—they must be the watchers. They eyed us all sternly, a silent warning in their expression.
“These rules are”—he counted them on his fingers as he listed them—“only one warrior per household can be present in the combat area of the arena. Champions are expressly forbidden to siphon from one another inside the arena. Humans, of course, may be used… ” He looked at the dirty, pale and tear-stained faces of the children with indifference. “But if they fall, and by that I mean if any part of their body other than their feet makes contact with the ground, the champion responsible for that human is disqualified.”
More murmuring from the gathered crowd. The champions stayed silent, but I could see some of them starting to pale—doubting the strength of their human companions.
Maybe you should have fed them more then!
I delighted in their worry. It served them right, but at the same time, I feared for us all. Why did the minister think there would be a chance that we would fall to the ground? Was the trial to be so formidable that they would need to drain us completely, or near enough to it? Some of these children didn’t look like they could survive that. I didn’t even know if I could.
“And”—the minister raised his hands to silence the crowd—“last but not least, the victor of the first trial will be the one who sees what cannot be seen, and destroys his enemy before it destroys him.”
What does that mean?
Before I could think about it, or at least glance at Jenus to see whether or not he understood what had been said, the horn sounded.
The trial had begun.
The sentries spread out into the arena, while the humans, including myself, hung back on the periphery, shadowing our partners.
Nothing happened for a while. The crowd was completely silent. All that could be heard was the sound of the breeze, rustling the trees in the forest around us, and the Hellswan insignia flags whipping against their posts.
One sentry, a woman with dark black hair, started to groan and rub at her temples. Soon, others were following her—their groans growing to a crescendo as they clutched at their heads and shuddered with pain.
I felt a mild headache, but nothing more painful than that. I clutched at the stone in my pocket, wondering if that was what made my pain less than the others. But then I noticed the rest of the humans. They were looking around at the sentries, confused and puzzled as to why they seemed to be immune to whatever was ailing their masters.
One sentry dropped to their knees. The pain was clearly becoming unbearable, and their groan transformed into a high-pitched whine.
In a matter of seconds, another fell to his knees, this time a muscular warrior, one who had blade scars carved into his face. No doubt he was a fearsome contender on the battlefield, but whatever this was, he clearly was no match for it. He curled up on the floor, his weapons forgotten at his side as he withered in pain.
Jenus stumbled toward me, clearly affected by whatever was ailing the rest of the sentries, but he was faring better than the rest; all I could see in his eyes was a steely determination.
He reached out his hand and grabbed my arm. I felt a jolt of energy drain from me, ferocious and hard, as he sucked me near dry.
It felt like a two-ton truck had just slammed into me, and I stumbled backward when I was released, my head swimming and my eyesight blurring. Jenus pulled me upright with a sharp yank to my clothing.
“Don’t you dare fall!” he hissed at me. “If you fall, we lose!”
I know that! I wanted to snap back at him, but I felt nauseous from the energy loss and focused on keeping my mouth shut instead.
Jenus swayed in front of me. He was sweating profusely about the temples, and squinting against the light. He staggered back toward the arena, clutching his head now and crying out with the others.
I felt for the stone again, hoping to replenish what Jenus had just robbed from me. As I tightened my grip around the stone, I felt the energy it contained humming again, feeding me. The dizziness started to recede, and the nausea vanished.
When I looked over at the sentries bent double in pain and the confused children, it suddenly all clicked into place.
The golden orb was hurting the sentries in the same way that they were able to hurt us. It was siphoning their mental energy, brutally, and causing them the same pain that they were capable of inflicting.
Only minutes ago I would have felt victorious, happy that the sentries were getting a taste of their own medicine, and I knew that my dark satisfaction in their pain would have been justified. But I couldn’t. Their cries were worsening, evolving into screams that sliced through the air and splintered my very soul.
One of the sentries, the woman who had first started to groan, was now lying prostrate on the ground. Her scream was the loudest, and as it went on, it began to sound less and less human—torn from the deepest part of her.
Amidst the screams I could also hear disgruntled murmuring from the crowd—the spectators didn’t seem to be enjoying the show any more than I was. Some had stood up, agitated, no doubt concerned for their region’s or family champion. I had almost forgotten that mothers and fathers and other family members would be watching—this must have been intolerable for them.
The children were floundering now too. They had been drained heavily by their sentry counterparts as they used the children, trying to regain the energy that the orb was taking. A small boy standing next to me was crying, helpless and lost. He would have been too young to understand what was happening—why people were screaming and he suddenly felt depleted and empty.
“There’s nothing up there!” a loud, male voice boomed across the arena, momentarily drowning out the screams.
I looked over to where the voice was coming from. A young man, dressed in plain clothes and well-built, was calling out toward the royal box, his fists clenched tightly at his sides. I hadn’t seen him when we’d first arrived, and wondered how I could have missed him.
“What tricks are you playing at, Hellswans?” he continued.
His outburst was greeted by more shocked murmurs from the crowd, particularly from the lower tiered seats around the arena where the less formally-dressed sentries resided.
My attention was averted by Jenus. He was muttering to himself under his breath, growing steadily more pale and sickly-looking as the seconds ticked by.
I moved forward to see if I could hear what he was saying, bracing myself at the same time in case he decided to siphon off me again.
“See what can’t be seen,” he groaned through gritted teeth. “There’s nothing…”
His voice trailed off and his eyes rolled back in his head. I jumped back, alarmed. He looked like he was having a strange fit, and I worried that the orb was getting to be too much for him.
My memory of the strange text on the top of the orb flickered into my mind—the weird hieroglyphs carved into its surface, barely readable—yet they were there… and unable to be seen by those below!
That was it!
I turned to Jenus to tell him what I knew, but before I could open my mouth to utter a word, he had grabbed my arm again and drained me. It was twice as bad as the first time, and pain seared through me. I was left reeling and gasping.
Jenus’s eyes rolled back in his head again, and he swayed on his feet, looking contorted and utterly hypnotized by the orb’s effect.
“He’s right!” Jenus cried. “The boy is right!”
He staggered toward the royal box and the open-mouthed ministers, his breath coming in labored gasps.
“I went up to it—I looked,” he panted. “There’s nothing on the disk—nothing to see but sky!”
The other sentry joined in, the big, young one who had spoken first. Together he and Jenus implored the ministers, adamant that the trial was a hoax and that nothing lay above the orb. The ministers looked uncomfortable.
More and more sentries were fal
ling, crippled with pain and unable to do anything but cry out in nonsensical howls. They looked as confused and baffled as both Jenus and the big sentry did, and kept glancing toward the increasingly rowdy, and angry, crowd on the lower tiers of the arena.
More humans were also falling to the ground in a daze. They had reached the end of their energy-giving capacity, and had no more to provide their masters. Yet still the sentries tried to use them.
A hand came forward, trying to grasp the calf of the little boy I stood next to. I kicked it away sharply, acknowledging that they were in pain, but not willing to let them siphon more off their human victims.
I pulled him closer toward me and he clung on tightly, his body shaking with a feverish sweat.
“Are you okay?” I asked, stroking his head to calm him.
He looked up at me, his brown eyes wide and terrified. “Isso dói, isso dói!” he pleaded with me. I didn’t understand what language he was speaking, but I didn’t need to. His eyes spoke volumes.
“It will be okay, it’s going to be okay,” I murmured, hoping that a calm voice would help soothe his fear.
Jenus began to plead openly. I had never seen him in such a state, and it was a strange sight to see the cruelest of princes brought to his knees.
“Stop the contest!” he implored the ministers. “Something is wrong! You’re going to kill me!” He staggered around like a drunkard, his robes soiled with sweat and dust from the earth, his eyes red-raw from exertion.
He continued to drain me. It was starting to become overwhelming, and I didn’t know how much longer I could hold on for. I had to let go of the boy as I started to sway on my feet, all my energy going into keeping myself upright. My vision started to blur and go gray around the edges, then strange black dots started to dance in front of me, flickering back and forth.
Almost all the sentries were on the floor now. Most of them were still groaning and crying, but others had stopped moving completely. I felt sick, and not just because of Jenus and his incessant siphoning.
The little boy swayed once more and then dropped to his knees. Gritting my teeth, I bent down slowly to pull him up, but each time I reached for him the ground would sway beneath my feet and I’d have to stop and right myself.
Without warning, a warm hand touched mine. I tried to pull away, thinking that it was Jenus coming to suck more of me, but when I looked up I saw that it was the girl I had seen earlier—the one with the headscarf.
She helped me pick the boy up, standing him back on his feet. As she turned toward me, our eyes met.
I thought I had started to hallucinate.
The calm eyes looking back at me were Ruby’s.
Hazel
It took me a moment to understand that it really was her, and that I wasn’t going crazy. It was only when she smiled at me that I knew for sure it was Ruby—the ghost of a dimple in her left cheek was unmistakable.
With the screaming from the fallen sentries, and the now-loud shouts and protestations from the crowd, we couldn’t hear one another speak.
I mouthed at her, “Benedict? Julian?”
She nodded as she mouthed back, “Safe.” Ruby gestured in the direction of the sentry standing beside her—the tall, young one in plain clothes who had first objected to the trial.
He was the only one besides Jenus who was still standing. He was sweating buckets, gasping under the pain created by the orb, and his face looked white as a sheet, but he was still upright, still hanging on.
Ruby placed a hand on his arm, and he covered it with his own. Amidst all the chaos and the pain, Ruby smiled up at the sentry, radiating serenity and calm.
I didn’t understand it at all, and didn’t have the mental agility to work out what was going on there—I was just relieved to see that she was okay. Better than okay, even.
What I could understand was that I was no longer under Jenus’s control. I didn’t know how they’d managed to escape him, but he had no power over me now. There was no longer anything he could do that could harm my brother and friends, which meant that there was nothing he could do to me. I was no longer a puppet hanging on his strings. The feeling was heady and powerful, a rush of release and freedom that I hadn’t felt since Jenus had first dangled Benedict’s pocket watch in front of me.
I surveyed the arena with a new clarity. Jenus staggered toward me again, reaching out to clasp onto my arm. As his cold, clammy fingers brushed against my skin I shoved him back—hard. He stumbled, his arms whirling around, but grabbing onto nothing but thin air.
He lunged forward, screeching and spitting in my direction. He aimed a blow at my face, and I ducked—just in time, as his heavy fist sailed through the air and missed its mark.
“You stupid bitch,” he hissed at me, spittle forming at the corners of his mouth.
I needed help. I couldn’t go up against Jenus alone—even half crazed from the orb’s painful effect, he was still strong and deadly.
Tejus! Tejus! Please help me! I cried out mentally, hoping against hope that he would still be able to tap into our connection and hear me.
I couldn’t feel anything. I tried as hard as I could, throwing what little of my mental energy there was left outward, desperate to reach him.
My headache worsened as I fought my mental block to find him. My head started to throb painfully, and my temples tingled with the onslaught of sharp shocks coursing through my frontal lobes.
I focused on taking deep breaths. Blinking a couple of times to remove the gray blurs that were re-entering my vision, I tried to stay upright and conscious. I fumbled around in my pocket, seeking out the energy stone once again, and felt a stab of relief as I found its smooth, cold surface with the tips of my fingers.
Where are you, Tejus? Please help me!
The energy of the stone suffused my body, replenishing all that Jenus had taken from me. My body became stronger, standing more solidly on the ground as I regained my footing. The arena, the screaming sentries and the crowds became sharper and more focused. My brain felt like it was working at full strength again, the stone dusting away the fuzziness of my thoughts.
I felt for Tejus again, and was rewarded. Our energy lines slammed into each other, strong and clear, as if I had a direct link to his mind. I could sense his confusion and his disgust at what was happening to both the sentry champions and the children.
Sighing with relief, I felt the warm sensation of the final residues of my headache melting away.
Tejus was sitting in the arena right behind me. I experienced the disorientating feeling of being in two places at once—sitting on the stone seats of the arena looking at my own back, while standing in the arena on the gravel floor, looking at the crowds.
I fought past the confusion, embracing the strangeness rather than trying to fight against it.
I desperately needed to tell Tejus what had been happening. Concentrating on strengthening our connection, I poured out the events of the last twenty-four hours—the way Jenus had blackmailed me at the dinner when I was alone after trying to find Tejus, the order to murder him to save my brother, and how I had stood in his room with the sword in my hand and prayed that I wouldn’t have to do it—but then the constant panic and despair I had been experiencing at the thought of losing Benedict. Then, when I was sure that the message had passed through, I added the images of yesterday, when I had climbed the tree to see the golden disk, and the shapes or words I had seen written above it.
I finished relaying the images, but instead of feeling exhausted, I was exactly the opposite. I had grown stronger through the connection, almost as if I had been able to siphon off energy from Tejus.
I spun around just in time to see him leaping from the swell of the crowd down onto the arena floor. The rest of the audience and the ministers were suddenly in uproar.
Thank God!
I had never been so grateful to see anyone in my entire life.
Tejus strode forward, the sleeves of his robes falling back as he lifted his arms, reve
aling the taut, sinewy muscles of his forearms as he gestured upward, holding out his hands toward the orb. He started to chant, strange, forgotten words of an old language—the words I had just given him—the key to stopping the orb’s effect and ending the trials.
The effect on the champion sentries was instantaneous.
They started to sob in relief, groaning as the pain receded from their bodies and calm reasserted itself. The crowd fell silent. The ministers looked shocked and mildly horrified. The rest of the crowd wore the same expressions of relief that the champions did. Some were crying softly, holding on to the people they sat next to, or trying to make their way down into the arena.
I was so fixated on Tejus and the crowd that I didn’t hear Jenus approach. He reached for me, still wanting revenge after all that he had been through, his mind fixated with the selfish desire to replenish himself as quickly as possible.
There was a short and brutal slam; Tejus appeared next to me and decked Jenus square in the face, sending his brother reeling to the floor.
Tejus pulled me to him tightly, crushing my body against his. It was a fierce gesture more of possession than affection, but as I inhaled the familiar smell of him and felt the small pang of protection and safety in his arms, I realized in that moment that Tejus was probably my best friend in the entire world.
A strange world, certainly—but it was the one I was in.
Mayhem erupted.
Everyone started shouting at once. The ministers scrambled toward an observation tower at one end of the arena, trying to get a glimpse of the golden disk from above. The crowds divided, some cheering Tejus, ecstatic that the trial was finally over, and some booing toward the ministers, furious at the unwarranted danger the sentries had been in.
One woman, richly dressed in navy blue robes, stood in the royal box and shouted down to the assortment of ministers around her, “Disqualified! The Hellswan family is disqualified. The rules are broken!”
I didn’t have the faintest idea why, but her voice sounded somewhat familiar to me—though I had never laid eyes on the woman before in my life.