The Serpent and the Wings of Night

He paid for that moment of distraction as his attacker lunged for him again, again, again. I gritted my teeth and struggled to push back my own, at last shoving her into the grip of a nearby demon. But across the arena, I felt Raihn’s fight continue. He wasn’t faring as well. I flinched with every blow.

The memory of the demons from the first trial hit me, and with it came sudden realization.

Just now, Raihn had been hurt… and I had stumbled.

Who is that? I asked him. His vision came in broken flashes. I couldn’t see a face.

What?

Who is that you’re fighting right now? Look at his face!

I felt Raihn’s confusion, but he obeyed. As he countered the next blow, he showed me his attacker—a Hiaj Nightborn man with fair hair.

I knew him. Nikolai. I racked my memory. Who had he been paired with?

Ravinthe. He has a bad right knee, Vincent had told me at the feast.

I sca

And just as I suspected, across the arena, Raihn’s opponent fell.

Shit, he whispered, a spark of pleasure spearing us both as he seized the opportunity to finish Nikolai. You’re good.

We were separated, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t still help each other. With this knowledge, we cut across the battlefield. Yes, we needed to get to those gates as quickly as possible, but each of us sacrificed small gains in speed to help the other, and that give-and-take meant that as a team, we moved swiftly.

But the contestants who still remained were strong, too. The Bloodborn, in particular, knew how to compete together. One of them was the first to broach the wall of stone, fighting her way up the winding path to the top. She had nearly made it by the time I reached the wall. It looked more like a mountain up close, a looming pile of stacked rock. The path to its crest was steep and precarious. Two others were ahead of me, chopping through stray hellhounds and demons that had made their way up.

Three coming up on this side, I told Raihn.

Two over here.

You’d better get here quick.

Only half of us would make it. Eleven.

Almost there.

I could see the path through his eyes, just a few strides ahead. We were both so, so close.

But I made it only a few steps up the path when excruciating pain tore through my back, then my shoulder. My knees hit the ground, a gasp ripping through me.

It took a few seconds to realize it wasn’t my body being slashed open, but Raihn’s. His sight was just a smear of clattering weapons—a cloud of red smoke—a flash of white hair.

Angelika.

I tried to pull myself up, braced against the rocks.

Go, Raihn told me. Keep going. I can handle her.

No. He couldn’t lie, not with our minds locked together. Not when I could feel each wound she opened on his body and how hard he struggled to keep up.

Healthy, Angelika and Raihn were almost evenly matched. But Raihn had just endured hours of torture.

Today, they were not evenly matched.

I didn’t even think about the decision. I turned back.

I have this, Oraya. Go!

I ignored him.

It took me a few minutes to find Angelika’s partner, Ivan, in the escalating chaos. I had to double back far—all the way down the wall. I found him in the thick of the fighting in the sands, dealing a weak finishing blow to a jaguar. He was injured, each step slow and limping.

This would be easy. It would just take me a few minutes to pick him off, and with him, Angelika.

Ivan saw me coming barely in time to react. A wave of acidic agony hit me as the red mist of his magic surrounded us. The wounds on his arms quivered with exertion—with the blood he had to use to fuel it.

I didn’t even let it slow me. I hit his arm, the poison eating at his skin immediately.

In Raihn’s battle, Angelika faltered. He took that opening, levied a strike—

Just as Ivan pulled back, his magic swelling. It nearly crippled me, unbearable paired with Raihn’s wounds. But I pushed through it, rolled, lunged. My blade sliced Ivan’s good leg to the bone.

It collapsed beneath him.

The two of us landed in a tangle on the ground. My battle with Ivan and Raihn’s with Angelika blended together, each reduced to wild flashes of burning muscles and blood and steel and magic.

I rolled on top of Ivan, pi

Pain slithered across my ribs.

Not mine—Raihn’s. Ru

I looked right into Ivan’s eyes as I raised my blade, holding him still between my knees, his back pressed to the stone of the wall.

And I was looking so intently at him that I almost didn’t notice the movement out of the corner of my vision.

Raihn looked over Angelika’s shoulder—looked up, at the gates of victory. The Bloodborn woman had reached the top. She paused between the two doors, clearly hesitant. A Shadowborn man was not far behind her. He ran, not slowing, as he crested the top.

And he didn’t hesitate as he shoved her through one of the arches, forcing her to test the decision.

I seized up as the ground shook beneath me. I looked up just in time to see the flash of light from the gate consume everything.

Just in time to hear, in the mind that we shared, Raihn scream my name.

Just in time to feel a wave of pain as Ivan buried his dagger in my side.

And I had no time to react as his magic seized hold of my blood, my muscles. Forced them to move without my permission.

And hurled me into the thick of the bloodthirsty beasts.