Page 24 of Hallowed Games

Maelor rode behind me on the horse with his arms wrapped around me to hold the reins. The muscles in his chest and his steely arms moved against me as he guided the horse through the storm. Rain droplets shone on the skin of his hands.

A powerful gale whipped the rain at us from behind, but Maelor’s body shielded my back from it. Here, on the west coast, the sea air smelled different. Sharper.

What I hated more than anything right now was how much I loved the feel of this evil Raven Lord’s body against mine—and I knew it was only because I’d been starved of touch for so many years. I’d grown ravenous for it.

Lightning flashed in the dark, illuminating the Magister a few feet ahead of us. A ripple of dread snaked up my nape at his dark form. When he turned back to look at us, the eerie brightness of his eyes reminded me of a nocturnal animal hunting in the shadows.

The stormy wind whipping over us felt unnatural, like the Archon was punishing us. But if I could thank him for one thing, it was that Leo had made it away from these people. They didn’t seem particularly interested in hunting him down, either. Maybe they hadn’t seen his tattoo. For all they knew, he was just an ordinary boy, unmarked.

My gaze flicked to the pale skin of Maelor’s hands. I wanted to reach for them, to stroke my fingertips over his knuckles. I wanted to try my curse on him again, but he had unfortunately made that impossible with the iron manacles.

I shifted my hands behind me. Maelor smelled of sandalwood, smooth and rich. Calming, almost. I should hate it, but I hadn’t been this close to anyone since I was a teenager.

Being a Raven, his body was nearly as covered as mine was, head to toe in a black cloak. But the cloak was open behind me. And if I slid my fingertips under his shirt—

As I brushed my fingertips against his finely cut abs, Maelor tensed, then inhaled sharply.

He looked like an ordinary Raven, but beneath his tunic was the muscled body of a soldier.

“What are you doing?” Under that smooth murmur was the knife edge of alarm. It was the reaction of someone who thought he might be tortured.

And given how much I loathed him, torturing him felt like a fantastic idea.

“Testing again,” I said, pulling my fingers from his bare skin. “For the past ten years, I’ve killed anyone I touched, but now it seems the two of you are protected.”

His voice was husky as he responded, “Sion and I are strongly protected by the Archon due to our station. But if you keep using that cursed magic, you won’t survive long. Your magic will kill most of the Ravens and Luminari, and all the Penitents.”

I frowned. Either they were protected by the Archon or they were witches just like me. Just two more cursed humans, twisted by the darkness inside.

“You don’t move like any person I’ve ever seen before,” I said.

And my real question was why had he allowed me to live at all? What did this Raven Lord have in mind for me?

Maelor’s body felt unyielding behind me. “I’ve been with the Order so long, I’ve almost forgotten what it’s like to be a person.”

That sounded eerily like the feeling I got when I used my cursed magic. Empty inside. Soulless. “You don’t look that old.”

“I try to keep some of who I was, to remember who I was before. To remember it every day and every night.” He breathed in deeply. “Elowen, how did you end up cursed? You weren’t born like this, were you?”

Unease rippled through me at the way he said my name, like we were friends. What was his game, exactly? I didn’t know him yet, and he was much harder to read than the Baron. I didn’t know what he wanted to hear from me. And for some reason, that left me with a strange, destructive desire to just tell him the actual truth. To tell him everything.

But I swallowed it instead, tasting the bitterness. It would be stupid to tell the Raven Lord more than I had to. “Who could say?” I asked. “Lord, can you tell me anything about the trials?”

“They will be brutal. The Order views all of you as guilty, and all the other Penitents will try to eliminate you first. Everyone will be attempting to kill you.”

I swallowed hard, thinking only of getting back to Leo. “So I’ve been told.”

“But you do have a chance. The Archon, in his mercy, allows one Penitent to live. Whoever survives will be stripped of magic and allowed to return home.”

My heart raced. There was a chance—an infinitesimally small one, but a chance nonetheless—that I could get rid of my curse. That I could actually hug Leo. “One out of how many?”

“A hundred or so.”

I closed my eyes, not loving the odds. “How does the Archon choose?”

“Most of you will die in the trials. Usually five or ten survive all three. From those, the Pater chooses one to live. Because only one lives, the other Penitents will want to reduce the number of people left at the end. The trials are a bloodbath.”

I nodded, and rain slid down my face. “I’ve heard as much.” I could only thank the heavens that Leo wasn’t here. The boy didn’t have a fighting bone in his body, and I prayed that he never ended up here. “The Archon chooses those who are the best at killing,” I said, raising my voice over the wind. “That’s who he wants to live?”

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