Page 27 of Hallowed Games

My eyebrows flicked up as I walked tentatively after him. The Raven Lord definitely had an agenda in mind for me. And as I followed him through the vaulted hall, I began to piece together what it might be.

People with nothing to lose were harder to control. You couldn’t take anything from them. And that was where the comforts came in. A nice bed, good food, a bath—the respect of a powerful man like the Raven Lord. These were all things that could be taken back.

Maelor, I thought, intended to use me. Whether it was for information or destruction, I had no idea. But it would take more than good food and some kind words to get me dancing to his tune.

The cold castle air chilled my skin through the damp cloak, and he led me from the Maubergeonne Tower into a soaring corridor with mullioned windows. Bronze sun sigils hung on the walls, the symbol of the Archon. Through the windows, I could see some of the stone buildings jutting from the darkness. Lightning flashed, and I caught the faint golden hue of the towering boundary walls in the distance. They practically pierced the clouds, impossible to scale. My gaze swept over to the Maubergonne Tower to the right, where we’d just escaped. Chunks of rock were tumbling off the roof where the lightning had struck it.

Maelor glanced back at me. “I don’t know if the Archon wants you dead or protected, but lightning striking your exact location is surely a sign.”

He stalked through the hall, his cloak billowing behind him, and I followed. He stopped before an arched oak door, then pulled out an iron key to unlock it. When he pushed open the door, he revealed a vast domed room with a ceiling supported by lofty columns. I stepped inside after him, smelling sandalwood.

My first thought was that he’d taken us into a temple, but this dome had no oculus. Instead, its faded blue and gold paint looked like the night sky. An enormous brass telescope stretched all the way up to a glass aperture in the ceiling. Around the room, candles flickered, casting warm light over the space. Sheer spheres hung from the dome on delicate strings, representing our seven planets. In the center of the room stood something I thought was called a meridian circle, its rings etched with symbols to track the stars.

Stunned, I let my gaze trail over the gilded instruments that littered the place. Leo would adore this…well, if it weren’t for the grim presence of the Raven Lord. Leo loved books about the stars and planets. I’d been over the old texts I could find with him. They’d all been written before the Harrowing, when scholars were allowed to study the heavenly spheres.

Columns flanked starry stained glass windows. An enormous brass celestial globe rotated near one of them, a complex series of rings that shifted around a sphere. Papers scrawled with writing and numbers littered every surface—the desks, the floor, even a bed.

“Is this your room?” I asked.

He ran his hand through his hair and looked around as if noticing the mess for the first time. He turned to organize a pile of books and papers strewn over the desk. “When I joined the Order, it was empty, so I moved in.”

“It was empty because the Order forbids this knowledge.”

He flashed me a rueful smile. “Well, it seemed a waste to let the room go unused.”

“And I’m here, in your room, because you believe the lightning strike is a sign from the Archon?”

He splayed his fingers out, his mournful blue eyes locked on me. “Precisely.”

I didn’t believe him for a second.

I crossed to the celestial globe and ran my fingers over the etched surface. “Raven Lord, what drew you to this line of work, exactly?”

I turned to look at him again, and my heart jumped a little at the way he was watching me. Like he was hungry.

His pale gaze burned with an unnerving intensity. “The Order teaches us that we must resist the things our bodies crave because if we give in, we lose our souls. You know what that’s like, don’t you?”

I tightened my jaw, not answering him.

“We become like animals,” he went on. “Driven only by primal cravings. Hunger. Lust. Violence. We become beasts that feed on sex and death.” His voice had a tension in it, and he pulled his gaze away. In the candlelight, shadows sculpted his high cheekbones. “If I take what I want, I will lose my divine light—or what’s left of it. The Order gives us control over ourselves.”

I felt my cheeks flame. Anger, perhaps. If the Archon didn’t want us to feel lust, then why would he create us with it? What was wrong with the way we were?

I turned away from Maelor and surveyed the crooked stacks of books strewn over desks and shelves. The chaos in his room seemed completely at odds with his determination to have control over his life.

“So, I’m staying here?” I asked.

“I think it’s best that I keep an eye on you.” Now, his soft voice had a quiet edge. He pointed to the rumpled bed with deep blue blankets tucked under the window. Open books lay strewn around it, along with parchments scrawled with writing. “You can sleep there. I’ll sleep in a chair.”

I crossed to the telescope, feeling a pang again that Leo would never get to see this. “Maelor, how many days do I have until the first trial?”

“Tomorrow is a day of rest. There’ll be a ritual bath to purify you of sin, to spiritually cleanse you. The first trial begins the next day. And you will need all the rest you can get to survive it.”

I closed my eyes, and my insides twisted.

CHAPTER 14

By the time the sun rose above the observatory, I felt half-mad. Without knowing what had happened to Leo, there was no way I could sleep. Instead, I’d been poring through books to find out whatever I could about Ruefield Castle and the trials. All I’d learned was that ancient tunnels had been carved under the lands around here. The tunnels were tombs, monuments to the dead from the days before the first Tyrenian emperor arrived. Once, monoliths rose above the tunnels, hymns to the old gods.

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