Page 5 of Hallowed Games

In the best-case scenario, I’d be killing only two people today: Rufus and a Raven. In the worst-case scenario, I’d be frantically trying to cover up one assassination after another until the Luminari chopped me into pieces right in their temple. Or I’d be brought before a Magister and made to endure horrific torture until I accused every person I’d ever met.

Stop it, Elowen. Stay calm.

I pulled my gray shawl tight around me as I walked. Instead of my usual soldier uniform, I was dressed like a housewife: a gray dress belted at my waist, a thick wool cloak, and a shawl draped over my head. Completely boring to look at. And according to the Baron, that included my brown-eyed peasant face.

As we walked closer to Penore’s gates, the houses grew more crowded together along the road. Thatched houses and timber-framed inns nestled alongside the thoroughfare, and the scent of bread coiled through the air. A horse-drawn carriage rolled ahead of me, but I was careful to keep my gaze on Rufus.

I kept my focus on him, even as buried memories of the times before I’d become Serpent-touched sparked to life. Those sun-kissed days seemed unreal now, like a fever dream.

In my mind’s eye, I could almost see the three of us—Lydia, Anselm, and me—when we were Leo’s age. We were a triumvirate of childhood wildness. Once, we slipped out of the manor’s gates to walk along this road without our parents’ permission. Lydia thought we should go all the way to Penore for the white gossamer gowns the ladies were wearing back then, dressed like spirits from another world.

When we’d walked this road, it had been a scorching summer day, and the sweat had rolled down my reddening skin. I’d nearly fainted from thirst, and Anselm had insisted on trying to carry me back. I think he’d half-dragged me. Lydia had demanded a turn in his arms, but he’d held me tightly. She’d hissed at him that she didn’t want anything to do with him, anyway, that he was grotesque and stupid. Maybe that had been the first time she hadn’t gotten what she’d wanted. Maybe that was when her hatred for me had started to bloom from a little seed into something bigger, thornier.

A scream interrupted my thoughts, and my attention snapped back to the present.

“The witches killed him!” A woman’s voice pierced the air, and my gaze landed on a crowd gathering by an alley, just next to a tavern.

I so desperately wanted to stop to investigate, but I had to keep my eyes on my target. As I passed by, I caught a glimpse of a woman cradling a body. The victim’s skin was white as snow. Bizarrely, his head had been nearly torn from his body, and yet he had not a drop of blood on him. My stomach turned with disgust. You’d think I’d be used to death by now, but this murder seemed grotesque. Unnatural.

And what’s more, it made no sense. Unless someone had cleaned the body and moved it, it must be the work of someone Serpent-touched.

Someone like me.

I swallowed hard. This wasn’t good. The Order would be on a rampage soon, slitting throats and building pyres.

When I looked up again for Rufus, he was gone.

CHAPTER 4

We were nearly at the gates, and I hurried onward, frantically searching for the blue cloak. Crowds pressed in front of me, bustling into Penore. A larger man in a butcher’s apron shoved me out of the way.

My pulse raced as I scanned for signs of Rufus, and I picked up my pace, pushing my way through the crowd. I wasn’t tall enough to see over most people’s shoulders.

Just before the city entrance, I finally spotted the royal blue of Rufus’s cloak and exhaled a sigh of relief.

The Tyrenian road led up to an entrance charmingly known as Gropecunt Gate. When we were little, Lydia and I were fascinated by the beautiful, brightly dressed women who lingered at the gate to ask men if they were lonely. We’d crush up rose madder to dye our lips and cheeks like theirs. Anselm would blush when we’d ask if he needed a friend for the night, though none of us really knew what we were saying.

Those ruby-lipped women disappeared eleven years ago with the Harrowing. A city ruled by the Order would not tolerate prostitutes.

My blood pumped harder as I drew closer to the city walls. Hundreds of feet high, Penore’s sheer stone walls cast a long shadow over the Tyrenian road. Darkness slid over me, and the stench of the place slammed into me. Ringing the city walls was a ditch filled with rubbish and old animal carcasses.

Just before the gate, my gaze flicked up to the severed heads that hung above it, faces covered in pitch to preserve them. Enemies of the Order—a brutal reminder of the witch-hunters’ power.

Fear skittered over my body, making my skin grow cold. I swallowed hard and pulled my gaze away from the heads, trying not give in to the dread of imagining my own up there. But after what I was about to undertake today, it was a distinct possibility. The Order’s Ravens and Luminari lurked in every shadow in the capital city, radiating out from the Dome of the Archon. The witch-hunters and soldiers alike sent ripples of terror around them wherever they moved.

As I crossed the threshold of the city gates, my pulse fluttered with the assault on my senses. The acrid scent of the ditches outside mingled with roasting meat and woodsmoke. In Penore, everyone seemed to shout instead of speaking, the sounds echoing off the cobbles and timber-framed houses. Steeply peaked buildings and shops looked as if they might topple into the narrow road. Gables and archways jutted overhead, some hanging with drying laundry. In the throng, I worked to keep my eyes on Rufus from twenty feet behind.

After a few twists and turns, the narrow road opened up into the cobbled square of Sootfield. Here, the scent of penned animals and blood hung in the air—a thriving livestock market. Ashes floated on the wind, and I tried not to breathe them in or look at the pyres that stood on the far side of the square. I didn’t want to imagine myself there, condemned to burn.

I could only thank the Archon that no one was being executed today.

By Sootfield’s eastern corner, I passed the golden statue of Lust, represented by a naked woman, her gilded hands covering a bit of her modesty. The Order had commissioned that a century ago, long before they killed the king. A terrifying plague had run rampant through Merthyn. Because the sickness had caused a swelling of the groin, the Order had blamed the lethal disease on the sin of lust, so they’d put up the statue to remind us of our sins. Now, the Ravens could stare at the alluring curves of a woman’s naked backside and still feel pious about the whole thing.

I let out a long, shaking breath as I passed stalls of brightly colored textiles and spices.

All these strangers around me sent dread swirling through my gut. These days, anyone could be your enemy, and the Order had built walls of suspicion. You couldn’t trust your neighbor or uncle or daughter. Swallow your secrets, or they’ll be used against you.

Loneliness was the greatest weapon wielded by the order, a hole they’d ripped in each of us. Because who was easier to control than those who were half-mad with isolation? Who was easier to manipulate than the empty?

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