Page 70 of Hallowed Games

“I want to consume you like a mouthless devourer consumes beasts,” he purred.

My pulse raced. “You…what?” Deus…something…

He was toying with me, making my hips shift back into him. At the same time, he murmured against my throat, “The devourer eats forests like bread. It thrives and grows when well-fed. But give it water, you’ll find it dead.”

His fingers glided over the spot just where I needed him, but it wasn’t enough pressure.

And when my gaze flicked back to look at him, I found that it wasn’t Maelor at all.

It was Sion palming my breast, touching me between my thighs.

“Didn’t I tell you?” he purred. “I’m the one you really want. I know your body better than you do.”

“Fire,” I whispered.

A sharp smack across my cheek made me gasp. I opened my eyes to find myself clutching a nearly dead candle and staring at Lydia.

“Snap out of it, Elowen,” she snarled. She was clutching one of my gloves in her hand. “You’re about to die.”

“Fire.” I repeated the answer to the riddle.

The light from her candle lit up her face, shadows wavering beneath her hollow cheekbones. “I know. I already finished.”

I glanced down at the candle in my hand—nearly dead.

“Get your cloak on,” she snapped. “We need to get out of here before they shoot us.”

I blinked, then hurried to pull my cloak over myself, one arm at a time, holding that little flickering candle in the air. I looked up, surprised to find Lydia waiting for me. She shielded her own candle, then walked just in front of me to the gates, like she was leading the way for me.

My body still buzzed from the elixir, and I tried to slow my breathing as we crossed closer to the gates. Just at the exit, I turned around to see the dead lying scattered in the ruined garden. And all the euphoria of that elixir drained out of me, leaving me shaking.

Bodies littered the earth—Guillaume the Dulcet among them, an arrow jutting from his throat. His pale eyes stared up at the sky. There were a dozen more. I shuddered, staring at them. It could have been worse, I supposed.

A gentle hand on my right bicep pulled my attention away from the macabre scene, and I turned back to see Maelor.

“I knew you’d make it.”

“I nearly didn’t.”

For just a moment, he leaned in and whispered, “You’ll live through this.”

But it wasn’t just me anymore.

Because now, I wanted them all out.

CHAPTER 32

I sat at my table, pouring myself a cup of tea with shaking hands. A fire crackled softly in the little hearth, and the reflected orange flames wavered over my pewter cup.

One more trial behind me.

But now, I had no intention of cutting down the competition. Now, I wanted to find a way to break all of us out.

True, no one had ever breached the Ruefield walls, not in their thousand years of history. But there was a first time for everything, wasn’t there?

I sat on my bed, and my gaze flicked outside to the moonlit castle landscape. A cool breeze whistled through the window. At night, when everyone was asleep, the wind seemed to fill the room with an eerie keening.

I stared through the iron bars. In the glass’s reflection, I saw my own gold-lined eyes reflected back at me over my mug. As the door slammed open, I nearly dropped it. A few drops of hot tea splashed on to my fingers, and I turned to see Sion looming in the doorway.

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