Chapter 85

Blake steps through the last gate. Silent. Sure. Chin high, jaw darkening with a bruise that spreads like ink across her pale skin. Her golden-brown hair hangs in a loose braid now.

Aemon leans against the edge of the balcony beside me. His jaw’s tight. Dimples gone.

The crowd buzzes. The arena before us darkens under a sky that promises thunder.

Aemon’s heart pounds faster than it should again. I bump my shoulder to his and mutter, low, “Control yourself.”

He doesn’t answer. Doesn’t need to. We’re both fraying at the same edge.

Below us, the announcer steps into the ring. The crowd stills.

Cael’s ancient. Older than the Court itself, if the rumors are true. And adored by all of them. The same cold voice who once called out the auction numbers that changed my life. He’s got that cursed talent for performance—knows how to pull tension tight like a wire around the throat of a bloodthirsty crowd.

I’ve hated him since the day I realized he had a thing for my mother.

Thought he was subtle. He wasn’t.

Still—he cried hard when she died. That surprised me. I almost respected it. Almost.

“Ah,” he croons into the hush. “The final trial.”

Silence falls like a guillotine.

“For the fifth and final token,” he drawls, hands clasped behind his back, “the participants must select the correct crests of their Houses from among the ancient relics before them. They need just one.”

A long pause. His smile gleams.

“But—” His voice turns musical, indulgent. “Choose wrong, and the cursed sigils will devour you from the inside out. Quickly.” A beat. “And beautifully.”

The arena explodes with savage pleasure. Fangs flash. Laughter rises like flame. Goblets are raised. Wine spills. Someone throws a rose.

A young vampire below us hisses Blake’s name like a curse.

She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t even glance at him. Wind stirs the hem of her torn shirt. Blood stains her sleeve. She doesn’t even bother wiping it again.

Alric. First-born of House Thorne. Sharp with jealousy. Soft with cowardice. I memorize his name—not because I need it, but because I’ll enjoy the excuse later.

He’s already dead. The blonde vampire just doesn’t know it yet.

Blake walks forward into the ruins, past the ring of carved obelisks that mark the border between spectator and bloodshed.

The other two humans trail in behind her. One is already limping. The other, a thick-necked brute, snarls something and charges straight for the line of relics displayed in the circle ahead.

The circle of ancient things stands like a stone altar—cracked columns and sunken earth.

The crests rest in the hollow mouths of carved statues, each one older than the last. Some are chipped. Some stained black with age or worse.

The brute doesn’t hesitate. The first human bolts for his House crest ahead, polished to a lure.

Idiot.

Blake watches. Waiting. Calculating.

She always watches first. That’s what they don’t understand about her. She listens to the wind before she draws a blade. Measures her steps before she leaps.

The brute reaches for a gleaming crest marked with gold etchings. He barely touches it before he starts to scream. His entire body locks. The crest glows red, then black. His skin bubbles. Eyes go first. Then the veins. He collapses in a heap of ash and marrow.

The announcer grins, delighted. “One down.”

The crowd roars.

Cael’s voice floats down, smooth as ever. “Bold move… but incorrect. House Emmerach’s crest features four spires, not three. Subtle, but vital. Literally.”

Fangs flash. Goblets spill. A vampire below us howls with laughter. And the House Emmerach’s Leader growls, his eyes filled with rage and surprise.

I smirk. Blake would never miss that.

She’s clever. Focused. I trained her myself.

I watched her counting the spires before the brute got the crest. She also noticed the worn edge on the left side. She knew Emmerach’s crest curves inward—always inward—never out. That’s why she subtly winced before the human even died.

Blake watches where the man fell, then moves to her right. Quiet steps. Controlled. Her eyes sweep the crests—careful not to touch. Her left arm still stiff from the injury she pretended not to have. But she uses it when she has to.

The second human, a man no older than thirty, glances at her, sees her turn toward a crest, and mimics her. He’s dumb enough to try the same path. Follows two paces behind.

Blake stops.

I narrow my eyes.

She’s looking at something.

I glance at the other human, he walks to his left, edging around one of the columns. Looks for the easiest choice. He touches the silver crest closest to the arena’s edge. It doesn’t burn him.

But it doesn’t lift, either.

He grunts. Tries again. The thing won’t move. Then he keeps searching the hollow mouth of the carved statues.

My eyes shift to Blake.

She moves left. Then cuts sharply right. Her hazel eyes are staring at the one crest buried deepest in the circle. The oldest one. The one etched with the ancient black stone of House Draven, sharp as obsidian and cold as the sea.

Aemon straightens beside me. I feel the cold from him rise, that flash of panic he never shows anyone but me. Not even her.

“Don’t,” I whisper, and I don’t realize I’ve said it aloud until Aemon glances at me.

She walks toward the statue with her eyes fixed at that crest no one can lift.

A House Draven relic older than the stone it’s set in. Forged when blood was law and bonds were sacred. Made to only be lifted by fated ones—mates of the ruling bloodline.

No one told the humans that.

They weren’t supposed to. No one expects the fated mate would be there to reach for it.

But Blake does.

She steps closer.

“No,” I breathe. Don’t!

Aemon’s hands snap out to grip the railing. “Shit,” he whispers.

Only the two of us know the truth, everyone around is unaware of my fated bond with her.

She’s still walking. Steady.

Turn left, little flower. Take the red one. Take the bronze.

Not this one. Not this one.

Please, not this one!

I stiffen. My nails dig into the railing hard enough to leave marks. My fangs drop without warning.

Aemon growls low. He doesn’t move. Neither do I.

We’re frozen.

She lifts her hand.

Turn left, I chide her in my mind. Take the easy one. Just take the easy one, Blake, it’s right there to your left. Take it!

She doesn’t.

She plants her feet. Reaches forward. Like it sings for her.

And wraps her fingers around the obsidian House Draven crest.

I stop breathing.

Time splits.

And then—

She lifts it.

It rises from the pedestal like it’s weightless. Like it knows her.

The stone doesn’t burn her. The curse doesn’t shriek. The sigil doesn’t resist.

It comes free like it was waiting.

The crowd gasps as one creature. Because they know what it means. They all know now.

I hear the exact moment realization spreads like rot.

Blake’s holding a crest that only a mate of House Draven could take.