“What is it? What’s she going to do?”
Cal shakes his head. “Just watch. She’s got him.”
But Tirana looks anything but victorious. She’s flat against the wall, dueling hard behind her watery shield as she blocks blow after blow.
I don’t miss the lightning-quick moment as Tirana literally turns the tide on Maven. She grabs his arm and pulls, spinning around so they trade places in a heartbeat. Now it’s Maven behind her shield, pinned between the water and the wall. But he can’t control the water, and it presses against him, holding him back even as he tries to burn it away. The water only boils, bubbling over his blazing skin.
Tirana stands back, watching him struggle with a smile on her face. “Yield?”
A stream of bubbles escapes Maven’s lips. Yield.
The water drops from him, vaporizing back into the air to the sound of applause. Provos waves a hand again, and one of the arena walls slides back. Tirana gives a tiny bow while Maven trudges out of the circle, a soggy, pouting mess.
“I challenge Elane Haven,” Sonya Iral says sharply, trying to get the words out before our instructor can pair her with someone else. Arven nods, allowing the challenge, before turning his gaze on Elane. To my surprise, she smiles and saunters toward the arena, her long red hair swaying with the movement.
“I accept your challenge,” Elane replies, taking a spot in the center of the arena. “I hope you’ve learned some new tricks.”
Sonya follows, eyes dancing. She even laughs. “You think I’d tell you if I did?”
Somehow they manage to giggle and smile right up until Elane Haven disappears entirely and grabs Sonya around the throat. She chokes, gasping for air, before twisting in the invisible girl’s arms and slipping away. Their match devolves quickly into a deadly, violent game of cat and invisible mouse.
Maven doesn’t bother to watch, angry with himself over his performance. “Yes?” he says to Cal, and his brother launches headfirst into a hushed lecture. I get the feeling this is normal.
“Don’t corner someone better than you, it makes them more dangerous,” he says, putting an arm around his brother’s shoulder. “You can’t beat her with ability, so beat her with your head.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Maven mutters, begrudging the advice but taking it all the same.
“You’re getting better though,” Cal murmurs, patting Maven on the shoulder. He means well but comes off as patronizing. I’m surprised Maven doesn’t snap at him—but he’s used to this, like I was used to Gisa.
“Thanks, Cal. I think he gets it,” I say, speaking for Maven.
His older brother isn’t stupid and takes the hint with a frown. With nothing but a backward glance at me, Cal leaves us to stand with Evangeline. I wish he wouldn’t, just so I don’t have to watch her smirk and gloat. Not to mention I get this strange twist in my stomach every time he looks at her.
Once he’s out of earshot, I nudge Maven with my shoulder. “He’s right, you know. You have to outsmart people like that.”
In front of us, Sonya grabs on to what seems like air and slams it against the wall. Silver liquid spatters, and Elane flutters back into visibility, a trail of blood streaming from her nose.
“He’s always right when it comes to the arena,” he rumbles, strangely upset. “Just wait and see.”
Across the arena, Evangeline smiles at the murderous display between us. How she can watch her friends bleeding on the floor, I don’t know. Silvers are different, I remind myself. Their scars don’t last. They don’t remember pain. With skin healers waiting in the wings, violence has taken on a new meaning for them. A broken spine, a split stomach, it doesn’t matter. Someone will always come to fix you. They don’t know the meaning of danger or fear or pain. It’s only their pride that can be truly hurt.
You are Silver. You are Mareena Titanos. You enjoy this.
Cal’s eyes dart between the girls, studying them like a book or a painting rather than a moving mass of blood and bone. Beneath the black cut of his training suit, his muscles tense, ready for his turn.
And when it comes, I understand what Maven means.
Instructor Arven pits Cal against two others, the windweaver Oliver and Cyrine Macanthos, a girl who turns her skin to stone. It’s a match in name only. Despite being outnumbered, Cal toys with the other two. He incapacitates them one at a time, trapping Oliver in a swirl of fire while trading blows with Cyrine. She looks like a living statue, made of solid rock rather than flesh, but Cal’s stronger. His blows splinter her rocky skin, sending spider cracks through her body with every punch. This is just practice to him; he almost looks bored. He ends the match when the arena explodes into a churning inferno that even Maven steps back from. By the time the smoke and fire clears, both Oliver and Cyrine have yielded. Their skin cracks in bits of burned flesh, but neither cries out.
Cal leaves them both behind, not bothering to watch as a skin healer appears to fix them up. He saved me, he brought me home, he broke the rules for me. And he’s a merciless soldier, the heir to a bloody throne.
Cal’s blood might be silver, but his heart is black as burned skin.
When his eyes trail to mine, I force myself to look away. Instead of letting his warmth, his strange kindness confuse me, I commit the inferno to memory. Cal is more dangerous than all of them put together. I cannot forget that.
“Evangeline, Andros,” Arven clips, nodding at the pair of them. Andros deflates, almost annoyed at the prospect of fighting—and losing—to Evangeline, but dutifully trudges into the arena. To my surprise, Evangeline doesn’t budge.
“No,” she says boldly, planting her feet.
When Arven whirls to her, his voice rises above his usual whisper and it cuts like a razor. “I beg your pardon, Lady Samos?”
She turns her black eyes on me, and her gaze is sharp as any knife.
“I challenge Mareena Titanos.”
17
“Absolutely not,” Maven rumbles. “She’s been training for only two weeks; you’ll cut her apart.”
In response, Evangeline just shrugs, letting a lazy smirk rise to her features. Her fingers dance against her leg, and I can almost feel them like claws across my skin.
“So what if she does?” Sonya breaks in, and I think I see a gleam of her grandmother in her eye. “The healers are here. There’ll be no harm done. Besides, if she’s going to train with us, she might as well do it properly, right?”
No harm done, I scoff in my head. No harm but my blood exposed for all to see. My heartbeat thumps in my head, quickening with every passing second. Overhead, the lights shine brightly, illuminating the ring; my blood will be hard to hide, and they’ll see me for what I am. The Red, the liar, the thief.
“I’d like some more time observing before I get in the ring, if you don’t mind,” I reply, trying my best to sound Silver. Instead, my voice quavers. Evangeline catches it.
“Too scared to fight?” she goads, lazily flicking a hand. One of her knives, a little thing like a tooth of silver, circles her wrist slowly in open threat. “Poor little lightning girl.”
Yes, I want to scream. Yes, I am scared. But Silvers don’t admit things like that. Silvers have their pride, their strength—and nothing else. “When I fight, I intend to win,” I say instead, throwing her words back in her face. “I’m not a fool, Evangeline, and I cannot win yet.”
“Training outside the ring can only get you so far, Mareena,” Sonya purrs, latching on to my lie with glee. “Don’t you agree, Instructor? How can she ever expect to win if she doesn’t try?”
Arven knows there’s something different about me, a reason for my ability and my strength. But what that is, he cannot fathom, and there’s a glint of curiosity in his eye. He wants to see me in the ring as well. And my only allies, Cal and Maven, exchange worried glances, wondering how to proceed across such shaky ground. Didn’t they expect this? Didn’t they think it would come to this?