You are lovely, Annelise. And you are strong.

He put a finger beneath my chin, tilting my face up. “Are you ready?”

I knew he spoke of the fight. But in my fantasy, he meant more.

“Yes,” I said, my voice barely a whisper. I was discovering uncharted territory, and I’d survive to see it to the end.

It wasn’t until we’d driven almost all the way back to the dorm that I found myself once more capable of speech. Our conversation had felt special. That feeling hung between us, and it gave me courage.

I couldn’t allow what’d just happened to let me forget what this was all about. That this, more than ever, was life or death. Ronan was serious about me winning, and it’d bolstered me. Made me serious, too. “So, fire is Lilac’s special gift?”

Ronan stared straight ahead. “Fire is her skill,” he said in a flat voice. “Lilac has a different gift.”

I sat forward. I’d just assumed her thing was being some kind of pyromaniac. If she had a different talent, I had to know. “What is it?”

He hesitated. “I shouldn’t tell you.”

“I know, I know,” I said impatiently. “But now you have to tell me.”

“Truly, Annelise.” He caught my eye, his face like stone. “Disclosing confidential information is a breach of Eyja law. They’d think nothing of slaughtering me for it.”

“I understand.” My heart was a heavy weight in my chest. What hideous thing was he concealing from me? “Please, Ronan. You have to tell me. What’s her gift?”

His grip tightened on the steering wheel. “Pain.”

“She knows how to give it?”

He shook his head. “She doesn’t feel it.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

I never thought I’d be jealous of von Slutling, but by the third day of the challenge, I’d have given anything not to feel pain. I’d never ached so badly in my life. Not even in my first weeks of training.

At least this was it—the final day. And thank God, because I couldn’t keep up this level of fighting, even with the blood to sustain me.

Naturally, they hadn’t considered holding the fights in someplace as mundane as the gym. Instead, we girls were duking it out at the standing stones, atop the massive, flat center slab.

Matches happened throughout the day, with each winner advancing to fight the next. And Vampire, Initiate, Acari, Tracer, Trainee—everyone— had gathered on the lawn in front of the stones to watch.

Everyone was waiting for the semifinal fights to begin. For my fight to begin.

I reached my arms in front of me, trying to loosen my stiff back. I was so tight, I thought the muscles might snap. A deep unease had me clenched and agitated. “Those vamps . . . they’ve got a sense of drama. I’ll give them that.”

“What?” Emma touched her ear to let me know that she hadn’t heard me over the buzz of the audience.

I shook my head. “Never mind.”

Yasuo was with us, and it was reassuring to feel a tall, strong guy standing by my side. He gingerly poked at my right ear. “Jeez, little D. How’d you manage to bruise your earlobe?”

I flinched away from his touch. Getting pinned on a mat in the gym was one thing. But being pummeled into a gargantuan granite plinth was a whole other story. Just the thought of facing it again tightened my chest. “It’s that stupid rock.”

Emma leaned close. “You’re almost on.”

“Thanks for the reminder.” I tried to muster a sarcastic smile, but feared I’d missed the mark.

“She beat the hell out of those first two girls,” Yasuo said, looking into the distance.

I followed his line of sight and found Lilac. She was sashaying through the crowd, a bevy of bright-skinned acolytes trailing her like the wake of a luxury yacht.

Josh was also swept along in her tide, and I caught him looking at me before he could turn away. Whatever.

“I pity the girl who has to face her in the semis,” Yas added.

I nodded. Lilac was looking like a shoo-in for the finals. “Some girl named Antje gets that honor,” I said. There were only four of us left in the semifinals, and I was surprised the vamps were having me face off against a Lilac underling instead of my known nemesis. Ronan’s speech had made me realize how much attention the vampires paid to the comings and goings of Acari. I supposed it was one way to pass eternity. “Wonder of wonders, it’s not me.”

“Either way, we still have to get you ready.” He looked at Emma. “You brought the tape?”

Nodding, she pulled a roll of white medical tape from her pocket. I automatically held my hands out for her to wrap them.

Emma touched my left pinkie, and I gasped. “Ow.”

“Looks bad,” she said, examining it. The finger was a repulsive shade of purple and poked unnaturally from the rest of my hand.

“I landed wrong.” I felt the bone trying to knit back together, and although I healed fast, it wasn’t that fast. “I think it’s broken.”

“Ya think?” Yasuo asked.

I stuck my tongue out at him.

Emma gently traced the line of the bone from the hand up to the fingertip. “Do you want me to bind it?”

I nodded, rolling my aching shoulders. “Tape my whole body, while you’re at it.”

Yasuo was still watching Lilac work the crowd. “They say the last girl who fought her died, like, thirty seconds after the fight began. Could be you facing that shit in the finals. If you beat that Mia girl.”

“You mean when I beat Mia.” My voice came out weaker than I’d intended.

“You don’t have to fight,” Emma cut in. “A lot of girls have stepped down from the competition.”

Emma had bowed out the moment she saw her name pitted against mine on the fight bracket, and I feared the long-term consequences of her decision. “I wish you hadn’t stepped down.”

It was no secret Emma and I were friends, and a match between us would’ve made for the sort of drama the vamps craved like catnip.

“I have no interest in traveling, and so saw no need to fight.”

I rolled my eyes, exasperated. “It’s about more than just traveling, Em. I worry it’s a mistake not to fight.”

The barest lift of her eyebrows was my only answer. Otherwise, she remained intent on her work, her hands working deftly over mine, taping up my wrists and knuckles.

I went on, beating the dead horse, even though it was too late to change anything. “We could’ve figured out a way to look like we were fighting, but both get out of there alive.”

“Yeah,” Yasuo chimed in. “You’d take a few hits for Emma, wouldn’t you, D?”

I nodded enthusiastically. If anyone knew how to take a few hits, it was me.

“They’d know,” Emma said simply. “It’s better this way.”

I gave it up, knowing she was probably right. It would’ve been a big red flag if we’d both walked away from our fight when pretty much every other bout ended with a couple of Tracers toting away the loser.

And Emma wasn’t the only one who’d backed out, either. Only about thirty Acari had stepped up to begin with, and then some dropped out once they saw just how serious the combat was. As far as I was concerned, those girls weren’t thinking about the big picture. They didn’t want to get off the island as badly as I did.

I needed to escape. When I contemplated my future, killing teenage girls didn’t strike me as the most sustainable thing for me to be doing in the long term.

“Just be careful.” Emma calmly ripped the tape and smoothed down the edges. “Girls are dying, Drew.”

“Thirteen girls dead in twenty-one fights,” I agreed quietly.

“Not exactly stellar numbers,” Yasuo said.

“And those are the ones we saw die.” Emma’s eyes met mine and we grew still. She pinned me with that stoic stare. “Who knows where the others were taken, or if we’ll ever see them again?”

“Ambassadors, my ass,” I muttered, spotting Master Alcántara in the crowd. “They’re training us to be killers.”

Which meant there was no room for error. Unlike the sparring we did in class, the tournament had no point system, no time limits. There was only one rule: The last girl standing won.

Emma sighed, turning my hand over in hers. “How does it feel?”

Holding my breath, I carefully wriggled the fingers on my left hand. The pinkie and ring finger were bound together, but the rest were mobile, if not sore.

And sore was an understatement. I was battered and bruised, and didn’t know how much longer I could go on. “Feels good,” I said, lying.

“It’s not too late. You can pull out.”

“Didn’t we just have this conversation?” I’d spoken to her, but my gaze had drifted to the stage, where Alcántara was looking at the day’s fight bracket. I shivered, feeling a wave of that nervous-morbid-excited fascination. “Because you know I can’t.”

Finding fresh resolve, I glanced from Emma to Yasuo. “Look, guys. I need your support. I’ve made my decision. I’m going all the way.”

“That’s it. Hand it over.” Yas grabbed the tape. We both shot him a look, and he said, “You’ll see.”

He took Emma’s hand and looped the roll on her finger. “Hold that,” he told her, and pulled down a long strip. He twisted the stretch of tape into a tight coil, ripped it free, then began to wind it around the knuckles of my good hand. He flashed us a smile. “A little Muay Thai technique. Now you just tape over this, and you’ve got some extra power.”

I flexed my right hand into a fist. It did feel extra strong somehow, like a medical-tape version of brass knuckles. “Nice.”

He gave Emma a broad smile. “We’re gonna make D here a fighting machine.”

I laughed. “Not exactly the words I’d use.”

“Come on. You creamed Stefinne. She was beating you to a pulp, then suddenly . . . BAM.” He punched fist into hand. “Using the hilt of your sword on her temple—genius, D. Knockout. Acari Drew advances to the semifinals.”