I stare at him, hardly able to believe the sight of the Firstblade stepping out of Cardinia’s central arena in his full glory. Such cruelty, letting him play at his former role in a game. Where did they get the uniform? From a fallen Striker? The thought makes my stomach turn.

  He turns his gaze up to the sky, hearing the roar of the crowd but unable to see them. The only thing he can make out is the edge of the balcony where we now stand, our faces turned in his direction.

  He meets my gaze, if only for the briefest moment. In it, I see a world of fury and grief. I want to pour my heart out to him, tell him I will save him and the others—except I can’t, and he knows it. So all we can do is stare at each other until he finally breaks away.

  Behind him, Adena steps smoothly out into the arena, dressed in similar Striker finery, her wrist banded in red. Then there is Tomm and Pira, banded with blue and green. Adena focuses on the multiple routes before them that lead into the maze. She and Aramin pull out their blades in a uniform flourish. Their movements are so graceful and synced that the audience murmurs in excitement. So these are the legendary pairs of Maran warriors, they’re probably thinking, bonded until death to each other.

  I don’t know why I feel compelled to do it now—they might not even be able to see my hands from here. But I still find myself signing to them, then pressing a fist gently to my chest. It’s subtle enough that the Premier doesn’t seem to notice, nor do the audience. But down in the maze, Aramin, Adena, Tomm, and Pira see me.

  “May there be future dawns.”

  They see the signs; they understand my words. And each of them lifts their fist in return and presses it once to their chest.

  They are breathtaking, and in this moment, I want to cry for them. Each of us had pledged our lives to Mara when we became Strikers, and each of us prepared in some way for death to claim us—but not like this. Not in an arena full of screaming people, competing for our lives.

  On the other side of the maze, the Ghosts let out a shriek as they’re given their freedom. They charge blindly into the maze. My eyes dart back to the Strikers. Every single one of them turns in the direction of the Ghosts’ screams and shifts into a fighting stance. I see Aramin sign to the others. He’s telling them to stay together.

  Then they move forward as a unit.

  It is the wisest strategy—together, they can take out the Ghosts heading down one path while avoiding those in the others. But barely a minute after they make their way down one of the maze’s paths, the maze moves for the first time, sliding along those grooves I’d seen in the way that I’d feared. One moment, the four of them are traveling together—the next, a wall suddenly turns after Aramin and Adena have made their way down the front of the path.

  Tomm and Pira get caught behind the moving stone. Tomm leaps out of the way in time to keep from being swept and crushed against the side of another wall, but they are now separated from the other two, forced down a new path in the maze. In the audience, people shout out in delighted surprise and try to call down advice. My gaze skids to the other end of the maze, to where the first pack of Ghosts is well on its way toward where Aramin walks.

  Adena pauses first, holding up a fist as she tilts her head in the direction of the Ghosts. The beasts aren’t loud, but a lifetime of training has alerted her to some telltale hint of their gnashing teeth and rasping breath. She signs at Aramin. Aramin nods and points, and Adena moves without a sound to where he indicates. She kneels a short distance in front of him.

  As the first Ghost lurches around the corner and into view, Aramin sprints forward and kicks off Adena’s shoulders, launching himself into the air. He’s on the Ghost’s shoulders before the creature can react, and stabs it three times in the neck before he leaps up and grabs the top edge of the maze wall with both gloved hands.

  He’s going to try to get to the top of the wall. Of course.

  The people in the stands roar, excited by Aramin’s deadly grace. Aramin pulls himself onto the top of the wall, and for the first time, he gets a clear view of the entire game space. Down below, Adena spins and delivers a fatal arrow to the injured Ghost’s neck, while Aramin darts forward down the path toward the second Ghost.

  I realize I’m leaning forward, my heart in my throat as I will Aramin to break down the game and sprint along the top of the maze wall to the end. But as soon as he begins running, the maze shifts again. The wall he’s on begins to move—at the same time, spikes embedded in the top of the maze wall shoot up, anticipating his plan.

  Aramin flips off just in time. He sails through the air in an arc as the spikes make it impossible to travel on the top. He kicks off against the wall’s side on his way down, then lands next to Adena with a light flourish.

  The two of them press their backs to each other as more Ghosts reach them. They draw their weapons at the same time, then dart forward, slicing at the beasts that snap at their limbs. The largest Ghost, a creature taller than the maze’s walls, manages to cut between them—Adena dodges its swipes, but the move separates her from Aramin. Aramin slides under the Ghost’s legs, but the creature twists, snapping for him, and he’s forced to retreat again with his back to the wall.

  Behind him, Adena creeps like a shadow, her movements so silent and smooth that none of the beasts realize she’s made her way around the fight. She pulls out her gun and fires twice at one of the Ghosts. It whirls, confused by the direction of the attack, but by the time it turns, Adena has moved again—she skips up the side of its back. As she does, she swings off her Striker coat and flings it up at the wall. The cloth catches against the spikes still jutting out from the top, and for an instant, her coat becomes a swing. She spins in a sharp arc and releases the coat, launching herself on top of the largest Ghost that has backed Aramin into a corner. She takes her blade and jabs it deep into the Ghost’s neck, hitting its vulnerable vein.

  The people in the stands scream as the Ghost stumbles and falls. As it does, Aramin and Adena scatter again, soundless, Adena’s coat left to hang on top of the wall. The other Ghosts whirl around and lunge for them again, but Aramin has taken advantage of a shadow in one corner to vanish completely into, and the beast is momentarily thrown off. It sniffs angrily around for its prey.

  Suddenly the maze shifts again. Adena is caught this time, forced to jump backward to avoid the moving wall. Aramin races toward her, trying to pull her back so that it doesn’t separate them—but the shift happens too quickly. Suddenly, he is torn between darting through the narrowing shift with Adena, or staying in his path.

  Adena is the one who shoves Aramin back. It’s a single, sharp gesture, and even from here, I know she’s giving Aramin the firm stare I’ve often seen her give on the warfront. This is her silently begging for Aramin to stay on his path. Then she disappears from Aramin’s view as the wall finishes turning, sealing her away from the others.

  My gaze goes farther down the maze. Adena has an entire pack of Ghosts to face up ahead, while a second pack is heading down the altered corridor where Aramin is now trapped.

  They are all going to die. And even as I still try to temper my emotions, I feel the fear of that thought coursing cold through my bones.

  Down a separate path, Tomm and Pira hit a new pocket of Ghosts. The audience roars as they sync their movements and cut the beasts down. Each group of Strikers has survived half of the maze, but there is still so much left.

  The roar of the audience forces me to look elsewhere. It’s Adena, who has somehow used a strip of her old coat to tie together her daggers into a serrated whip. She swings it at one of the Ghost’s neck and it wraps all the way around, the blades all digging in. Down on his own path, Aramin leaps out of the way as a Ghost lunges forward at him, then sweeps into a ferocious attack.

  But their movements are beginning to become more labored, the gaps between each attack slightly longer than the last.

  And they are all tiring.

  Abruptly, the audience gasps as one. The sound is so terrible that I jerk my head toward what has caught everyone’s attention.

  A Ghost has managed to bite deeply into Tomm’s leg.

  It drags him down the path as he scrambles desperately against the ground, reaching in vain for his blade. Even now, in the throes of unimaginable pain, he doesn’t make a sound.

  Out in the arena, I feel Red’s emotions twist. He has witnessed the same thing.

  Pira rushes at the Ghost. She arcs underneath it and shoots at its knees. It stumbles, hobbled and screaming, but behind it come three others.

  She and Tomm meet each other’s eyes for just an instant. The audience doesn’t know yet, but I recognize their expression immediately. It is a look I know all too well from the old warfront. Then Pira turns her blade down—not at the Ghost, but at him. She skids next to him, then pulls him to her in a sudden hug.

  I don’t see the dagger go in, but I know she has stabbed him in the heart.

  I wince and jerk my gaze away from the scene so suddenly that Constantine looks at me. Corian. Corian, Corian. The memory flashes through me like a bolt of lightning—the Ghost opening its jaws behind him as he crouched there on the forest floor, paying his respects to the creatures he had just killed. Me, rushing forward too late. His bright blue eyes looking up at me, filled with tears, knowing what I have to do.

  Me, slashing down with my blade. Ending his life.

  I am Pira. Tomm is Corian. And I am witnessing the agony of my memory again, live, right before my eyes. I am her, tugging her Shield to herself in order to bury her own dagger in his chest, ending his suffering. And despite our stormy past, despite all the times Tomm had ever tormented me or Pira had lashed out, I can feel nothing but anguish for them.

  Relax a little, Talin.

  At Constantine’s voice in my head, I look at him through a veil of tears. He nods down at my hands. They are clenched so tight against the stone of the balcony that I’ve scraped my fingers bloody.

  I release my grip, but the tide of my fury at Constantine rises in a wave. Corian, dead because of this young Premier. Because of his monsters.

  With every ounce of strength I can muster, I push down the swell of anguish. I force my gaze back to where Pira is crouched beside Tomm’s now-still body. And I watch.

  Pira doesn’t even have time to mourn her Shield. Instead, she leaves her dagger where it is, embedded in his chest, and runs down the path as the other Ghosts come for her. Up in the stands, the audience rewards her quick thinking with a thunderous cheer. Behind Pira, Tomm’s body collapses to the floor as the Ghosts finish with him.

  She doesn’t get far. The other Ghosts finally catch up with her. She whirls on them, teeth bared, a ferocious whirlwind, and in this moment, she looks so powerful that I think maybe she really can fend them all off. But then she stumbles against one of them as it grabs her, then shoves her hard against the wall. She hits her head. Her movements become slow and unsteady.

  I look away again, but the crowd screams, and I know what has happened.

  Pira is dead.

  My hands stay steady at my side, but my jaw has clenched so tightly now that I’m afraid I may break my teeth. Tomm and Pira had not been my friends on the warfront, but we had been allies. We had both fought against the Federation in Mara’s last stand. Now they’re gone, not from fighting Ghosts on the front, but from holding them back in an arena, where they gave their lives entertaining a crowd of fifty thousand.

  I close my eyes. Beside me, Constantine shifts, but this time, his voice doesn’t appear in my thoughts. I’m grateful for the silence.

  When my eyes open, I see down below that Aramin has reached the yellow flag at the end of his maze path. He nods silently as he faces a final Ghost, who snarls at him from underneath where the flag hangs. He doesn’t even bother pulling the blade out as he launches up from the Ghost’s back to grab the flag.

  His steel gate slides shut, sealing him off from the rest of the Ghosts in the maze.

  Adena is last, having fought the entire path alone. Miraculously, she leaps off the back of a dying Ghost—the creature still clutching its ruined throat—and grabs the scarlet flag hanging over the path. Immediately, as if her movement had triggered an action, a steel gate slides shut between her and the rest of the path. Two Ghosts hurl themselves at the closed wall, shrieking their rage at being unable to reach her. Adena stands there, her bloody makeshift weapon still in one hand, a sword in the other, breathing heavily.

  She has survived. My heart leaps with hope. My limbs weaken in relief.

  She looks automatically up toward the Premier. Then, before anyone can stop her, she points her gun at his balcony and shoots straight in the direction of Constantine.

  No. I can’t be seeing this. What is she doing?

  Adena is much too far away for the bullet to hit, let alone accurately, but she shoots anyway, again and again. Her eyes are narrowed to slits, and her face is a picture of rage that I’ve never seen on her.

  My breath hisses through my teeth. Fool! I want to scream at her. Constantine will punish her for such an offense. She has just survived an entire maze only to die because she can’t contain her anger.

  And yet, deep down, I know I’m furious because Adena has never, ever hesitated to take a stand for what she believes in. While I stay up here beside the Premier that destroyed my homeland, she is down there, pointing her gun at him, unwilling to give him anything. I’m furious because I wish I could be her.

  Constantine doesn’t flinch at her threat, but his posture stiffens in anger. In the stadium, the audience seems to inhale as a single entity, excited by this brazen show of rebellion, awed and eager to witness the consequence of this Maran Striker’s threat against the Premier.

  No. No. I swear at Adena in my thoughts, screaming silently at her to stop. You idiot! You could save yourself and live to fight another day! But she doesn’t care anymore. I can tell that any semblance of self-preservation has vanished from her. She fires again. The bullets hit too low, unable to reach us, but they arc instead to ping against the stone below the balcony.

  Talin.

  Constantine’s voice in my head makes me run cold. I turn to see him staring down at Adena, his face a mask of calm.

  Kill her, he tells me.

  There is no emotion in his voice. No amusement, no anger. Just … nothing. It’s as if he’s telling me to fetch him his slippers.

  Adena is threatening him publicly in this arena, an open rebellion—he would never let such a public threat against himself pass.

  I was expecting his command. But it still takes me off guard.

  Out in the arena, Red’s emotions surge. He knows what Constantine must be asking me to do. The furious anguish in him crashes through me like a tide, and I want desperately to answer it. To tell him to stay put, to not make a move. To warn him to get out of here.

  But despite Raina’s tonic, there’s still no real telling how much Constantine can sense. What will happen if he learns that Red is in this audience?

  I turn to Constantine, hating how pathetic I look—tears glinting in my eyes, my hands clenched. But he doesn’t even bother turning to me. Instead, he’s looking around the arena itself, at the screaming audience. At those cheering for blood, cheering for him. Then, at the sound of those who are shouting their disapproval at punishing Adena. The ones who stay quiet, watching with thoughtful expressions. He knows there are rebels out there, enough of them that General Caitoman has called them a real threat. He knows that they represent the crumbling edges of the Federation, this unsteady empire he is fighting to hold on to.

  Beside him, General Caitoman watches the display with approval. This is the spectacle he’s come to see.

  Go, Skyhunter, Constantine says, and this time, his voice in my mind is firm.

  He knows I have no choice. He can feel the hatred boiling through me at him. Here I am, the most powerful creation in the world, trapped into doing his bidding. Forced to use that power to end the life of her friend.

  As if in a daze, I spread my steel wings. I sense the warmth of my glowing eyes. My feet lift off the floor, and the arena gasps audibly as they witness me launch into the air in Adena’s direction. I see the world sprawl below me, feel myself fly through the air as if I’m watching from somewhere far away. As if I’m no longer in my body at all.

  Down below, Adena looks up to meet my gaze, and I find myself barely able to return it. She doesn’t flinch. Even when the audience shrinks back as I hurtle down toward the maze and come to a landing on top of the structure, Adena stands her ground with a straight back and level stare.

  I crouch above her, my wings spread to their full expanse, blocking out the sun.

  But Adena just stares at me with a resigned expression. “Come get it over with,” she signs. It’s a message meant only for me.

  The entire arena seems to be holding its breath, waiting for me. I just stay where I am. The threat of what could happen to my mother hovers over me, the ever-persistent cloud, and yet I cannot bring myself to go down there and cut her throat. I can’t bear the thought of my weapons drawing her blood.

  Even though I don’t know where Red is, I can feel him watching this moment. Fearing what I’ll be forced to do.

  When I lift my eyes, I can see Constantine sitting at his balcony, observing me with that steady expression.

  I utter my answer to Constantine through our bond. It is steady, resolute, unshakable.

  I won’t do it. I won’t kill her.

  There’s a mild current of surprise that comes through the link, followed by a bit of amusement. Constantine is humored by my answer. I glare up at him, but he just studies me, testing me.

  What about your mother, Talin? he asks me.

  I shake my head, not knowing what to do. But I do know this. The certainty of it sears through me in a wave of heat. Constantine’s control of my mother is the only thing he currently has with which to subdue me. But that means, with her, I can also control him. He can’t afford to kill my mother. Without her, his command over me breaks. So this moment is a bet between us. It is us pitted against each other, the Premier and his Skyhunter, each daring the other to back down first.