The priestesses had been in a frenzy when the news had come from the palace that the Final Challenge would be held today, a Fire Day. Never in the history of Ziran had a challenge occurred on an even-numbered day, or at any time besides sundown. All around Ziran, people murmured of what an ill omen this was, but nobody dared defy a direct order from the palace, and their curiosity outweighed the growing scandal of Malik disappearing from the Midway only to reappear at the Azure Garden a day and a half later, bruised and waterlogged.

An hour before the challenge began, Malik was silent as his team buzzed around him in preparation. They finished faster than the other two teams, and so while Tunde and Driss were still getting ready, Malik knelt before the statue of Adanko in the prayer room of the Azure Garden. To anyone on the outside, he was a pious Champion come to receive guidance from his goddess to help him with the Final Challenge. No one suspected the much darker truth.

Life Priestess’s lips pulled into a worried frown. “If something is bothering you, Champion Adil, then allow me to—”

“I would like to be alone now.”

Nana would have screamed to see Malik treat a holy woman so rudely, but after his ordeal in the necropolis, politeness was the furthest thing from his mind.

For the second time, he’d had the perfect opportunity to kill Karina, and for the second time, he’d failed. This time, there was no excuse besides the grave truth staring him in the face:

He couldn’t kill Karina. Even with Nadia’s life on the line, he couldn’t do it.

Life Priestess dithered near the doorway. “Perhaps now would be the time to go over strategies for the Final Challenge—”

“Leave.”

The warning in Malik’s voice was clear; with a hasty gesture of respect, Life Priestess retreated down the ancient stairs out of the prayer room. Malik knelt on the prayer mat, his body performing the movements he’d known before he could say his own name.

“Blessed Adanko . . .” Malik paused, forcing down a wave of nausea.

Fear. The truth was that simple and that complex. Killing Karina was a black hole of uncertainty, and nothing stoked his anxiety more than the unknown. There were too many factors at play—what did killing another human being feel like? What would happen to Ziran, and by extension Eshra, with the Alaharis gone? What if Idir went back on his word and Malik killed an innocent girl for no reason? Why did the Faceless King want his own descendant dead? In his brain’s frantic attempts to answer all these qustions, he shut down.

However, if Malik was being honest with himself, fear was not the only thing holding him back. From the moment they’d met, he’d felt a connection to Karina unlike anything he’d ever known. The princess had goaded him, fought for him, pushed him to find a courage he hadn’t known he’d had, and somewhere between the first moment their fates had crashed into each other and now, the thought of killing her had become unfathomable.

Even now, the moment after they’d killed the serpopard overtook his thoughts, and each time the memory changed slightly to show what might have happened had they closed the gap between them, how his hands might have felt tangled in her hair or her chest pressed against his.

The truth was as freeing as it was damning, lifting one weight off him only to crush him with another. He wanted Karina, wanted to be with her and beside her, wanted to be the person she trusted with her secrets and her heart. He wanted it so badly it had poisoned all his other senses, and Nadia would be the one to suffer the brunt of this illogical infatuation.

But even if he saved Nadia, what then? Go back to cowering in the shadows and hoping the next place his family landed hated them less than the last? Go back to forever being seen as less than everyone else because of where they’d been born?

And what about his magic? All he knew for sure about the Ulraji Tel-Ra was that they were tied to the Kennouan Empire. Malik did not want any part of that legacy of conquest and suffering, and if the Zirani authorities were to discover the truth about him, his whole family would be executed for having a connection to the most hated enemy Ziran had ever known. Yet how could his magic be something cruel and hateful when using it made him feel whole and complete?

Malik was so deep in the ocean of his own thoughts, he barely noticed Driss entering the prayer room.

“You know, one of my servants overheard something interesting at the Midway.”

Malik didn’t reply. Horrible images of Idir harming Nadia burned into his mind.

This was all his fault. She was going to die, and it was all his fault.

Driss continued, “Something about a boy named Malik. Do you know that name?”

Malik drew a sharp breath. How could Driss possibly—wait. Leila had used his real name during their argument in the menagerie tent. Sweat pooling in his palms, Malik considered begging. He considered falling to his knees and pleading for the Sun Champion to keep his secret. But his body wouldn’t move. There was a point where fear grew too great for anything but stasis, and Malik was long past it.

“I’m talking to you!” Driss hauled Malik to his feet by the back of his shirt. The Sun Champion’s dark eyes were frenzied, his wavy locks in disarray. “You’re not Adil Asfour, are you? Who are you, and how have you rigged the competition in your favor?”

Malik stared down at Driss’s hand, his terror giving way to something sharper, more potent. What was the threat of Driss compared to Idir and all the hardship Malik had endured his entire life?

“Get off me,” mumbled Malik.

“What?”

“I said get off me!”

His anger pushing past his fear, Malik summoned the spirit blade and pressed it against Driss’s stomach. The Sun Champion jerked away, yelling curses, and Malik quickly hid the weapon behind his back, where it sank into its tattoo form.

“If you think the competition is rigged, then leave!” Malik shouted. “You can go wherever you want! You can do whatever you want, no papers or soldiers to stop you. So go, and leave me alone!”

With a snarl, Driss launched himself at Malik, striking him clear across the face. Malik stumbled back, wiping blood from his mouth while pain rang through his head. Driss’s next blow struck his gut, then another his chest.

Make yourself small, said the part of Malik that had survived years of beatings from bullies and his own father. Minimize the damage.

But Malik did nothing to protect himself, weathering each blow even as blood blurred his vision.

Let Driss beat him to death. He deserved it and worse for all the ways he’d failed.

“Adil? Are you in here?”

Leila entered the prayer room, likely sent to fetch him so they could head to the Final Challenge. Malik prayed she’d turn around before she could witness this thrashing, but her eyes widened when she saw the altercation, and she bounded up the stairs two at a time.

“Get away from him!” Leila screamed, throwing herself at Driss, but the Sun Champion pushed her aside easily. Her back hit the banister, and something inside Malik snapped.

Driss could beat Malik all he wanted, pummel him until the Azure Garden was stained red with his blood.

But he was not going to lay a single finger on Leila.

Later, Malik wouldn’t remember how he got to his feet. He wouldn’t remember exactly what he’d said or even what language he’d even said it in. But he would never forget the illusion he’d created, a gurgling, shrieking creature ripped straight from his darkest nightmares. Malik screamed, and the creature screamed with him, hurtling itself at Driss. The Sun Champion cried out, diving back against the railing lining the staircase to avoid the monster’s path.

There was a snap of breaking wood, and Malik understood a second too late what was happening. Even as his face began to swell in pain, he reached out his hand to Driss. Only then did he realize he had been speaking in Darajat, because Driss swatted his hand away and barked, “Don’t touch me, you damn kekki!”

There was nothing Malik could do but watch as Driss plummeted to the tiled ground, his neck and arms twisted at an unnatural angle beneath him. The hellish illusion vanished, and as Malik stared in horror at the halo of blood pooling out beneath Driss’s head, Leila sat up, shaken but unharmed.

And standing in the doorway to the prayer rooms was Tunde. His eyes moved between Driss’s body and Malik, a million questions in his eyes. There was no way of knowing how much the boy had seen or heard, no explanation that would change the reality of Driss’s blood tainting this sacred space.

“Champions, are you—by the Great Mother!”

It was Sun Priestess who came in first, and her scream summoned every other person in the Azure Garden. The guards arrived seconds later, and they quickly shoved their way into the room to secure the body.

“Who is responsible for this?” yelled the lead soldier. Malik’s magic simmered beneath his skin as he rushed through his options—it would be so easy to enchant every person in this room into submission, leave behind no witnesses to what he’d done . . .

Before Malik could say a word, Leila rushed forward. “It was me! I pushed him!”

“What, no—” Malik began, but his sister cut him off.