Legend tells of magic buried deep in these chambers.

  They say only an orphan who dies in combat can break the Seal.

  Today… I don’t want it to be me.

  The stone walls are cold and wet at my fingertips. There’s no railing as we descend an endless spiral staircase—each step, slick with gunk from the sewers, is more slippery than the last. Breathing is a terrible chore in this dungeon, like inhaling acid. Maybe it’s worse for me because of my affliction… I’m not sure. But my orphan brothers and sisters keep me going.

  Not because they’re supportive. No. Rather if I slip, they’d relish in shoving me down to my death. The woman directly in front of me grunts in stride, lathered in sweat. Her back is a maze of muscle underneath the clasp holding together her mesh bra. I take comfort in her. She’s the only one I owe anything down here. Layla Barristan. Nineteen years old. Built like an ox. Bigger biceps than any teenage boy or girl I’ve ever seen, with a harsh scar lining the side of her face.

  I remember that day vividly. House Mother burned the leather of a nasty whip by the hearth while we were forced to hold Layla in place. The crack accompanied a spark, and now she’s forever known as the Burnt Scar.

  She’s pretty despite that. Kind, crystal-blue eyes that remain soft no matter how hard she tries to make them. Smooth hair puffs less than the rest in this humid cellar.

  I’ve joked about bedding her once. I told her I ultimately couldn’t go through with it for fear of being broken in half. She laughed. I laughed. It was the start of a great friendship. That was one and a half years ago, on our shared eighteenth name day.

  Before that, we were just acquaintances thanks to my brother, Kane. Everyone respected him before he was marched to the abyss five years ago. And me? I was less vulnerable then. Gods, I remember how we were all stuffed in a bedroom with ten other house siblings. How I miss those times…

  “Move it, runt!”

  I’m shoved to the side and nearly lose my footing. My breath catches in my chest as my fingernails scrape for the wall. Shit! My shoulder crunches awkwardly against the stone, but at least I’m able to hold.

  Damn, that was close.

  The exertion kicks up that horrible burning sensation in my lungs, making it feel like I’m swallowing lava.

  Layla turns with fire in her eyes, but I shake my head for her to stand down. These kids from the other houses don’t know a thing about me. They think because of my size, I’ll simply roll over. They think, because they witnessed one of my respiratory attacks earlier, I wouldn’t dare hit back.

  They’re wrong.

  I’ve taken my share of beatings from my house siblings. Carved wooden sticks were just blunt enough to not break skin when I got stabbed. Sometimes I thought the sharpness of a knife would be less painful, considering my entire body has been bruised before. I never got stronger. But I did get faster. And I feared the stick less.

  I know how these sacrificial pits go. I could be up against any one of them. Looking weak now all but confirms I would die in the Sealed Circle if my appeal for diplomacy fails. There needs to be a sense of strength in my posture in case that’s where I land.

  Tonight will seal my faith in humanity, one way or the other.

  Just wish that faith wasn’t dependent on a bunch of disgruntled orphans.

  The bulky boy huffs as he stomps past me. He smells like rotten onions and his hair is as greasy as an oiled mop.

  “I could’ve tumbled to my death, brother,” I say. “Seven hundred and sixty-two steps left before we’re pitted against one another. How about we respect the houses until the Danes force us to fight?”

  I already know his type. Brutish and cold. The kind that rips food from the weak so he can eat his seconds when House Mother isn’t looking. What am I doing, you wonder? Throwing up a flare for all the others in this bully’s house to see. We don’t have to kill one another tonight. No one has to bash each other’s head on the stone. It’s not like the Seal would break anyway. Five years and nothing. Even if it did crack, it’d swallow us in a casualty event like it did the others. Why waste our blood? No dark magic here tonight, overlords. We can make a show of it, maybe, so the Danes believe we’re trying to kill one another. I say go for the knockout, take our lashings for failing to tempt the Seal, and live another day.

  No way I can say that out loud in front of everyone. Otherwise, a rat servant would have me executed on the spot. So I play the part my own way.

  The brutish boy turns on me, blood leaking down his gums. He’s afflicted too. “The hell did you just say to me?”

  Layla stiffens in front of us.

  “I said we’re all blood down here. Parentless, unwanted, pathetic blood. Maybe we should bond in that fact while we still have beating hearts.”

  He raises his chin at me, puffing his chest. The faint firelight shows sweat dripping down his crisscross leather belts. “We’re enemies in here. All of us.” He swings a finger, now holding up the entire group. “I ain’t gunna feel bad for you, runt, ‘cuz then I might go soft when I gotta smash in your skull for our wardens.” He smiles to show me three shadows where teeth should be. “Maybe to impress them, I’ll toss you down now. Nothing like a show of force to tell ‘em this lot ain’t harboring no weak.”

  “You never know when you may need mercy, brother,” I say, my back awkwardly braced against the stone. I know with a wink of my eye, Layla would crush his neck for me. But then we all risk tumbling down—marking the most embarrassing Sealed duel of the century.

  “Mercy, hah.” He punches the wall next to my head, but I don’t flinch. “There, I just showed you mercy. That’s all you’ll be getting out of me.”

  Kind of terrifying that the stone beside me shattered into gravel. Maybe he’s not afflicted… maybe he’s on the spice?

  Dumb move, if you ask me. Shrinks your brain into a caveman’s thoughts, dulls the pain nerves, and ramps up strength. This is a time for thinking, not killing.

  “Grondus, that’s enough!” a thin woman calls from up the stairs. Her shoulder-length hair is held back by a flimsy diadem, and her lithe physique seems almost too regal for these dungeons. Now that’s my type. Beautiful, petite. Lips as full as a blooming rose.

  Grondus grunts toward her, then bares his teeth at me. “Your lucky day, runt.”

  I smile facetiously. If you only knew.

  Layla wrinkles her nose, as if annoyed the altercation didn’t escalate. Personally, I’m glad it didn’t. I have enough issues to manage. Don’t need to add a broken nose.

  Once he’s out of earshot, I lean over to Layla. “That marks four connecting houses by my count, each with their share of assholes. They’re making the others afraid to talk.”

  Layla turns her head enough for me to see her smirk. “Or maybe you’re just a terrible strategist,” her whisper carries.

  “My life kind of depends on talking these people out of stabbing me. A little help, princess.”

  “I wanted to help just a second ago.” She smacks her fists together. “A show of force would’ve gone a long way.”

  “In the wrong direction! The mythos tomes I’ve read state the Sept doesn’t give credence to weight, or any handicap in a fight, which means when you’re pit against a runt like me, you’ll be fine, and I’ll be scraped off the ground if I don’t find a way to connect with these people.”

  She grinds her teeth. “Don’t count yourself out yet.”

  The houses… the Sept… mythos… it all spins on a dial in my mind, one day making all the sense in the world and the next… things just don’t add up. Coming from a named house used to mean something. In the times of old, Miria would revere them, pluck the best for their academy and mold young warriors to combat the darkness. Thousands of years later, in the wake of old war destruction, we’re reduced to this? Orphans under a black, taunting sky, reminding us that only bloodshed awaits our future. Not glory.

  Down we go for another fifteen minutes. I hear some whispers around me, but ever since Gron decided to make a show, the volume diminished.

  “Hey,” a small voice whispers, followed by a tap on my shoulder.

  “What, you want a go at me next?” I smirk at a tiny kid who doesn’t look a day over ten. That’s impossible though, since the Sept requires a minimum age of eighteen for their sacrifices.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  The kid scoffs. “I don’t feel like flying today.”

  “I hear you. Haledyn Winbridge.” I hold out my hand. “But everyone calls me Hale.”

  “Jurso.” He grabs my hand, and I thought I was the runt today. I feel like I could crush his fingers if I sneezed. “You are brave, Hale.”

  I shrug. “I’m not, really. Just a survivor.”

  “Survivors our size tend to keep quiet when men like Grondus knock.” Jurso ducks his head to make sure the others aren’t listening.

  “Pleading with him was an invitation for other rational minds.” I pat Jurso’s back. “Like yourself. What house are you from?”

  “House Sivus, in the underbelly of Froe. Gron and Renesta are my siblings.” He nods to the woman with the diadem.

  “What’s up with her?”

  “House Father thinks she’s attuned for an awakening,” he whispers even lower. “She has protectors, for obvious reasons.”

  I scoff. “Yeah, if she manages to rouse some magic, people are going to be licking her boots for her to take them with her.”

  Jurso chuckles at that, which quickly turns into a cough.

  I wince, holding my hand up for the orphans behind me to give the poor guy a second. His wheeze echoes hard around us, drawing eyes.

  “You see? The Sept tries to poison us. Tries to turn the houses against one another,” I plead lowly to the few concerned eyes closest to me. “We are not the enemy. Don’t kill your brothers and sisters tonight.”

  “Hmph. Look at this,” one of the barbaric boys from my house sneers. “The sick ones holding each other up by their brittle bones. Pathetic.” Rogoshel’s always been a prick. “I say trample them and get moving. The Sept waits for no orphan.”

  “Give it a rest, Rogo,” an older teen calls from far back, eyes glowing white in the flame. His hair is silken. Too much so for these cellars. I wonder if that’s another favored, expected to be awakened. And how the hell does he know someone from my house?

  The kid vibrating in my arms lets out a final harrowing cough.

  When a glob of purple saliva ejects into his hand, I know he’s afflicted. Stage three. After taking his wrist and dragging it against the stone to rid him of the gunk, I quickly hoist him upright and help him down.

  Damn.

  He’s got it almost as bad as me.

  “Man up, runts,” the jerk shouts from below, resuming the march toward the bottom.

  Jurso nods at me that he’s good to go, but I can see clear as fire he’s a few minutes from passing out. I know the signs—discolored glassy eyes, deep veins becoming visible on the neck.

  Our brothers and sisters above are patient.

  I’m thankful for that. Not all of us are savages.

  I wave a hand to confirm we’ll be moving now.

  Regaining rhythm is difficult with this many disgruntled people, but we manage. I remind myself that no matter how tough the brutes act, no one wants a fall. We count as a unit to the Sept of Danes. One fall equals shame for all. That’s my view, anyway.

  “Hang in there.” I pat Jurso’s back again.

  The secret pocket in my torn pants was something I dared not even glance at until the trials, but this guy won’t last a second down there without it. Scanning quickly to ensure no one’s looking, I feel around for the sediment—my Arkitus medicine. Two stones left. One was for the fight, the other was for the way up, if I survive.

  Now thinking about it, asking Layla to carry me would be an embarrassing sight.

  A little bit of shame in exchange for a boy’s life is a good deal though.

  I grab Jurso’s hand and slip a pebble into it. “The air down here stings, doesn’t it?”

  “Understatement of the year.” His eyes widen when he notices what I just slipped him. “Hale.”

  “Quiet.” I smile.

  “No, I can’t accept this. I saw you coughing before. Your spit was nearly black.”

  “Been living with Arkitus for years. My lungs are more rock than tissue at this point. You’re doing me a favor by taking it away.”

  He shakes his head at the obvious jest, twirling the pebble near his waist, trying to analyze what kind of medicine it is. Another gasp escapes him. “Preece mineral?”

  “Yes. You’ll feel right as rain afterward.” I press my hand hard against the stone wall, bracing for a particularly slick upcoming step.

  “How did you even get your hands on this?” Jurso thumbs the pebble.

  “I’ve proven useful to my brothers and sisters. I may not look like much in terms of brute work, but I’ve got an eye for the Kyard shards—”

  “Oh shit. You’ve been advancing dark farming practices for your house?”

  “Yeah. I developed a few new methods while tucked away in that barn of mine. I’m good at pinpointing them and locating the materials that summon them. I’ve been studying for years, Jurs. Every spare minute, my face is in a book. Learned a lot about our illness too. And the Sept. My house had a vested interest in keeping me alive.”

  “An inquisitor then. Me too.” Jurso nods.

  “Figured as much.”

  “Kyard harvester… damn that’s cool. Can you imagine the gear that was breathed into existence back in the ancient times? Do you think they’re still using it for that, or just syphoning out the energy for their dark rituals?” Jurso asked.

  “I’ve been wondering all that myself.”

  Thrum!

  The stones rattle from the bottom, sounding like the groan of a gigantic beast, its echo running up the stairs at lightning speed. Hot wind nearly knocks the first row off their feet, but they’re strong.

  Us, on the other hand… we have to be smart.

  “Quick, lock arms.” I loop mine with Jurso’s and beckon a few of the others down on our step—a medium-sized guy and a lanky woman. “Press your hand hard against the wall. Hold tight.”

  Thrum!

  The air runs cold this time. What is happening? I’ve been reading about these trials since I was a little boy, and I never heard of anything like this. Mythos conflicts all the time—the Sept is all-powerful and yet the Sept is a bunch of cult fakers. But in both of those scenarios, their magic is dark, not elemental.

  A flash of white light makes the orphans groan and cower—even the big ones. Is this what a Dane’s power feels like?

  “An awakening.” The woman with the diadem spreads her arms. “We will be chosen this night.”

  Whispers break out everywhere. What else could such a phenomenon be? A quake? That wouldn’t explain the air shift or the light—

  Layla scoffs in front of me. “Delusional. There hasn’t been one in five years. This is our house mothers’ way of thinning the herd.”

  Some of the tougher ones cackle around her.

  “What say you, Hale?” Layla always looks to me, because I’m the book.

  One shake of my head speaks volumes. She understands and doesn’t say another word until we begin moving again.

  “She’s actually onto something?” Layla whispers over her shoulder. “An awakening, Hale?”

  “Unclear. I’ve been through all the conflicting mythos about the Danes. Awakenings. Practices of the Sept. None of it speaks to frigid earthquakes and flashing lights. It all reads magic to me.”

  Jurso tenses his jaw, and I notice.

  “Holding back on us?” I arc an eyebrow.

  “That wasn’t dark magic.”

  Layla laughs at that. “Well, there certainly is no other kind down here.”

  Now his lips tighten.

  “Out with it, friend.” I nudge Jurso lightly, and Layla turns her head over her other shoulder to eye him.

  Jurso clears his throat. “I—um. Got my hands on a strange mythos once—in House Father’s chambers. Eye of the Bridge Lords. Only got a few hours with it before he came home from the gardens, but… I read of magic like what just happened. Altering the elements. It’s high magic, according to the scripture.”

  “Impossible.” Layla shrugs. “No such thing. You see our skies—they are as black as the smog in our lungs, cursed by our very use of the dark. High magic died with the civilizations of old.”

  My mind races. We are a house with many mythos tomes, but… we are only one house. Who’s to say our house mother isn’t one disbelieving in high magic, gathering all the mythos against it?

  “Say something, Hale.” Layla elbows me.

  “In our house, we are to believe that high magic died with the dragons,” I affirm.

  “Mine too,” Jurso agrees. “But I think about that sole mythos I found every single night. Why did my house father hold it? And why so close? Right next to his hearth. The pages still fresh with his prints.”

  “A dreamer,” Layla scoffs.

  “What would he say if you told him of what we just experienced?” I test.

  “That we’ve existed in the cellars too long and our brains rotted to dust.”

  The three of us chuckle at that.

  “A denier, then. A curious one,” I say.

  All of a sudden, a sharp pain trails my esophagus, like someone lit a match in my throat. Another attack… great.

  The cough comes on strong. An insatiable, powerful cough. My body begs me to die at times like these. There’s nothing left to get out. No phlegm, no poison.

  “Take it back, Hale.”

  I shake my head mid-cough.

  “We’re almost there,” I wheeze, pushing Jurso’s closed fist back. “One hundred twenty-six more steps. Then you can ask the Danes about the quake yourself, if you have the brass.”

  Continuing down the spiral as I cough proves just how comfortable I am with my eyes nearly bulging out of my skull. Thirty attacks a day, easy. What’s another? Who cares that the air gets thicker? I can almost see the flecks of poison exacerbating the pain.

  Soon I’ll be able to ingest that stone. The sediment will break away in my esophagus, cooling the inflammatory poison that coats my lungs.

  Approaching the final twenty steps shows a literal light at the end of the tunnel. Faintish blue with rays of amber. Odd, considering the Sept prefer the darkness before the ceremony begins. They’ll pray for cracks in the stone Seal.

  It’s fruitless though… Layla’s right. Five years since any whispers of dark magic. Even our rival house parents can all agree on that.

  “Where will your second house be?” Jurso asks me and Layla.

  “It’s bad luck to speak of anything before the trial.” Layla arcs an eyebrow.

  “Who’s to say we even get a choice afterward?” I look to the floor. “Been writing all the second houses for years in search of my brother, Kane. Too cunning and strong to die. So where is he?” I hoot.

  “Hale… we talked about this. He’s—”

  “Sometimes I wonder if there even are second houses, Jurso,” I cut Layla off. “Or if that’s just some pipedream fed to us so we’ll try hard to break the Seal.”

  Jurso frowns.

  I wave my melancholy away. “Just in a mood because of my lungs, ignore me. They wouldn’t waste precious labor, so there have to be second houses somewhere.”

  “Just out of our reach,” Jurso says.

  “Until now.” Layla straightens as we touch flat ground.

  We approach an archway curved out of sight right around the corner. Anxiety fills my chest. I’ve read so much about what’s supposed to lay in the other room. Danes: cloaked magic-users drawn down to judge the next awakened. I’ve been telling myself they’re barren of magic—or maybe even thieves of it. Mythos can be so damn unreliable.

  All I know for sure is, if the ground cracks this night, if—against all odds—the Seal breaks during the duels, it will be a sight to behold.

  The first row of orphans turns the corner and stops. Gasps follow. Stiffened bodies.

  Why?

  The next row scrambles to see. Pushing. Shoving.

  Have we been sold a lie? Is there a demon waiting to consume our souls? The crowd riles, my hopes for civility fading by the second. Layla barrels forward with Jurso and I close at her heels. The light reflects off the others as they’re shoved out of the way.

  Bobbing my head each way to try and get a glimpse over massive shoulders proves how small I am.

  Then I see it.

  The mouth of the chamber.

  No. I fall into the same trance as everyone else… my mouth agape.

  Already cracked. How?

  Strange, smoky light breathes through the ground slits like a sleeping beast.

  We all step forward in awe, as a unit the Danes expect us to be.

  The arena is breathtakingly large, its vastness echoing the thrum of a Dane tapping his armored finger on the curved dais far ahead.

  “The Seal has already been broken.” I stare at the arena dumbly.

  “The bitch with the crown was right.” Layla grits her teeth.

  Jurso swallows hard. “What does it mean, Hale?”

  “It means that no matter what… orphan blood will be spilled this night,” I say. “It’s the only way to awaken the warring dark.”