Stella snappedout of the memory as someone tapped her shoulder.
She whipped her head around to meet Teddy’s gaze. She had been mindlessly following the procession into the arena. The crowd roared from the stands around them as the man two in front of her turned to the right and took his place facing the royal booth.
It was almost her turn. In a moment, they would announce the competitor in front of her and he would step away and then her parents would see her and know what she’d done.
Her heart pounded with the sheer nauseating guilt of making them worry.
The man in front of her stepped away and her gaze didn’t go to her parents. Instead, she saw Arden immediately. He smiled at her. He looked so handsome in a light green tunic with gold embroidery. But, more than that, he looked proud—certain of her in a way that made her stand up straighter and finally take a deep breath.
She could do this. It was just a few more minutes and then whichever god created the three challenges would be introduced as gamemaker. She hoped it was Aelish. The goddess of truth could be blunt and confronting, but she was less prone to violence and less reckless with human lives.
Murmurs rushed through the crowd as they noticed Stella.
“Stella Selene McKay!” the announcer shouted, and the crowd roared.
Stella walked to her place beside the other competitors with her chin held high and turned to face the royal booth.
Her mother’s wide blue eyes stared back at her. Stella swallowed hard and smiled in a way that she hoped would come across as reassuring and not smug. She couldn’t bear to look at her father, but she could see the way his hand had a white-knuckle grip on the arm of Cecilia’s chair.
The noise of the crowd crescendoed to a deafening level as the announcer shouted, “Theodore Davide Savero.”
Every head in the royal booth whipped toward Teddy as he stepped up beside Stella.
His anxiety squeezed like a fist around her heart. She imagined shoving it out of her chest. How had her mother described the bond? Like a door between two hearts? Stella tried to slam her door closed.
Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Teddy. He was the picture of handsome stoicism, his shoulders back, hands clasped behind him, and gaze staring blankly ahead like he could see straight through the crowd. But inside her chest, his fear was like a wild bird thrashing against the bars of a cage.
King Xander was looking at him with practiced apathy. Stella knew the king well enough to know that he was probably just as nervous as her parents, but had spent a lifetime learning not to show it. Queen Jessamin sat perfectly still beside him, her lips tipped in a proud smile as if she’d expected this all along.
A swarm of hunters in dark green Olney regalia marched into the arena and positioned themselves equidistant around the walls. Stella would have felt a bit more comfortable if they had stationed guardians around the arena, since they were the most talented warriors, skilled at defending a position or important person. But the majority of the guardians were probably busy protecting the royal family and visiting dignitaries.
Security was more intense than Stella had ever seen it at the Gauntlet Games, but so much rode on this year’s tournament. When the war between Olney and Argaria ended more than twenty years ago, the people were restless in peace. Stella’s parents and the kingshad created the Gauntlet Games as a way to channel that agitated violence into something contained. It served the secondary purpose of reminding people of the main tenets of their kingdoms: Wisdom, Memory, and Magic.
While it had kept war from breaking out and strengthened the alliance between the two kingdoms, the Sons of Endros had still managed to create tiny fissures of distrust in the last few years. The Gauntlet Games would be the first proper test of the emotional temperature of their people since King Xander had dismissed Isla as huntmaster of the Argarian army.
This would be an obvious place for the Sons of Endros to probe for weakness in either kingdom or the alliance between the two. That was probably the reason for so many hunters around the periphery.
The announcer stepped into the center of the arena and trumpets blared, calling the bustling crowd to order again. The man mopped sweat from his brow with a handkerchief and lifted his hands in greeting.
“Ladies and gentlemen, at the behest of Their Majesties King Marcos and Queen Ilani Teripin of Olney and King Alexander and Queen Jessamin Savero of Argaria, I welcome you to this year’s Gauntlet Games. We honor the original Gauntlet by keeping the peace it created through a three-challenge tournament. We have sixteen competitors eager to get started and prove they have the mettle to best their peers in challenges of wisdom, memory, and magic.”
The crowd broke into applause.
“Without further ado. It’s time for our godly gamemaker to appear.”
Stella held her breath as she glanced at the throne of honor, elevated slightly higher than the royal booth. Bright florals covered the railing in front of it and framed the intricately engraved golden chair.
Stella felt the crowd’s anticipation match her own. Several men patted their pockets in the hope they gambled on the right god.
Since the god in charge of making up the three tournamentchallenges rotated each year, many in Olney took bets on who would show. The frontrunner for this year’s games was Devlin, the god of wisdom and reason. He had not participated in five years, but was known for his games and puzzles, which made the tournament more fun and exciting to watch, and less violent.
Stella had her fingers crossed that it wouldn’t be Sayla, as the goddess of the hunt had an unnervingly casual attitude toward murder.
Stella was about to rank the gods in preference in her head when the air swirled and a blazing column of fire rose from the center of the arena. Teddy’s panic hit her through their bond before her eyes could register who she was seeing.
The god before them was tall and strong with dark hair that was silver around the temples. He brought his hand to the golden sword on his hip and fear sliced through Stella. She had only ever laid eyes on him in artistic depictions, but she knew that supernatural fear in the air immediately.
Endros, the god of war and discord, stood in the center of the arena, clad in golden armor and a broad smile.
